Quintus Volusius Saturninus (born AD 25) was a

Roman Senator The Roman Senate () was the highest and Roman constitution, constituting assembly of ancient Rome and its aristocracy. With different powers throughout its existence it lasted from the first days of the Rome, city of Rome (traditionally founded ...

who lived in the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

during the

Principate The Principate was the form of imperial government of the Roman Empire from the beginning of the reign of Augustus in 27 BC to the end of the Crisis of the Third Century in AD 284, after which it evolved into the Dominate. The principate was ch ...

. He was

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states thro ...

in the year 56 with Publius Cornelius Scipio as his colleague.

Family background

The Volusii, according to

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...

, were an ancient and distinguished Senatorial family who never rose above the

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 ...

ship until Saturninus' grandfather, Lucius Volusius Saturninus, achieved that distinction. Saturninus' father, also named Lucius Volusius Saturninus, not only acceded to that office, but received a state funeral under the

Emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

Nero Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68) was a Roman emperor and the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his ...

and Cornelia Lentula. Saturninus is known to have an elder brother, Lucius Volusius Saturninus, and a sister, Volusia Cornelia. He inherited the great Villa dei Volusii near Lucus Feroniae which had been in the family since the 1st c. BC and was probably acquired by the emperor after his death.

Political career

Surviving inscriptions indicate that a burial club of his slaves and freedmen operated a

columbarium A columbarium (; pl. columbaria), also called a cinerarium, is a structure for the reverential and usually public storage of funerary urns holding cremated remains of the dead. The term comes from the Latin ''columba'' (dove) and originally solel ...

on the

Appian Way The Appian Way (Latin and Italian language, Italian: Via Appia) is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient Roman Republic, republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. Its importance is in ...

describes Saturninus as a man of ''aristocratic status''. The political career of Saturninus is only known from the point he achieved the consulate. In 61–63, he carried out a

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

Gaul Gaul () was a region of Western Europe first clearly described by the Roman people, Romans, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Northern Italy. It covered an area of . Ac ...

, together with Titus Sextius Africanus and Marcus Trebellius Maximus. Saturninus and Africanus were rivals; however, they both hated Maximus, who took advantage of their rivalry to get the better of them. Based on inscriptions, the Horrea Volusiana was either built by his paternal grandfather Lucius Volusius Saturninus, suffect consul of 12 BC, or Saturninus himself. An inscription attests that Saturninus was also a member of several Roman priesthoods. These were the '' sodales Augustales'', the '' sodales Titii'', and the enigmatic Arval Brethren. Another inscription attests to Saturninus' presence at their ceremonies in the year 63.

Family and issue

Saturninus married a woman called Torquata; her name is known to us from the tombstone of one of her slaves. Torquata bore Saturninus the following children: * Son, Lucius Volusius Saturninus, consul in 87 * Daughter, Volusia Torquata; she is thought to have married a Marcus Licinius whose name is inferred from their surmised granddaughter Licinia Cornelia M.f. Volusia Torquata. * Son, Quintus Volusius Saturninus, consul in 92

References

Sources

- The Annals of Imperial Rome *G. Rickman, ''Roman Granaries and Store Buildings'', CUP Archive, 1971 *

Susan Treggiari Susan Treggiari is an English scholar of ancient Rome,John Simon Guggenheim Memoria ...

, "Family Life among the Staff of the Volusii", ''Transactions of the American Philological Association'', 105 (1974-1975) {{DEFAULTSORT:Volusius Saturninus, Quintus 1st-century Roman consuls Senators of the Roman Empire Saturninus, Quintus 25 births Year of death unknown