Gaius Valerius Paullinus

Gaius Valerius Paullinus was a Roman senator, who was active during the reign of Trajan. He is best known as a friend of Pliny the Younger, having received a number of letters from Pliny. Paullinus was suffect consul in the nundinium of September to December 107 as the colleague of Gaius Julius Longinus.[1]

Ronald Syme has strongly suggested that Paullinus is the son of the identically named Gaius Valerius Paulinus, procurator of Gallia Narbonensis.[2] Paullinus opposed Fabius Valens when the latter raided Gaul during the Year of the Four Emperors.[3]

Except for being suffect consul, Paullinus' career is otherwise unknown. Because there are a number of lacunae in the records of known proconsulships and imperial appointments, one cannot assume he did not hold any.

  1. ^ CIL XVI, 56; AE 2009, 1803; AE 2014, 1646
  2. ^ Syme, Tacitus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), p. 63 n. 5
  3. ^ Tacitus, Histories, iii.43