Marcus Gavius Squilla Gallicanus

Marcus Gavius Squilla Gallicanus was a Roman senator, who was active during the reigns of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He was suffect consul in 150 AD with Sextus Carminius Vetus as his colleague.[1] He was also proconsular governor of Asia in 164/165.[2]

The origins of his family lie in Verona; an inscription mentioning one M. Gavius M.f. Pob. Squillianus has been recovered from there.[3] Gallicanus was the son of Marcus Gavius Squilla Gallicanus, consul in 127; his brother was Marcus Gavius Orfitus, ordinary consul in 165.[4]

Gallicanus is known to have had at least two children. His son was Marcus Gavius Cornelius Cethegus, consul in 170; who was his legatus or assistant while proconsular governor of Asia.[5] Gallicanus also had a daughter, Cornelia Cethegilla. Olli Salomies, in his monograph on the naming practices of the Early Roman Empire, records a number of experts who thought Cethegus and his sister were not natural, but adopted children of Gallicanus. After discussing the evidence, Salomies admits that he prefers the explanation that both "were Squilla Gallicanus' adoptive, not natural children."[6]

That he was one of the witnesses to the Tabula Banasitana (AE 1971, 534) shows Gallicanus was still alive 6 July 177. His life after that point is a blank.

References edit

  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. ^ Géza Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter den Antoninen (Bonn: Habelt Verlag, 1977), p. 216
  3. ^ CIL V, 3401
  4. ^ Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand, p. 89 n. 60
  5. ^ Lucian, Demonax 30
  6. ^ Salomies, Adoptive and polyonymous nomenclature in the Roman Empire, (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1992), p. 102
Political offices
Preceded byas suffect consuls Suffect consul of the Roman Empire
150
with Sextus Carminius Vetus
Succeeded byas suffect consuls