Lucius Burbuleius Optatus Ligarianus

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Lucius Burbuleius Optatus Ligarianus was a

Syria
.

An inscription in

tribe was Quirina, and the city was enrolled in the Terentina tribe, it was not his place of origin. "Although the very rare gentilicium is not found outside of Italy", concludes Birley, "he may have been a provincial."[3]

Life

His first recorded office was as a tresviri capitales, one of the magistracies that comprised the

vigintiviri. This was the least desirable office to hold, for men who held that office rarely had a successful career: Anthony Birley could find only five tresviri capitales who went on to be governors of consular imperial provinces.[4] This was followed by a stint as military tribune with Legio IX Hispana in the reign of Trajan, about the time it was transferred from Roman Britain to a new base along the Rhine frontier. Next he served his quaestorship in the province of Bithynia and Pontus, which had to follow Pliny the Younger's presence there, as the latter never mentions him in his letters from that province. Ligarianus then held in order the next two republican magistracies, aedile and praetor, which, like the majority of his recorded career, were held during the reign of Hadrian
.

That he had to work to achieve his consulship is reflected in the number of offices he had to hold between being praetor and his consulship. First he was curator of the Viarum

aerarium Saturni with Marcus Aemilius Papus (132-135).[7]

Papus and Ligarianus became acquaintances, for their paths crossed more than once again, most notably as consuls in the same nundinium. Ligarianus' first consular office was

curator operarum locorumque publicorum, or overseer of the public works and places of Rome, around 136; his immediate successor was Papus, who is attested in that position 15 May and 13 December 138.[8]

Ligarianus succeeded the historian Arrian as governor of Cappadocia, an office he held at the time of Hadrian's death (10 July 138); which years his tenure began and ended are uncertain. Géza Alföldy dates his tenure from c. 138 to c. 141,[9] while Werner Eck offers the years 137 and 140.[10] Birley writes Ligarianus "might never have held a consular command but for the fact that Hadrian, in the closing years of his reign, had come to distrust many of his former friends."[3] Despite lack of military experience, Ligarianus must have been a success in this role for when he completed his tenure in Cappadocia, Antoninus Pius appointed him governor of Syria; this new responsibility must have followed without a break after he had left Cappadocia, for Alföldy offers the dates of c. 141 and c. 144 as when Ligarianus began and ended his tenure in Syria.

References

  1. ^ Werner Eck, Paul Holder and Andreas Pangerl, "A Diploma for the Army of Britain in 132 and Hadrian's Return to Rome from the East", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 194 (2010), p. 194
  2. ^ CIL X, 6006
  3. ^ a b Birley, The Fasti of Roman Britain, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 272
  4. ^ Birley, Fasti of Roman Britain, p. 5
  5. ^ Corbier, L'aerarium saturni et l'aerarium militare; Administration et prosopographie sénatoriale, Publications de l'École française de Rome, 24 (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1974), p. 187
  6. ^ Werner Eck, "Jahres- und Provinzialfasten der senatorischen Statthalter von 69/70 bis 138/139", Chiron, 13 (1983), p. 169-171
  7. ^ Géza Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter den Antoninen (Bonn: Habelt Verlag, 1977), p. 291
  8. ^ Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand, p. 289
  9. ^ Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand, p. 239
  10. ^ Eck, "Jahres- und Provinzialfasten", pp. 182-184
Political offices
Preceded byas ordinary consuls
Suffect consul of the Roman Empire
135
with Marcus Aemilius Papus
 Succeeded byas suffect consuls
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