Lucius Aelius Caesar (13 January 101 – 1 January 138) was the father of Emperor

Lucius Verus Lucius Aurelius Verus (; 15 December 130 – 23 January 169) was Roman emperor from 161 until his death in 169, alongside his adoptive brother Marcus Aurelius. He was a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. Verus' succession together with Ma ...

. In 136, he was adopted by the reigning emperor

Hadrian Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...

and named heir to the throne. He died before Hadrian and thus never became emperor. After Lucius' death, he was replaced by

Antoninus Pius Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius (; ; 19 September 86 – 7 March 161) was Roman emperor from AD 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the Five Good Emperors from the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. Born into a senatorial family, Antoninus held var ...

, who succeeded Hadrian the same year.

Life and family

Aelius was born Lucius Ceionius Commodus, and became Lucius Aelius Caesar upon his adoption as Hadrian's heir. He is sometimes referred to as Lucius Aelius Verus, though this name is not attested outside the ''

Historia Augusta The ''Historia Augusta'' (English: ''Augustan History'') is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman emperors, their junior colleagues, Caesar (title), designated heirs and Roman usurper, usurpers from 117 to 284. S ...

'', where it probably was originally the result of a manuscript error. The young Lucius Ceionius Commodus was of the

gens In ancient Rome, a gens ( or , ; : gentes ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same ''nomen gentilicium'' and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens, sometimes identified by a distinct cognomen, was cal ...

Ceionia. His father, also named Lucius Ceionius Commodus (the ''

'' adds the cognomen Verus), was consul in 106 and his paternal grandfather, also of the same name, was consul in 78. His paternal ancestors were from

Etruria Etruria ( ) was a region of Central Italy delimited by the rivers Arno and Tiber, an area that covered what is now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and north-western Umbria. It was inhabited by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization that f ...

, and were of consular rank. His mother is surmised to have been an undocumented Roman woman named Plautia. The ''

'' states that his maternal grandfather and his maternal ancestors were of consular rank. Before 130, the younger Lucius Commodus married Avidia, a well-connected Roman noblewoman who was the daughter of the senator

Gaius Avidius Nigrinus Gaius Avidius Nigrinus (died 118 AD) was a Roman senator who lived between the 1st and 2nd centuries. Nigrinus served as suffect consul for the '' nundinium'' of April to June 110 with Tiberius Julius Aquila Polemaeanus as his colleague. Ances ...

. Avidia bore Lucius at least one son and two daughters, who were: *Lucius Ceionius Commodus – The future

, co-emperor with

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ( ; ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher. He was a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors ...

from 161 until his own death in 169. Verus would marry Lucilla, the second daughter of Marcus Aurelius and

Faustina the Younger Annia Galeria Faustina the Younger ( AD, – 175/176 AD) was Roman empress from 161 to her death as the wife of emperor Marcus Aurelius, cousin marriage, her maternal cousin. Faustina was the youngest child of emperor Antoninus Pius and empress F ...

. *

Ceionia Fabia Ceionia Fabia (flourished 2nd century) was a noble Roman woman and a member of the ruling Nerva–Antonine dynasty of the Roman Empire. Life Fabia was the first-born daughter to Lucius Aelius and Avidia. In 136, her father was adopted by Hadria ...

– at the time of Marcus Aurelius's adoption, she was betrothed, as part of the adoption conditions, to him. Shortly after

' ascension, Pius came to Aurelius and asked him to end his engagement to Fabia, instead marrying Antoninus Pius’ daughter

; Faustina had originally been planned by Hadrian to wed Lucius Verus. *

Ceionia Plautia Ceionia Plautia () was a Roman noblewoman and is among the lesser known members of the ruling Nerva–Antonine dynasty of the Roman Empire. Life Plautia was the second daughter born to Roman Senator Lucius Aelius Caesar, the first adopted heir o ...

Heir to Hadrian

For a long time, the emperor

had considered his brother-in-law Lucius Julius Ursus Servianus as his unofficial successor. As Hadrian's reign drew to a close, however, he changed his mind. Although the emperor certainly thought Servianus capable of ruling as an emperor after Hadrian's own death, Servianus, by now in his nineties, was clearly too old for the position. Hadrian's attentions turned to Servianus' grandson, Lucius Pedanius Fuscus Salinator. Hadrian promoted the young Salinator, his great-nephew, gave him special status in his court, and groomed him as his heir. However, in the summer of 136, Hadrian almost died from a haemorrhage. Convalescent in his villa at Tivoli, he decided to change his mind, and selected Lucius Ceionius Commodus as his new successor, adopting him as his son. The selection was done ''invitis omnibus'', "against the wishes of everyone"; in particular, Servianus and the young Salinator became very angry at Hadrian and wished to challenge him over the adoption. Even today, the rationale for Hadrian's sudden switch is still unclear. It is possible Salinator went so far as to attempt a coup against Hadrian in which Servianus was implicated. In order to avoid any potential conflict in the succession, Hadrian ordered the deaths of Salinator and Servianus.

