Plotius Grypus was a partisan of the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

emperor

Vespasian Vespasian (; ; 17 November AD 9 – 23 June 79) was Roman emperor from 69 to 79. The last emperor to reign in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for 27 years. His fiscal reforms and consolida ...

. He was the brother of the

urban prefect 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, an ...

Plotius Pegasus (Lucius?) Plotius Pegasus was a Roman Senate, Roman senator and jurisconsult active under the Flavian dynasty. He was Roman consul, suffect consul in an uncertain year, most likely 72 or 73, as the colleague of Lucius Cornelius Pusio Annius Messa ...

, and likely father of the identically named Plotius Grypus. The elder Grypus acceded to the suffect consulship for the period 13 January to April 88, succeeding the emperor

Domitian Domitian ( ; ; 24 October 51 – 18 September 96) was Roman emperor from 81 to 96. The son of Vespasian and the younger brother of Titus, his two predecessors on the throne, he was the last member of the Flavian dynasty. Described as "a r ...

. We are told by a scholiast on

Juvenal Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ; 55–128), was a Roman poet. He is the author of the '' Satires'', a collection of satirical poems. The details of Juvenal's life are unclear, but references in his works to people f ...

that Grypus, like his brother Pegasus, were named by their father, an officer in the Roman navy, for ships he commanded. As an adult Grypus joined the military, and for siding with Vespasian during the strife of the

Year of Four Emperors A year is a unit of time based on how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. In scientific use, the tropical year (approximately 365 solar days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds) and the sidereal year (about 20 minutes longer) are more exa ...

, the victorious emperor adlected him into the

Roman senate The Roman Senate () was the highest and constituting assembly of ancient Rome and its aristocracy. With different powers throughout its existence it lasted from the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in 753 BC) as the Sena ...

late in the year 69. Then in January 70 he replaced Tettius Julianus as

praetor ''Praetor'' ( , ), also ''pretor'', was the title granted by the government of ancient Rome to a man acting in one of two official capacities: (i) the commander of an army, and (ii) as an elected ''magistratus'' (magistrate), assigned to disch ...

, after Julianus was alleged to have deserted his post as ''

legatus legionis A legate (Latin: , ) was a high-ranking Roman military officer in the Roman army, equivalent to a high-ranking general officer of modern times. Initially used to delegate power, the term became formalised under Augustus as the officer in comman ...

'' in

Dacia Dacia (, ; ) was the land inhabited by the Dacians, its core in Transylvania, stretching to the Danube in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Tisza in the west. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It thus ro ...

when it had declared for Vespasian. A few days afterwards the rank was restored to Tettius when he made it known that he had fled for refuge to Vespasian, but Grypus retained his rank.

Edward Champlin Edward James Champlin (1948 – 23 December 2024 Jamie SaxonEdward Champlin, eminent Roman history scholar and ‘powerful mentor,’ dies at 76 princeton.edu, 17 January 2025. Retrieved 19 January 2025.) was an American classicist. During his ca ...

has identified as his son another Plotius Grypus, mentioned by

Statius Publius Papinius Statius (Greek language, Greek: Πόπλιος Παπίνιος Στάτιος; , ; ) was a Latin poetry, Latin poet of the 1st century CE. His surviving poetry includes an epic in twelve books, the ''Thebaid (Latin poem), Theb ...

in one of the poems collected in his ''Silvae'' (IV.9), who was "well launched on his senatorial career by the mid-90s". This identification was accepted by Brian W. Jones, who notes that when Statius wrote his poem for the younger Grypus, he made no reference to his consular father. While admitting that the older Grypus may have died before the Sarmatian War, Jones suggests that a more likely reason may have been that by the time Statius wrote, Grypus was in exile. The most likely reason for his exile would be as a result of the events of 70, when Tettius and Grypus struggled for the same praetorship, during which the old rivalry between the two revived, and so Tettius engineered Grypus' exile. "In 88, though, the position was vastly different: Julianus was the hero of Tapae, victor over the Dacians, whereas it had taken Grypus 18 years to reach the consulship. Jealousy may have caused him to attempt to undermine his former rival, and failure led to his banishment."Jones, ''The Emperor Domitian'' (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 191

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