Aulus Vicirius Martialis

Aulus Vicirius Martialis was a Roman senator active during the reign of Trajan. He was suffect consul for the nundinium July-August 98 with Lucius Maecius Postumus as his colleague.[1] Martialis is known only through surviving inscriptions.

Ronald Syme speculated that his gentilicium indicated an origin in either Erutria or Campania, noting a number of Vicirii attested in inscriptions from those parts of Italy.[2] Martialis was the son of an Aulus Vicirius A.f. Proculus, attested as a military tribune of Legio IV Scythica and flamen Augusti during the reign of Claudius, and interred at Siena.[3] Martialis is known to have had a brother, Aulus Vicirius Proculus, suffect consul in the year 89.

Martialis is known to have held only one office, as proconsular governor of Asia in 113/114. It had been thought at one time his brother Proculus instead had been proconsul, but R. Merkelbach has clearly shown Martialis was the governor.[4]

  1. ^ John D. Grainger, Nerva and the Roman Succession Crisis of AD 96-99 (London: Routledge: 2004), p. 14
  2. ^ Syme, "Missing Persons II", Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 8 (1959), p. 210
  3. ^ Vincenzo Saladino, "Iscrizioni Latine di Roselle (II)", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 39 (1980), pp. 229-232
  4. ^ Merkelbach, "Ephesische Parerga (1): Der Proconsul A. Vicirius Martialis", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 24 (1977), p. 150