Marcus Petronius Mamertinus

Marcus Petronius Mamertinus, possibly known as Sextus Petronius Mamertinus, was a Roman senator originally of the Equestrian order. He served as suffect consul in 150 AD as the colleague of Marcus Cassius Apollinaris.[1]

Edward Champlin has argued that Petronius Mamertinus is a kinsman of the orator Fronto, based on a letter Fronto wrote to Petronius, commending a young man to him, in which Fronto addresses Petronius as a member of "our familia".[2] Champlin writes, "There can be no doubt that here, as elsewhere, familia means precisely family to Fronto."[3] Anthony Birley notes this supports his earlier argument that Petronius had an African origin, and further argues that his postulated wife, Septimia, was a cousin of the future emperor Septimius Severus.[4] On the other hand, Géza Alföldy suggested Petronius had an Italian background, where the cognomen Mamertinus is most common.[5]

  1. ^ Werner Eck, "Die Fasti consulares der Regierungszeit des Antoninus Pius, eine Bestandsaufnahme seit Géza Alföldys Konsulat und Senatorenstand" in Studia epigraphica in memoriam Géza Alföldy, hg. W. Eck, B. Feher, and P. Kovács (Bonn, 2013), p. 76
  2. ^ ad Amicos I.10
  3. ^ Champlin, Fronto and Antonine Rome (Harvard: University Press, 1980), p. 10
  4. ^ Birley, Septimus Severus: the African Emperor, revised edition (New Haven: Yale, 1989), pp. 213, 225
  5. ^ Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter der Antoninen (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt Verlag, 1977), p. 307