Lucius Sergius Paullus (consul 168)

Lucius Sergius Paullus was a Roman senator, who was active during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. He was twice consul: the first time attested 23 September of an unknown year as suffect consul with [? Lucius Nonius Calpurnius] Torquatus Asprenas as his colleague;[1] and as consul ordinarius for 168 as the colleague of Lucius Venuleius Apronianus Octavius Priscus.[2]

Paullus was from the Roman colony of Antioch in Pisidia. It is likely he was the great-grandson of the identically named proconsul of Cyprus in the AD 40s.[3]

Life

The earliest mention of Sergius Paullus, excluding his first consulate, is as an attendee of the anatomical lectures Galen gave over a three-year period in Rome, during the early 160s. G.W. Bowersock notes that these lectures were "very much to the taste of the people of that time", and includes in Galen's audience such prominent Senators as Marcus Vettulenus Civica Barbarus consul in 157, Titus Flavius Boethus suffect consul in 161, and Gnaeus Claudius Severus consul II in 173.[4]

Before his second consulate, the sortition awarded Paullus the proconsular governorship of Asia, the apex of many senatorial careers; Géza Alföldy dates his tenure there to 166/167.[5] Although the evidence is thin, what has come down to us indicates he was also an influential Senator, for emperor Marcus Aurelius appointed him Urban prefect of Rome around the time of his second consulate, and he held the office of urban prefect to his death.[6]

When Paullus died is an open question. The next attested urban prefect is Gaius Aufidius Victorinus, who entered that office in 179.[6] Alföldy lists the names of five men one or none of whom might have been urban prefect between Paullus and Victorinus, so the probability Paullus' death was only a few years after he entered that office (viz., before 174) is much higher than after.[7]

References
  1. Géza Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter der Antoninen (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt Verlag, 1977), pp. 161
  2. Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand, p. 185
  3. Anthony Birley, Marcus Aurelius: A Biography, revised edition (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 155
  4. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 969), pp. 62f
  5. Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand, p. 216
  6. Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand, p. 287
  7. Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand, p. 288
Political offices
Preceded by
Quintus Caecilius Dentilianus, and
Marcus Antonius Pallas
as suffect consuls		 Suffect consul of the Roman Empire
168
with Lucius Venuleius Apronianus Octavius Priscus II		 Succeeded by
Quintus Tullius Maximus,
and ignotus
as suffect consuls
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