Libo Rupilius Frugi (died 101) was a Roman senator and an ancestor of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. He served as suffect consul in 88.

Life edit

His full name may have been Lucius Scribonius Libo Rupilius Frugi.[1] He was one of the sons and among the children born to Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi (consul 64) with his wife Sulpicia Praetextata, daughter of the suffect consul in 46, Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus Peticus[2] and a grandson of Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi, who had been consul in 27 and Scribonia. His brother Gaius Calpurnius Piso Crassus Frugi Licinianus[2] had been a consul in 87.[2][3] The father of Frugi was executed by the emperor Nero between 66 and 68, because of information brought against him by Marcus Aquilius Regulus.[4] After the death of his father, his mother took him with his siblings, to a Senate meeting in 70 early in the reign of Vespasian, seeking vengeance for his father's death.[4] Regulus and his associates were prosecuted by the Senate.[5]

The Augustan History states that Frugi was of consular rank and refers to him as a former consul.[6] Frugi served as a suffect consul in 88.[3] He has been identified with the ex-consul "Libo Frugi" whom Pliny the Younger reports as speaking aggressively in the Senate concerning the case of Norbanus Licinianus.[7]

Family edit

Frugi was father of Rupilia Faustina, the paternal grandmother of Marcus Aurelius.[6] Frugi was married to Salonia Matidia, the niece of the emperor Trajan, but that marriage is too late for Salonia to be Faustina's mother.[8] Historians Christian Settipani and Strachan have proposed that Faustina's mother was instead Vitellia Galeria Fundania, daughter of emperor Vitellius.[9][10]

Nerva–Antonine family tree edit

References edit

  1. ^ Syme, Roman Papers 4, pp. 153–154
  2. ^ a b c Vasily Rudich, Political Dissidence Under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation, Routledge
  3. ^ a b Brian W. Jones, The Emperor Domitian, pp. 165-6. Routledge
  4. ^ a b J. Shelton, The Women of Pliny's Letters, p. 153. Routledge, 2013
  5. ^ S.H. Rutledge, Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian (Google eBook), p. 119. Routledge, 2002
  6. ^ a b Augustan History, Marcus Aurelius, 1.4, where Rupili Boni is emended to Rupili Libonis
  7. ^ Pliny the Younger, Epistulae 3.9.33
  8. ^ "Libo Frugi's wife is unknown, but J. Carcopino, REA 51 (1949) 262 ff. argued that she was Matidia. This was supported by H.-G. Pflaum, HAC 1963 (1964) 106 f. However, Schumacher, Priesterkollegien 195 points out that Libo Frugi's daughter Rupilia Faustina can hardly have been old enough, in that case, to be the mother of Marcus' father. The only way out would be to suppose that Matidia married Libo before her other two husbands; and was divorced from him (as he was still alive in 101). The theory becomes increasingly implausible." Anthony Richard Birley, Marcus Aurelius, p. 244
  9. ^ Rupilius. Strachan stemma.
  10. ^ Settipani, Christian (2000). Continuité gentilice et continuité familiale dans les familles sénatoriales romaines à l'époque impériale: mythe et réalité. Prosopographica et genealogica (in Italian). Vol. 2 (illustrated ed.). Unit for Prosopographical Research, Linacre College, University of Oxford. p. 278. ISBN 9781900934022.
Political offices
Preceded byas suffect consuls Roman consul
88 (suffect)
with Quintus Ninnius Hasta
Succeeded byas suffect consuls