Quintus Lollius Urbicus

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Quintus Lollius Urbicus
RIB 1276
Governor of Roman Britain
In office
139 A.D. – 142 A.D.
Personal details
BornTiddis
DiedRome
Parent(s)Marcus Lollius Senecio, Grania Honorata
OccupationGovernor

Quintus Lollius Urbicus was a

Emperor Antoninus Pius. He is named in the Historia Augusta, although it is not entirely historical, and his name appears on five Roman inscriptions from Britain; his career is set out in detail on a pair of inscriptions set up in his native Tiddis near Cirta (Constantine, Algeria), Numidia
.

Early life

Lollius Urbicus was the son of Marcus Lollius Senecio, who was a Berber landowner,[2] and his wife Grania Honorata.[3] Professor Edward Champlin included Adventus as a member of "a Cirtan community at Rome" he infers existed there, whose members included: Publius Pactumeius Clemens, consul in 138; Gaius Arrius Antoninus, consul c. 170; and the orator Marcus Cornelius Fronto. Champlin notes that Urbicus, along with Pactumeius Clemens, would later be useful patrons for Fronto at the beginning of the orator's career.[4]

Early career

The early senatorial career of Lollius Urbicus is known from a detailed inscription erected in Tiddis.

Jewish War of 132–135. His consulship can be placed in 135 or 136, after which he governed Germania Inferior. He was transferred to Britannia soon after Hadrian's death.[6]

Governor of Britain

According to the

Lowland Scotland. Between 139 and 140 Urbicus refurbished the fort at Corbridge,[8] in preparation for the move north of Hadrian's Wall, and commemorative coins were issued in 142[9] celebrating a victory in Britain[citation needed]. It is therefore likely that Urbicus led the reoccupation of southern Scotland in 141 including the capture of Burnswark Hill,[10] using all three legions and a variety of auxiliary units. In 143 he oversaw the initial construction of the Antonine Wall; he is explicitly named on building inscriptions from Balmuildy.[11]

No historical source describes the Antonine invasion, so any attempted reconstruction will be purely speculative. Urbicus may have campaigned against several

auxiliary
units, of which we have record of around nine regiments (e.g. RIB 1276, 2140, 2142, 2149, 2155, 3509).

It seems likely that Urbicus planned his campaign of attack from Corbridge in

Risingham, Chew Green, Cappuck and Inveresk
, were very likely used as bases from which to police the lowland tribes, namely the Votadini to the east and the Selgovae to the west.

Having secured an overland supply route for military personnel and equipment along Dere Street, Urbicus very likely set up a supply port at

Carriden for the supply of grain and other foodstuffs before proceeding against the Dumnonii tribe in South Strathclyde. This done, then came the task of completing a new barrier of turf and timber stretching for thirty-five miles from east to west across the narrow neck of land separating the mighty Rivers Forth and Clyde, nowadays known as the Antonine Wall
.

Later career

Urbicus returned to Rome with the prospect of the prestigious post of praefectus urbi (

Prefect of Rome), which he probably held in AD 146, after the death of the incumbent, Sextus Erucius Clarus. He was perhaps the praefectus urbi who is known to have died in AD 160.[12]

One recorded activity of Urbicus while praefectus urbi was his presiding at the trial of one Ptolemaeus, who had been accused by her ex-husband of being a Christian; she admitted to the prefect that she was indeed a Christian and was sentenced to death. This trial led Justin Martyr, who had converted her, to write his Apology to plead for her life.[13]

Citing Urbicus' career inscription,

Judaea, the Danube . . . the lower Rhine and Great Britain, culminating in a position of great power and honor in the capital of the empire to which all these regions belonged."[14]

See also

  • Lollia (gens)

Notes

  1. ISBN 9780674777705
    .
  2. ISBN 9780199651917
    .
  3. ^ His family is named on the four sides of a pillar from Tiddis, CIL VIII, 6705 ("For his father Marcus Lollius Senecio, his mother Grania Honorata, his brother Lucius Lollius Senex, his brother Marcus Lollius Honoratus, and his uncle Publius Granius Paulus, Quintus Lollius Urbicus the Prefect of the City (set this up)").
  4. ^ Champlin, Fronto and Antonine Rome (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1980), pp. 14f
  5. ^ CIL VIII, 6706 The posts are shown in reverse order, sandwiched between the twin honours of the consulship (top) and his patronage of his hometown (bottom).
  6. ^ W. Eck, Die Statthalter der germanischen Provinzen vom 1.-3. Jahrhundert (Epigraphische Studien Band 14, Cologne/Bonn, 1985, p. 168.
  7. ^ Historia Augusta, Antoninus Pius 5.4.
  8. ^ RIB 1147 and 1148. Rebuilding was also under way at High Rochester, RIB 1276.
  9. ^ The coins (RIC 745) showing the figure of Britannia as the reverse image are broadly datable to the period AD 140–142 by Pius' titulature (ANTONINUS AUG PIUS P P TR P COS III), but the reverse legend (IMPERATOR II) can be dated by cross-reference to the Puteoli inscription (CIL X, 515) linking IMP II with TRIB POT V (AD 142).
  10. ^ John H. Reid and Andrew Nicholson (2019). "Burnswark Hill: the opening shot of the Antonine reconquest of Scotland?" (PDF). Journal of Roman Archaeology. p. 459.
  11. ^ RIB 2191 and 2192. The inscriptions are undated within the reign of Antoninus Pius, but probably relate to AD 142 or 143.
  12. ^ L. Vidman, Fasti Ostienses (2nd edn, 1982), p. 52: [... Q Lollius Urbicus praef(ectus) u]rb(is) excessi[t].
  13. ^ Anthony R. Birley, Marcus Aurelius: A Biography (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 111f
  14. ISBN 0-674-77770-0

References
Political offices
Unknown
Title last held by
Publius Mummius Sisenna
Roman governors of Britain

Between 139 and 142 		Succeeded by
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