Caecina Decius Aginatius (or Acinatius) Albinus (''floruit'' 414) was an aristocrat of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Medite ...

. He was ''

praefectus urbi The ''praefectus urbanus'', also called ''praefectus urbi'' or urban prefect in English, was prefect of the city of Rome, and later also of Constantinople. The office originated under the Roman kings, continued during the Republic and Empire, and ...

'' in 414, succeeding his friend Rutilius Namatianus, and possibly again in 426.

Biography

His father was probably

Caecina Decius Albinus Caecina may refer to: * Caecinia gens, an ancient Roman family * ''Caecina'' (genus), a genus of assassin bugs * Cecina, Tuscany, Italy See also * Cecina (disambiguation) Cecina may refer to: * Cecina (meat), a Spanish and Mexican culinary spe ...

, and his grandfather Aginatius; Albinus was therefore a member of the Roman aristocracy related to the families of the Ceionii and the Decii. Caecina Decius Basilius, consul in 463, might be his son. Albinus was an associate of the poet

Rutilius Claudius Namatianus Rutilius Claudius Namatianus (fl. 5th century) was a Roman Imperial poet, best known for his Latin poem, ''De reditu suo'', in elegiac metre, describing a coastal voyage from Rome to Gaul in 416. The poem was in two books; the exordium of the fir ...

, who described him as "a youth in the flower of life" (''vitae flore puer''), owning a villa near Namatianus at Volaterrae in modern Tuscany, having a son Rufius, and who was Namatianus' successor as ''praefectus urbi''. During his tenure as ''praefectus urbi'', Albinus requested the emperor Honorius to increment the food reserved for the population of Rome, as it was increasing after the sack of Alaric in 410. Alan Cameron has argued that Albinus is identical to the "''clarissimo Albino''" the grammarian

Servius Servius is the name of: * Servius (praenomen), the personal name * Maurus Servius Honoratus, a late fourth-century and early fifth-century grammarian * Servius Tullius, the Roman king * Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the 1st century BC Roman jurist See ...

dedicated his treatise on meter. If this is correct, it would strengthen Cameron's further identification of Albinus with the Decius who is mentioned near the beginning of the ''Saturnalia'' of

Macrobius Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, usually referred to as Macrobius (fl. AD 400), was a Roman provincial who lived during the early fifth century, during late antiquity, the period of time corresponding to the Later Roman Empire, and when Latin was ...

. Ronald J. Weber points out that it is possible he was also the ''praefectus urbi'' Albinus attested in a 426 law preserved in the ''

Codex Theodosianus The ''Codex Theodosianus'' (Eng. Theodosian Code) was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Emperor Theodosius II and his co-emperor Valentinian III on 26 March 429 ...

'', arguing that the 12-year gap is not a significant objection to this identification.Weber
"Albinus: The Living Memory of a Fifth-Century Personality"
'' Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte'', 38 (1989), p. 484 If they are not the same person, then Albinus vanishes from the historical record after 414.

Biography

Notes

Further reading