Titus is one of the Thirty Tyrants, a list of

Roman usurper Roman usurpers were individuals or groups of individuals who obtained or tried to obtain power by force and without legitimate legal authority. Usurpation was endemic during the Roman imperial era, especially from the crisis of the third cent ...

s compiled by the author(s) of the often unreliable '' Historia Augusta''. Titus was said to have revolted against

Maximinus Thrax Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus "Thrax" ("the Thracian"; – 238) was Roman emperor from 235 to 238. His father was an accountant in the governor's office and sprang from ancestors who were Carpi (a Dacian tribe), a people whom Diocleti ...

, a Roman Emperor who ruled 235–238, after the revolt of

Magnus Magnus, meaning "Great" in Latin, was used as cognomen of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in the first century BC. The best-known use of the name during the Roman Empire is for the fourth-century Western Roman Emperor Magnus Maximus. The name gained wid ...

. It is now believed that his biography is fradulent, and that he may be based on person named Quartinus mentioned by the historian

Herodian Herodian or Herodianus ( el, Ἡρωδιανός) of Syria, sometimes referred to as "Herodian of Antioch" (c. 170 – c. 240), was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled ''History of the Empire from the Death o ...

. According to the ''Historia Augusta'', Titus was a tribune of the

Moors The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or ...

, who had been deposed by Maximinus and transferred to a civilian position. After the revolt of Magnus had been quelled, Titus, fearing for his life, reluctantly seized the power, having the purple compelled on him by his soldiers. He ruled for six months, and the ''Historia'' stated he deserved praises both home and abroad, but in the end Maximinus suppressed the revolt and killed Titus. Also noteworthy is Titus's equally fictitious wife, Calpurnia of the '' gens Caesonia'', and who it was claimed had been a priestess, whose statue, in marble and golden bronze, was located in the Temple of Venus. She reportedly owned the pearls that had belonged to

Cleopatra VII of Egypt Cleopatra VII Philopator ( grc-gre, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ}, "Cleopatra the father-beloved"; 69 BC10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler. ...

, and a famous one hundred-pound silver platter, with the histories of her noteworthy family - the implication being that she was a descendant of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, the

Roman consul A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC), and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the ''cursus honorum'' (an ascending sequence of public offices to which politic ...

of 148 BC, and a distant relation of Calpurnia, the wife of

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, ...

. This link is further developed in two ways; firstly, her statue is described as being placed in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, where Caesar had once placed a statue of Cleopatra. Secondly, her possession of Cleopatra's pearls also reinforces her role as a female figure representing traditional ''Romanitas'', compared against the previous owner who was traditionally represented as everything that was contrary to Roman values. Her possession of Cleopatra's pearls is also fictitious, as

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

recounts that one of Cleopatra's pearls was dissolved in vinegar and drunk by Cleopatra in front of

Marc Antony Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the aut ...

, while the other was made into earrings for the statue of Venus that stood in the Temple of Venus Genetrix. There is no evidence that the family of the Pisones still existed in the third century, and this Calpurnia is most likely an invention of the author's, due to his desire to pepper his work with great names.''Historia Augusta'', ''The Lives of the Thirty Pretenders'', Loeb Classical Library (1932), note 124

Notes

References

Tyranni Triginta xxxii
{{DEFAULTSORT:Titus 230s deaths Thirty Tyrants (Roman) Year of birth unknown