Gaius Vibius Marsus

Gaius Vibius Marsus, whom Tacitus calls "vetustis honoribus studiisque illustris," was a Roman senator active during the Principate. He was Suffect consul for the second half of the year 17 with Lucius Voluseius Proculus as his colleague.[1]

He was mentioned in the year 19 as one of the most likely persons to obtain the government of Syria,[2] but the post wound up going to Gnaeus Sentius Saturninus instead.[3] In the same year he was sent to summon Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso to Rome to stand his trial. His name occurs again in 26, in the debates of the Senate; and just before the death of Tiberius in 37 he narrowly escaped his own death, being accused as one of the accomplices of the notorious Albucilla. In 47 we find him governor of Syria.[4]

The name of "Gaius Vibius Marsus", proconsul, appears on several coins of Utica in Africa, struck in the reign of Tiberius: they probably relate to this Vibius Marsus; and as he was disappointed in obtaining the province of Syria in the reign of Tiberius, he may have been appointed to that of Africa.[5]

References

1. Alison E. Cooley, The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy (Cambridge: University Press, 2012), p. 459
2. Smith, William (1867), "Marsus, Vibius", in Smith, William (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 3, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, p. 962
3. Tacitus, Annales vi. 47
4. Tacitus, Annales ii.74, 79; iv.56; vi.47, 48; xi.10
5. Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, vol. iv. pp. 147, 148

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Marsus, Vibius". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 3. p. 962.