Anicius Probinus

Flavius Anicius Probinus (fl 395-397) was a politician and aristocrat of the Roman Empire.

Biography

A member of the noble gens Anicia, Probinus was the son of Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus, one of the most influential men of his era and consul in 371, and of Anicia Faltonia Proba; he was then the brother of Anicius Hermogenianus Olybrius, Anicius Petronius Probus and Anicia Proba. According to a reconstruction,^[1] Probinus was the father of Petronius Maximus, briefly Western Roman emperor in the spring of 455.

Probinus was raised with his brother Olybrius in Rome, where he was born.^[2] He divided with his brother the consulate in the year 395, while both were very young;^[3] on this occasion to the two brothers was dedicated a panegyric by Claudian (Panegyricus de consulatu Probini et Olybrii). Although they originated in a family belonging to the Roman senatorial aristocracy, traditionally pagan, Olybrius and Probinus were Christians; the appointment as consuls of these two Christians may have been a signal, desired by the emperor Theodosius I, the very next year to the usurpation and Pagan restoration of Eugenius.

Probinus was then proconsul of Africa in 396-397.^[4]

With his brother he received the dedication of the work Exempla elocutionum by Arusianus Messius, and both received a letter (Epistles, v) by Quintus Aurelius Symmachus in 397. It is known that he composed verses.

Notes

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Claudian, Panegyricus de consulatu Probini et Olybrii
• CIL VI, 1752

Secondary sources

• Arnold Hugh Martin Jones, John Robert Martindale, John Morris, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, 1971, ISBN 0-521-07233-6, pp. 734-735.
• Drinkwater, John, and Hugh Elton, Fifth-Century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity?, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-521-52933-6, pp. 119-120.
• Hartmut Leppin, Theodosius der Große. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2003, p. 222.