Sextus Papinius Allenius

Sextus Papinius Allenius was a Roman senator of the First Century AD. He was a consul ordinarius in AD 36 with Quintus Plautius as his colleague.[1] Allenius is known for introducing two fruits to Italy: jujube (zizipha) which he brought from Syria; and a variety of crabapple (tuber) which he found in Africa. According to Pliny the Elder, Allenius had grown them in his camp from slips; and he adds about the crabapple that "the fruit is more like a berry than an apple, but the trees make a particularly good decoration for terraces."[2]

  1. ^ Alison E. Cooley, The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy (Cambridge: University Press, 2012), p. 460
  2. ^ Pliny, Naturalis Historia, XV.47; translated by H. Rackham, Pliny: Natural History (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1968), vol 4 p. 321