Talk:Erucia gens

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The second century Erucii

Are a tangle of problems. They consist of C. Erucius Clarus, his brother-in-law (or uncle) C. Septicius Clarus, & his son Sex. Erucius Clarus.

C. Eurcius Clarus apparently is the Erucius Clarus for whom the Younger Pliny writes a letter (II.9) to Domitius Apollinaris (suffect consul 97) asking his help to obtain the tribune of the plebs. He also is apparently the Erucius Clarus who captured Seleucia in 116 with Julius Alexander, for which both were appointed suffect consul in 117. (So Ronald Syme, citing Dio Cassius 68.30.2)

However, Syme & Alföldy both identify this Erucius Clarus with the consul ordinarius of 146, for whom that was his second consul. The fact that the two men are said to have different praenomina -- Gaius & Sextus -- appears to be of no import for them. Twenty-nine years seem to be a long gap between offices, especially when Clarus held the fasces so late in his life: based on the rule that a non-patrician had to be 32 to hold that office, & Clarus held it no later than 102, he was born c. 70, indicating he held his second consulship at the age of 76!

Further, I can find no source to verify that Erucius Clarus was consul in 117, & the one source I do have about consuls that year -- Werner Eck -- omits all mention of Clarus or Julius Alexander. Someone, maybe Eck maybe Syme, is in err here. (Maybe me.)

So if we differ between the two -- C. Erucius Clarus was suffect consul c. 117, & Sex. Erucius Clarus was consul a second time in 146, & the first time, say 20 years earlier in 126. However, I'm unclear of the relationship between Septicius Clarus & the Erucii Clari: was he the older's brother-in-law or his uncle? He was the maternal uncle to one of them.

Maybe the problem is trying to reconcile the results of research based on differing amounts of primary references? Syme's article was published in 1960, & there's been almost 60 years of work since then. This tangle must be fixed before this article can be more than start quality. (After that, the next problem is to handle the issue Syme raises of the older Clarus' obscurity between the time Pliny wrote his letter, & his appearance in the Parthian War: was he out of Imperial favor? Or did the friendship between him & Pliny happen to end sometime after 105?) -- llywrch (talk) 23:05, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]