Lucius Aemilius Juncus

Lucius Aemilius Juncus was a senator of the Roman Empire, and a philosopher. He was consul suffect in the last three months of 127 with Sextus Julius Severus as his colleague.[1]

Life

According to John Oliver, Juncus came of an equestrian background.[2] There is a lead tessera found in Beirut attesting to a procurator of Syria named L. Aemilius Juncus (AE 1903, 116), who has been identified with this suffect consul or the suffect consul of 179 who was exiled in 183.[3][4] In either case, Juncus is likely not related to the patrician Aemilia gens, although he may be descended from a client or freedman of a member of that family.

Oliver infers that Juncus married Varia Archelais, the daughter of Tiberius Varius Caelianus, the diadochos of a philosophical school at Athens between 107 and 120, prior to his consulship, because "a consular would have presumably contracted a more splendid marriage than that with the daughter of a philosopher."[2] Oliver wonders whether Juncus had met Varia while visiting Athens with the Emperor Hadrian in 125.

A letter of Hadrian's to Coronea in 135 shows that he appointed Aemilius Juncus as special commissioner for Achaea, to look into construction works in Boeotia that had been facing ten years of delays. An inscription attests that, along with the emperor Hadrian, he recommended Tiberius Claudius Hermoneikos son of Pleistoxenos to receive the title of aristopoleiteutes from the city of Sparta.[5]

By Varia, Juncus had at least one son, also named Lucius Aemilius Juncus, suffect consul in 154 and proconsul of Asia in 171/172.[6] Juncus the Elder was still alive when his son was appointed consul.[7] There is evidence Varia and Juncus had two more children.

Writings

Oliver makes a persuasive argument that Juncus the older is the author of a philosophical tract Περὶ Γἡρῳς ("On Old Age"), from which an extended extract was preserved in Stobaeus.[8]

References
  1. Werner Eck, "Hadrische Konsuln Neue Zeugnisse aus Militärdiplomen", Chiron, 32 (2002), p. 481
  2. Oliver, "Philosophers and Procurators, Relatives of the Aemilius Juncus of Vita Commodi 4,11", Hesperia, 36 (1967), p. 46
  3. Oliver, "Philosophers and Procurators", p. 51
  4. Until recently it had been thought that the procurator Aeilius Juncus might also be identical with a Juncus who was military tribune of Legio X Fretensis; however, it has been shown the two are different persons. (Edward Dabrowa, Legio X Fretensis: A Prosopographical Study of its Officers (I-III c. A.D.) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1993), pp. 75-77)
  5. G. A. Souris, "A New List of the Gerousia of Roman Sparta", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 41 (1981), p. 172
  6. Géza Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter der Antoninen (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt Verlag 1977), pp. 164-6
  7. Oliver, "Philosophers and Procurators", pp. 46, 54
  8. Translated by Oliver, "Philosophers and Procurators", pp. 54-56
Political offices
Preceded by
Quintus Tineius Rufus,
and Marcus Licinius Celer Nepos
as suffect consuls		 Suffect consul of the Roman Empire
AD 127
with Sextus Julius Severus		 Succeeded by
Lucius Nonius Calpurnius Torquatus Asprenas II,
and Marcus Annius Libo
as ordinary consuls
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