Julianus is the

cognomen A ''cognomen'' (; : ''cognomina''; from ''co-'' "together with" and ''(g)nomen'' "name") was the third name of a citizen of ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. Initially, it was a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditar ...

of a Roman

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

whose tenure as suffect consul with one Castus as his colleague, is known from a number of brick stamps. A number of experts have surmised he is to be identified with a

proconsul A proconsul was an official of ancient Rome who acted on behalf of a Roman consul, consul. A proconsul was typically a former consul. The term is also used in recent history for officials with delegated authority. In the Roman Republic, military ...

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

mentioned in the writings of the

sophist A sophist () was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics and mathematics. They taught ''arete'', "virtue" or "excellen ...

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 ...

. In 1944, Herbert Bloch noted that bricks produced in Rome between AD 110 and 164 often bore a stamp with the year they were produced in, dated according to the eponymous or ordinary consul of the year, with the exception of four groups of bricks which were dated by the suffect consuls in office for part of that year. Of these four pairs of suffect consuls, he was able to identify and date the tenures of all of them except for the pair Julianus and Castus. This pair he could state that, based on the form of the stamp, probably held office in a '' nundinium'' in the period 127-134 Several more examples of bricks stamped with the cognomina of these consuls have since been found. This Julianus is frequently identified with the proconsul Julianus mentioned in the ''Fourth Sacred Discourse'' of Aristides. Further, an inscription from

Ephesus Ephesus (; ; ; may ultimately derive from ) was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek city on the coast of Ionia, in present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in the 10th century BC on the site of Apasa, the former Arzawan capital ...

, datable to 145, mentions a proconsul ..ianus, who has been identified with Aristides' Julianus. Consuls whom the

sortition In governance, sortition is the selection of public officer, officials or jurors at random, i.e. by Lottery (probability), lottery, in order to obtain a representative sample. In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and pr ...

selected for this proconsulate held it in order of their consulate, after a period of 15 years, which would fit a consulate c. 130. Further identification of this Julianus is less certain; two possible candidates have been offered. One is Tiberius Claudius Julianus, the grandnephew of Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus suffect consul in 92; this Julianus' son was Tiberius Claudius Julianus, consul in 154.

Ronald Syme Sir Ronald Syme, (11 March 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. He was regarded as the greatest historian of ancient Rome since Theodor Mommsen and the most brilliant exponent of the history of the Roma ...

"The Proconsuls of Asia under Antoninus Pius"
''

Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik The (commonly abbreviated ZPE; "Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy") is a peer-reviewed academic journal which contains articles that pertain to papyrology and epigraphy. It has been described as "the world's leading and certainly most prolific ...

'', 51 (1983), p. 275 The other is Tiberius Julius Julianus,

Géza Alföldy Géza Alföldy (June 7, 1935 – November 6, 2011) was a Hungarian historian of ancient history. Life Géza Alföldy was born in Budapest. He studied at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Budapest from 1953 to 1958, where he i ...

, ''Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter der Antoninen'' (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt Verlag, 1977), p. 212 sometimes identified with Tiberius Julius Julianus Alexander, governor of

Arabia Petraea Arabia Petraea or Petrea, also known as Rome's Arabian Province or simply Arabia, was a frontier Roman province, province of the Roman Empire beginning in the 2nd century. It consisted of the former Nabataean Kingdom in the southern Levant, th ...

in 125.

References

2nd-century Romans Suffect consuls of Imperial Rome Roman governors of Asia