Tiberius Plautius Silvanus Aelianus

Who is Tiberius Plautius Silvanus Aelianus?

Tiberius Plautius Silvanus Aelianus was a patrician who twice served as consul, in 45 and 74 AD. He was the adopted nephew of Plautia Urgulanilla, first wife of the emperor Claudius. It is known he offered up the prayer as pontifex when the first stone of the new Capitol was laid in 70 AD. In some ancient sources he is referred to as "Plautius Aelianus", but we learn from an inscription that his full name was Tiberius Plautius Silvanus Aelianus, and that he held many important military commands.

Under Nero, from 61 to 66 AD, he served as the legate of Moesia, a province he ruled with a "massive scorched earth policy", and from which he is said to have sent shipments of Moesian wheat to alleviate the food supply of the Roman people, possibly in crisis due to the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD. Later, he was sent to Hispania, which at the time lacked a provincial governor. However in 69 AD the emperor Vespasian wished to appoint Aelianus prefect of the city in place of his brother, Sabinus, who had been murdered. As we know from his funerary inscription, Aelianus was in fact recalled to the city, where Vespasian proposed he receive a triumph for his time in Moesia, a gesture implicitly indicting the ungenerous nature of Nero's rule. The senate ultimately voted to grant Vespasian's proposal.