Origins and Early Life
According to Dio, Thrasea belonged to a distinguished and wealthy family. It is certain that this family came from Patavium, but it is not known whether he was born there or in Rome. Certainly he maintained close links with Patavium, in later life taking an important part in the city's traditional festival. Nothing is known for certain of his early career, nor through whose influence he succeeded in entering the senate. By 42, however, he was married to Caecinia Arria, daughter of Caecina Paetus (suffect consul in 37). In that year Caecina was implicated in the revolt of Scribonianus against Claudius, probably with the aim of restoring the republic. According to his daughter Fannia, whose account is preserved in a letter of Pliny, Thrasea attempted unsuccessfully to prevent his mother-in-law Arria from killing herself along with her husband. It was probably after the death of Caecina Paetus that Thrasea added the name Paetus to his own, a very unusual step for a son-in-law and one which advertised his connection with an enemy of the emperor.
We have no information on the chronology of Thrasea's progression through the lower ranks of the cursus honorum. It is possible, but by no means certain, that his political career was at a standstill at least in the early years of Claudius' reign. He was consul in Nov.-Dec. 56 under Nero, perhaps due to the influence of Nero's adviser Seneca, who had preceded him in office in the same year. At some date probably not long after this, he was still in enough favour to be given an honorific priesthood as quindecimvir sacris faciundis. By the time of his consulship he had also acquired an important political ally in his son-in-law Helvidius Priscus.
There are some indications that Thrasea's rise to prominence may have been helped by activity in the lawcourts. At some point between 52 and 62 (whether before or after his consulship is not clear) he probably held some provincial governorship; this is the implication of the statement in the Life of Persius that the young poet 'travelled abroad' with his inlaw. Senators did not normally travel outside Italy simply for fun.
Read more about this topic: Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus
Famous quotes containing the words origins and, origins, early and/or life:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It’s all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom.”
—Erma Bombeck (20th century)
“Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child’s world and thus a world event.”
—Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962)