Death

After a year's stationing on the Danube frontier, Aelius returned to Rome to make an address to the senate on the first day of 138. The night before the speech, however, he grew ill, and died of a haemorrhage late the next day. On 24 January 138, Hadrian selected Titus Aurelius Antoninus as his new successor. After a few days' consideration, Antoninus accepted. He was adopted on 25 February 138. As part of Hadrian's terms, Antoninus adopted both Lucius Aelius's son, Lucius Ceionius Commodus, and Hadrian's great-nephew by marriage, Marcus Annius Verus. Marcus became "Marcus Aelius Aurelius Verus" (later Marcus Aurelius Antoninus); and Lucius became "Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus" (later Lucius Aurelius Verus). At Hadrian's request, Antoninus' daughter Faustina was betrothed to Lucius. Marcus Aurelius later co-ruled with Lucius Verus as joint Roman Emperors, until Lucius Verus died in 169, after which Aurelius was sole ruler until his own death in 180. In his '' History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'',

Edward Gibbon Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English essayist, historian, and politician. His most important work, ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, is known for ...

tells of Aelius's brief time as Hadrian's successor-designate in these terms:

After revolving in his mind several men of distinguished merit, whom he esteemed and hated,
adrian Adrian is a form of the Latin given name Adrianus or Hadrianus. Its ultimate origin is most likely via the former river Adria from the Venetic and Illyrian word ''adur'', meaning "sea" or "water". The Adria was until the 8th century BC the ma ...
adopted Ælius Verus a gay and voluptuous nobleman, recommended by uncommon beauty to the lover of
Antinous Antinous, also called Antinoös, (; ; – ) was a Greek youth from Bithynia, a favourite and lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Following his premature death before his 20th birthday, Antinous was deified on Hadrian's orders, being worshippe ...
. But whilst Hadrian was delighting himself with his own applause, and the acclamations of the soldiers, whose consent had been secured by an immense donative, the new Cæsar was ravished from his embraces by an untimely death. Gibbon, Edward (1845) 782
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
', Vol.1, Ch. III, Part II.

Sources

The major sources for the life of Aelius are patchy and frequently unreliable. The most important group of sources, the biographies contained in the ''

'', claim to be written by a group of authors at the turn of the 4th century, but are in fact written by a single author (referred to here as "the biographer") from the later 4th century (c. 395).. The thesis of single authorship was first proposed in H. Dessau (1889)
Über Zeit und Persönlichkeit der ''Scriptoes Historiae Augustae''
(in German), ''Hermes'' 24, 337ff. The later biographies and the biographies of subordinate emperors and usurpers are a tissue of lies and fiction, but the earlier biographies, derived primarily from now-lost earlier sources ( Marius Maximus or Ignotus), are much more accurate. For Aelius, the biographies of

, Antoninus Pius, Marcus and Lucius Verus are largely reliable, but that of Avidius Cassius, and even Lucius Aelius' own, is full of fiction.. On the ''HA Verus'', see Barnes, 65–74. Some other literary sources provide specific detail: the writings of the physician

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (; September 129 – AD), often Anglicization, anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Ancient Rome, Roman and Greeks, Greek physician, surgeon, and Philosophy, philosopher. Considered to be one o ...

on the habits of the Antonine elite, the orations of

Aelius Aristides Publius Aelius Aristides Theodorus (; 117–181 AD) was a Greek orator and author considered to be a prime example as a member of the Second Sophistic, a group of celebrated and highly influential orators who flourished from the reign of Nero unt ...

on the temper of the times, and the constitutions preserved in the ''Digest'' and ''Codex Justinianus'' on Marcus' legal work. Inscriptions and coin finds supplement the literary sources.

Notes

All citations to the ''Historia Augusta'' are to individual biographies, and are marked with a "''HA''". Citations to the works of Fronto are cross-referenced to C.R. Haines' Loeb edition.

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aelius, Lucius 101 births 138 deaths Nerva–Antonine dynasty 2nd-century Romans Adult adoptees Aelii Ceionii Senators of the Roman Empire Caesars (heirs apparent) Burials at the Castel Sant'Angelo Ancient Roman adoptees Ancient Roman heirs apparent who never acceded