Gaius Minicius Italus

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Gaius Minicius Italus was a

eques who flourished during the reign of the emperors Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan. He was appointed to a series of imperial offices, both military and civil, culminating with praefectus or governor of Roman Egypt
.

Career

We can reconstruct his career from an inscription on a bronze statue in Aquileia erected in his honor.[1] The occasion for this statue was "that at his request Trajan had ruled that incolae (inhabitants of the city who were not citizens of it) should be liable to local obligations (munera) along with the citizens."[2] The first office listed was quattuorvir jure dicundo, a municipal body of four men for the administration of justice, which allows us to conclude this home town.

His equestrian career can be broken down into several parts, the first encompassing the typical

dona militaria by the emperor Vespasian, receiving one corona aurea and one hasta pura.[3] This was followed by a commission as tribunus angusticlavius with Legio VI Victrix, stationed during the first century in Hispania Tarraconensis. Italus concluded his military career as praefectus of the Ala I Flavia Singularium
, a unit comprising 1000 horsemen.

Interim governor of Asia

Italus then began his next part, advancing up the civil ranks of the equestrian order. His first appointment was as

claiming to be Nero" (to use Suetonius's words[4]) appeared in Asia. Even twenty years after his death, the name of the last Julio-Claudian emperor could rally supporters, and Domitian expected the governor of the province, the proconsul Gaius Vettulenus Civica Cerealis, to handle the threat. Instead, according to Brian Jones, Civica ignored the pretender, possibly fearing "that intervention might exacerbate the situation, involve war with Parthia and prejudice the successful conclusion of the Dacian campaign."[5]
Domitian had Civica murdered and ordered Italus to replace him as governor.

In reward for his loyalty, Italus was afterwards promoted to procurator ducenarus of the Lactorates, a subject people whose territory straddled the provinces of Gallia Lugdunensis and Aquitaine. His mission was probably to manage their production of imperial goods.

Further senior offices

Despite the death of Domitian, Italus was still favored, and this initiated the third or final part of his career. Under Trajan he was appointed

strategi of the nome to build a new one at a cost of 3,282 drachmae.[8] The motivation for his letter may have been that the 14-year tax cycle for the province fell in that year.[9]

His life after the year 105, the year the statue was erected by order of the municipal senate, is unknown, as well as whether he married and if so had any children.

References

  1. ^ CIL V, 875 = ILS 1374. English translation in Robert K. Sherk, The Roman Empire: Augustus to Hadrian (Cambridge: University Press, 1988), pp. 158f
  2. ^ Fergus Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1992), p. 102
  3. ^ Valerie Maxfield, "The Dona Militaria of the Roman Army" (Durham theses: Durham University, 1972), pp. 86-88
  4. ^ The Twelve Caesars, "Nero", 57.2
  5. ^ Jones, "C. Vettulenus Civica Cerialis and the False Nero of AD 88", Athenaeum, 61 (1983), p. 520
  6. ^ Guido Bastianini, "Lista dei prefetti d'Egitto dal 30a al 299p", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 17 (1975), p. 279
  7. A. S. Hunt
    and C.C. Edgar, Select Papyri, II. Non-literary Papyri. Public Documents (London: Loeb, 1932), pp. 572-575
  8. ^ S.B. 7378,1; English translation in Hunt and Edgar, Select Papyri, II, pp. 574-577
  9. ^ Richard Duncan-Jones, Money and government in the Roman empire (Cambridge: University Press, 1994), p. 61

Further reading

Political offices
Preceded by Prefect of Egypt
100–103 		Succeeded by
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