Marcus Bassaeus Rufus
Marcus Bassaeus Rufus was a
Public career
His career is recorded in an inscription recovered at Rome, but since its publication has been lost.
Rufus was later promoted to praefectus vigilum at some point before 10 March 168, according to an inscription with that date.[5] Between that date and 10 July of that year, he was promoted to prefect of Egypt.[6] However Marcus Aurelius found he was needed in a more important position, and at some point before the death of Lucius Verus in early 169, Bassaeus Rufus was promoted to Praetorian Prefect.[7] Shortly afterwards he was given a colleague as praetorian prefect, Marcus Macrinius Vindex.
Both were selected to help with the threat posed by the Marcomanni on the Danube frontier; the previous praetorian prefect, Titus Furius Victorinus, had been killed the year before in battle with these Germanic invaders. Nevertheless, their responsibilities included more than military matters. An inscription recovered from Saepinum (modern Sepino) records the response of Rufus and Vindex to a petition from the imperial freedman Cosmus concerning the management of the imperial flocks.[8] Rufus is recorded as present in another case, this one heard by the emperor Marcus Aurelius, which involved his former tutor Herodes Atticus: Herodes had accused three rivals from Athens of conspiracy, and these three men appealed to Marcus at his headquarters at Sirmium. Herodes, who had shortly before the meeting lost two young slave girls when they were killed by lightning, failed to present his case properly, instead attacking him for "sacrificing me to the whim of a woman and a three-year-old child!" Rufus, who watched all this, believed only one conclusion was possible: Herodes wanted to die.[9]
Under the two prefects Rufus and Vindex, victories followed for the Romans. Although Vindex met with death in 172,
References
- ^ Birley, Marcus Aurelius: a Biography, revised edition (London: Rutledge, 1999), p. 156
- ^ a b Dio, Romanika Historia, LXXI.5
- ^ Kłodziński, "Equestrian cursus honorum basing on the careers of two prominent officers of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius", In Tempore, 4 (2010), p. 4
- ^ CIL VI, 1599
- ^ CIL XIV, 4500
- ^ Guido Bastianini, "Lista dei prefetti d'Egitto dal 30a al 299p", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 17 (1975), p. 297
- ^ O. W. Reinmuth, "A Working List of the Prefects of Egypt 30 B.C. TO 299 A.D.", Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, 4 (1967), p. 99
- ^ CIL IX, 2438
- ^ Birley, Marcus Aurelius: A Biography, p. 181
- ^ Birley, Marcus Aurelius: A Biography, p. 171
- ^ Fergus Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (Cornell: University Press, 1992), p. 308
- ^ Birley, Marcus Aurelius: A Biography, p. 197
- ^ Birley, Marcus Aurelius: A Biography, p. 207