Lucius Flavius Aper

Who is Lucius Flavius Aper?

Aper was a Roman soldier and public servant in the second half of the Third Century AD who rose to the highest office in the Imperial Service only to fall in the most spectacular fashion. His career coincided with and benefited from the momentous changes in the structure of the Roman army and the Roman state introduced by the Emperor Gallienus and his successors that brought members of the Roman equestrian order with military backgrounds to the fore in the government of the Empire. Obviously a man of considerable ability, he nevertheless owed his final success to patronage and influence - in his case to the relationship he achieved with the current Imperial Family. Similarly his fall was a consequence of bad luck and bad judgement which brought him into fatal conflict with the future Emperor Diocletian.