Marcus Aponius Saturninus

Marcus Aponius Saturninus was a Senator of Imperial Rome, active in the latter half of the first century AD. His parents, also of senatorial rank, were wealthy and owned property in Egypt.[1] He appears in the Acta Arvalia in the year 57 AD; classicist Ronald Syme suggests that he was made a member of the Arval Brethren due to the influence of Annaeus Seneca.[2] Saturninus is mentioned as being present in 66 for sacrifices on the Capitol with the emperor Nero. Tacitus calls him a consul, but the date of his office is uncertain.[3] He may have been consul in 55;[1] Classical scholar Paul Gallivan at the University of Tasmania has argued that Saturninus was suffect consul between 63 and 66, by which time he was recorded as becoming promagister.[4]

Saturninus served as the governor of Moesia in 69, which may have been an appointment of Galba.[1] He repulsed the Sarmatians, who had invaded the province, and was in consequence rewarded by a triumphal statue at the commencement of Otho's reign.

  1. ^ a b c Syme, Ronald (1983). "Antistius Rusticus. A Consular from Corduba". Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte. 32 (3): 372. JSTOR 4435856.
  2. ^ Syme, Some Arval Brethren (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), p. 67
  3. ^ Tacitus, Histories 1.79, 2.85, 96, 3.5, 9, 11
  4. ^ Gallivan, "Some Comments on the Fasti for the Reign of Nero", Classical Quarterly, 24 (1974), p. 308