Gaius Asinius Quadratus () (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

AD 248) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

historian of

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

and

Parthia Parthia ( ''Parθava''; ''Parθaw''; ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Medes during the 7th century BC, was incorporated into the subsequent Achaemeni ...

of the third century. He was a senator who wrote a 15-book history of Rome, '' Chilieteris'' ("The Millennium"), which, according to the

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; ; ) is a large 10th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine encyclopedia of the History of the Mediterranean region, ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas () or Souidas (). It is an ...

, covered the period from the founding of Rome until the rule of

Alexander Severus Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (1 October 208 – March 235), also known as Alexander Severus, was Roman emperor from 222 until 235. He was the last emperor from the Severan dynasty. Alexander took power in 222, when he succeeded his slain co ...

. He also wrote a ''Parthika'' in nine books, presumably a narrative of the

n campaigns of the preceding century. Some scholars attribute to him a ''Germanika'', based on an excerpt preserved by

Agathias Agathias Scholasticus (; Martindale, Jones & Morris (1992), p. 23–25582/594) was a Greek poet and the principal historian of part of the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I between 552 and 558. Biography Agathias was a native of Myrina ( ...

, although this is debated. Asinius is the ''nomen'' of the ''gens'' Asinia of ancient Rome. He was the son of Gaius Julius Asinius Quadratus, who was brother of Gaius Asinius Rufus (born ''circa'' 160). These brothers were sons of Gaius Asinius Nicomachus (born ''circa'' 135) and his wife and cousin Julia Quadratilla (born ''circa'' 145) (or perhaps Asinia Marcellina, descendant of the family of

Gaius Asinius Pollio Gaius Asinius Pollio (75 BC – AD 4) was a Roman soldier, politician, orator, poet, playwright, literary critic, and historian, whose lost contemporaneous history provided much of the material used by the historians Appian and Plutarch. Po ...

), and grandchildren of Gaius Asinius Rufus (''circa'' 110 – after 136), a notable in

Lydia Lydia (; ) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom situated in western Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis. At some point before 800 BC, ...

in 134 and 135 who became a

Roman senator The Roman Senate () was the highest and Roman constitution, constituting assembly of ancient Rome and its aristocracy. With different powers throughout its existence it lasted from the first days of the Rome, city of Rome (traditionally founded ...

in 136, and wife Julia. It has been suggested that Quadratus is identical with a

suffect consul The consuls were the highest elected public officials of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC). Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the ''cursus honorum''an ascending sequence of public offices to which politicians aspire ...

of the Severan period, Gaius Asinius Protimus Quadratus. The "thousand years" of Quadratus' title has been explained in various ways.

Felix Jacoby Felix Jacoby (; 19 March 1876 – 10 November 1959) was a German classicist and philologist. He is best known among classicists for his highly important work '' Fragmente der griechischen Historiker'', a collection of text fragments of ancient ...

argues that Quadratus unusually dated the founding of Rome to the first

Olympiad An olympiad (, ''Olympiás'') is a period of four years, particularly those associated with the Ancient Olympic Games, ancient and Olympic Games, modern Olympic Games. Although the ancient Olympics were established during Archaic Greece, Greece ...

in 776. Giuseppe Zecchini, though, claims that Quadratus used the traditional dating of the founding of Rome and intended the work to extend to 248, when

Philip the Arab Philip I (; – September 249), commonly known as Philip the Arab, was Roman emperor from 244 to 249. After the death of Gordian III in February 244, Philip, who had been Praetorian prefect, rose to power. He quickly negotiated peace with the S ...

celebrated the first millennium, but that he died before its completion.Zecchini, "Asinio Quadrato storico di Filippo l'Arabo", in ''

Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt , commonly referred to by its German acronym, ''ANRW'', or in English as ''Rise and Decline of the Roman World'', is an extensive collection of books dealing with the history and culture of ancient Rome. Akin to a journal and published in various ...

'' (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1998), Band II.34.4, pp. 2990-3021 Thirty fragments of his work remain, which have been published by Jacoby in the ''

Fragmente der griechischen Historiker ''Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker'', commonly abbreviated ''FGrHist'' or ''FGrH'' (''Fragments of the Greek Historians''), is a collection by Felix Jacoby of the works of those ancient Greek historians whose works have been lost, but of ...

''. Most of these derive from the dictionary of

Stephanus of Byzantium Stephanus or Stephen of Byzantium (; , ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD) was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethnica'' (). Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but the epit ...

References

Further reading