Ahve, and welcome to Empress of Rome, a podcast about the rulers of the ancient Roman Empire.

I'm your host Matt Smith, and with me today through the wonders of

Skype is Dr Alice Conig, lecturer in Latin and classical studies at the University of

St Andrews in Scotland. This is episode L.I. Frontinus was a respected senator during the days of

Demission, Nervar, and Trajan. He had a background in the military and he's the man that wrote the book on Rome's

aqueducts. He is Alice Conig.

Frontonis ended up becoming one of Rome's most influential senators at the very start of the Nervyn and Trajanic

era, but he obviously starts his career rather earlier than that.

So we're not sure exactly where he came from, but we think he probably came from somewhere in Gaul.

He's not native Roman and his family status was probably equestrian so he's not coming from a

senatorial family. In other words he's someone who rises higher than his family origins.

But we do know that he was admitted to the Senate at some point probably in the late 60s.

Probably, actually under Nero, possibly it was a little bit later under Vespasian and he

went on to have initially a fairly predictable career so we hear of him in AD70, for example, serving as Priter Abanas, that's a civic

administrative post in Rome and he convened the Senate in that capacity at the start of AD70 and then relinquished the post to the young demission.

We know that he probably became consul for the first time around AD73 and he then had some military

service in the Rhineland region sometime in the early 70s under

Vespasian probably and then references in one of his own texts suggest that he also served under Demission in some of

Demissions German campaigns against the Chati in around 83 AD.

Particularly interesting for me is that he was governor of Britain from around 74 to 78 AD and the

historian Tacitus tells us about this in his biography the agricula he tells us

that from Tainis under his leadership, the legions in Britain subdued

...