Quintus Pompeius Sosius Priscus

Quintus Pompeius Sosius Priscus was a Roman senator active in the mid-second century AD, who held a number of offices in the emperor's service. Priscus served as ordinary consul for the year 149 as the colleague of Lucius Sergius Salvidienus Scipio Orfitus.[1] His life is known entirely from inscriptions.

Priscus was the son of Quintus Pompeius Falco, consul of 108, and Sosia Polla.[2] Earlier writers had confused him with his son, Quintus Pompeius Senecio Sosius Priscus, but a fragmentary inscription from Rome allowed experts to separate the evidence pertaining to each.[3] By his lifetime, his branch of the Sosii had been granted Patrician status.

Life

The cursus honorum of Priscus can be recovered from two inscriptions: the fragmentary one from Rome mentioned above, and one from Bononia in Aemilia.[4] If we can trust the order of offices on this inscription to reflect the order they were held, his first recorded office was sevir equitum Romanorum of the annual review of the equites at Rome. Next was his membership as one of the tresviri monetalis, the most prestigious of the four boards that comprise the vigintiviri; assignment to this board was usually allocated to patricians or favored individuals. He then became a quaestor, which was important in providing the office holder admission to the Senate. This was followed by his admission to the Roman priesthoods of sodales Hadrianales then the College of Pontiffs; the latter may have transpired prior to his accession to the consulate. He was also made a member of the sodales Antoniniani around that time. As a member of the Patrician order, Priscus acceded to the consulate two years after he was praetor.

After his consulate, Priscus became a member of the comites of emperor Marcus Aurelius. If the restoration of the inscription from Rome can be trusted, Priscus also was decorated with dona militaria, possibly as a staff officer; McDermott suggests that this "was at the time of the northern wars between 167 and 180. I suspect his duties were less warlike than those of his co-eval son-in-law Pontius."[5] Priscus ended his career with one of the pinnacles of a successful senatorial career, proconsular governor of Asia.

Children

Priscus is known to have had at least two children:[6]

gollark: Your #3 entry was very cool. Highly palaiologistic-looking.
gollark: Well, as they say, something something impostor syndrome?
gollark: What if you iterate through all possible programs with length less than 10000 bytes and see which is your favorite?
gollark: What if you iterate through all possible programs with length less than 10000 bytes and see which is your favorite?
gollark: I guess you may go down a dead end.

References
  1. Werner Eck, "Die Fasti consulares der Regungszeit des Antoninus Pius, eine Bestandsaufnahme seit Géza Alföldys Konsulat und Senatorenstand" in Studia epigraphica in memoriam Géza Alföldy, hg. W. Eck, B. Feher, and P. Kovács (Bonn, 2013), p. 75
  2. Ronald Syme, "Ummidius Quadratus, Capax Imperii", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 83 (1979), p. 295
  3. CIL VI, 31753
  4. AE 1966, 115
  5. William C. McDermott, "Stemmata quid faciunt? The Descendants of Frontinus", Ancient Society, 7 (1976), p. 241
  6. McDermott, "Stemmata quid faciunt?", pp. 233-240
Political offices
Preceded by
Gaius Fabius Agrippinus, and
Marcus Antonius Zeno
as suffect consuls		 Consul of the Roman Empire
148
with Lucius Sergius Salvidienus Scipio Orfitus		 Succeeded by
Quintus Passienus Licinus,
and Gaius Julius Avitus
as suffect consuls
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