Aulus Plautius
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Aulus Plautius (lived 1st century) was the first governor of Roman Britain, serving from 43 to 47.
Plautius' political career started in a unknown way, probably as a military tribune. He was suffect consul in 29, and ca. 36 he was appointed governor of the Roman province of Pannonia, in the region of modern Hungary. The Emperor Claudius gave him the command of the Roman invasion of Britain in May 43. At that time the south-east of Britain was dominated by the Catuvellauni, who had overthrown Verica, king of their western neightbours the Atrebates and an ally of Rome.
The army was composed by four legions: II Augusta, IX Hispana, XIV Gemina and XX Valeria Victrix, plus approximately 20,000 auxiliary troops. Plautius defeated the defending Britons, led by Togodumnus and Caratacus of the Catuvellauni, on the rivers Medway and Thames. He then halted and sent for Claudius, who completed the march on the Catuvellaunian capital, Camulodunum (Colchester). A Roman province was established in the conquered territory, and alliances made with nations outside direct Roman control. Plautius became governor of the new province, until 47 when he was replaced by Publius Ostorius Scapula. On his return to Rome and civil life, Plautius was granted an Ovation, during which the emperor himself walked by his side to and from the Capitol.
His wife was Pomponia Graecina, who, after the execution of her kinswoman Livia Julia, wife of Nero Caesar (not the emperor Nero) in 59, remained in mourning for forty years. In 57 she was charged with a "foreign superstition", usually taken to mean conversion to Christianity. According to Roman law, she was tried by her husband before her kinsmen, and was acquitted. However inscriptions in the Catacombs of Rome suggest that members of her family were Christians, and the archaeologist Battista de Rossi identifies her with Saint Lucina, the purported donor of the part of the Catacombs where the inscriptions were found.
Two other men of the same name are known:
- Aulus Plautius (fl. 1st century BC), a tribune who read a letter from Ptolemy XII of Egypt before the Senate in 56 BC.
- Aulus Plautius (fl. 1st century AD), a young man, allegedly the lover of Agrippina the younger, who was raped and murdered by Agrippina's son Nero.
Sources
- Tacitus, Annals
- Tacitus, Agricola
- Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars
- Cassius Dio, Roman History
- Eutropius, Abridgement of Roman History
External links
- Aulus Plautius (http://www.roman-britain.org/people/plautius.htm) at Roman-Britain.org (http://www.roman-britain.org/)
- Crypt of Lucina (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09410c.htm) from the Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/)