Marcus Lollius - Biography

Biography

Of Plebeian descent, it is assumed that Marcus Lollius was the “Marcus” referred to in Appian’s Civil Wars. In it, Appian recounts that Lollius was a legate of Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger who, after the Battle of Philippi, had been proscribed. Hiding himself as a slave, he was purchased by a “Barbula” (assumed to be Quintus Aemilius Lepidus), before his identity was revealed by a friend to Lepidus in Rome. Lepidus went to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa who interceded on his behalf with Octavianus, who then ensured that Lollius’ name was removed from the proscription lists. Joining Octavianus, Lollius was the first governor of Galatia (25 BC), and he fought in the Battle of Actium (31 BC) where he interceded before Octavianus on behalf of Lepidus, who had been captured while fighting for Marcus Antonius.

Lollius served as consul in 21 BC alongside his old friend Quintus Aemilius Lepidus. In 16 BC, when governor of Gaul (Bergmanus), he was defeated by the Sicambri and Tencteri and Usipetes, German tribes who had crossed the Rhine. This defeat (the "clades Lolliana") is coupled by Suetonius with the disaster of Publius Quinctilius Varus, but it was disgraceful rather than dangerous.

Lollius was subsequently (2 BC) attached in the capacity of tutor and adviser to Gaius Caesar on his mission to the East. Gaius was a son of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder. His maternal grandparents were Augustus and his second wife Scribonia.

Lollius was accused of extortion and treachery to the state, and denounced by Gaius to the Roman Emperor. To avoid punishment he is said to have taken poison. According to Velleius Paterculus and Pliny, he was a hypocrite and cared for nothing but amassing wealth. It was formerly thought that this was the Lollius whom Horace described as a model of integrity and superior to avarice in Odes iv.9, but it seems hardly likely that this Ode, as well as the two Lollian epistles of Horace (i.2 and 18), was addressed to him. All three must have been addressed to the same individual, a young man, probably the son of this Lollius. He had a son of the same name.

A. Degrassi suggested that this son was consul suffectus in AD 13, followed by P.A. Brunt. R. Syme and G. Stern disagreed. By AD 13 Tiberius was powerful and had little reason to allow his enemy's son to reach the consulship. A few years later Tiberius criticized the older (dead) Lollius to the Senate.

His son, the younger Marcus Lollius Paulinus served as a consul. He married Volusia Saturnina, a sister of senator and consul Lucius Volusius Saturninus by whom he had two daughters: Lollia Paulina a brief Empress who was the third wife of Emperor Caligula and Lollia Saturnina who was married to the consul Decimus Valerius Asiaticus.