Gaius Rubellius Blandus
Gaius Rubellius Blandus was a Roman senator who lived during the Principate. Blandus was the grandson of Lucius Rubellius Blandus of Tibur, a member of the Equestrian class, who was the first Roman to teach rhetoric. He was suffect consul from August to December AD 18 with Marcus Vipstanus Gallus as his colleague.[1] In AD 33, he married Julia Livia, granddaughter of the Roman emperor Tiberius. Blandus appears to have died in AD 38.[2]
Career
[edit]As the first member of his family to be admitted to the Senate, Blandus is considered a homo novus. His cursus honorum is documented in several inscriptions found in North Africa.[3] Blandus began his career with the singular honor of being quaestor in service to the emperor Augustus; two more of the traditional Republican magistracies followed, plebeian tribune and praetor. Two years after he served as suffect consul, he was involved with the prosecution of Aemilia Lepida, putting forward a motion in the senate to outlaw her which carried.[4]
The primary sources disagree when Blandus was admitted to the prestigious College of Pontiffs, whether it was before or after his consulate; one inscription lists it before, while two list it afterwards. Hoffman notes Blandus "probably received the priesthood late because of his low birth."[5] Despite his background, Blandus achieved what came to be the pinnacle of a successful senatorial career, proconsular governor of Africa in 35/36. Upon returning to Rome, Blandus was selected as one of four members of a commission to assess damage a fire had caused in Rome earlier that year.[6]
Family connections
[edit]Blandus was the son of another, rather obscure Gaius Rubellius Blandus, proconsul of Crete and Cyrene. His mother, Sergia, was the daughter of the patrician Lucius Sergius Plautus, and a maternal aunt of Gaius Octavius Laenas, the grandfather of the future emperor Nerva.[2][7]
In the year 33, Blandus married Julia Livia, one of the princesses of the Imperial house. Despite the fact that Blandus had been suffect consul in 18, the match was considered a social disaster; Tacitus includes the event in a list of "the many sorrows which saddened Rome", which otherwise consisted of deaths of different prominent people.[8] Ronald Syme identifies the historian's reaction as "the tone and sentiments of a man enslaved to the standards of class and rank."[9] Julia was the daughter of Livilla and Drusus Julius Caesar, and the granddaughter of Emperor Tiberius. The marriage produced one attested child, Rubellius Plautus, who was considered a rival to Nero and killed on his orders in 62. Two further sons have been proposed: a funerary inscription refers to a Rubellius Drusus, who died before the age of three,[10] and Juvenal implies the existence of a Rubellius Blandus.[11][12] Edmund Groag maintains that the latter was a historical figure,[13] whereas Syme suggests that he may either be a literary rendering of Plautus, or an obscure suffect consul,[2] attested with Gaius Annius Pollio.[14][15] Alternatively, Syme speculates that the consul may be a son of Blandus by a previous wife. Blandus and Julia also appear to have had a daughter, Rubellia Bassa, whose father-in-law was the Laenas above.[2][16]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Alison E. Cooley, The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy (Cambridge: University Press, 2012), p. 459
- ^ a b c d Syme, Ronald (Spring 1982). "The Marriage of Rubellius Blandus". The American Journal of Philology. 103 (1): 62–85. doi:10.2307/293964. JSTOR 293964.
- ^ IRT 269, 330, 331
- ^ Tacitus, Annales, III.23
- ^ Martha W. Hoffman Lewis, The Official Priests of Rome under the Julio-Claudians (Rome: American Academy, 1955), p. 33
- ^ Tacitus, Annales, VI.45
- ^ Groag, Edmund (1924). "Prosopographische Beiträge". Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes in Wien. 21–22: 425–435.
- ^ Tacitus, Annales, VI.27
- ^ Syme, Tacitus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), p. 562
- ^ "Communio Antoniae Augustae verna collacteus Drusi Blandi f(ilii) vix(it) ann(os) II", CIL VI, 16057
- ^ "his ego quem monui? tecum mihi sermo, Rubelli / Blande. tumes alto Drusorum stemmate, tamquam / feceris ipse aliquid propter quod nobilis esses, / ut te conciperet quae sanguine fulget Iuli, / non quae uentoso conducta sub aggere texit." Satire VIII. 39.
- ^ "Who is it whom I admonish thus? It is to you, Rubellius Blandus, that I speak. You are puffed up with the lofty pedigree of the Drusi, as though you had done something to make you noble, and to be conceived by one glorifying in the blood of Iulus, rather than by one who weaves for hire under the windy rampart." G.G. Ramsay (trans.) (1918). Juvenal and Persius, Loeb Classical Library (London and New York: William Heinemann / G.P. Putnam's Sons, p. 161).
- ^ Groag, Edmund (1924). "Prosopographische Beiträge". Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes in Wien. 21–22: 425–435.
- ^ "C(aio) Rubellio Blando C(aio) Annio Pollione co(n)s(ulibus) ex testamento L(ucii) Calpurni L(ucii) l(iberti) Antiochi arbitratu L(ucii) Calpurni L(ucii) l(iberti) Arbusculae", CIL VI, 14221
- ^ The identification of the Blandus from Juvenal's Satire VIII.39 with the suffect consul in CIL VI,14221 only became possible following the Fasti Ostienses discovery of 1930, which disrupted the earlier dating of the pair Blandus and Pollio and ruled out the Blandus of AD 18 (see Syme 1982, 64).
- ^ Syme, Ronald (1988). Roman Papers. Volume IV. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 195–196, 234.