Titus Avidius Quietus

Titus Avidius Quietus (died by 107 AD) was a Roman politician and senator active during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. The offices he held included suffect consul in AD 93 and governor of Roman Britain around 98.

Background Pliny the Younger mentions that Quietus was an intimate friend of the Stoic philosopher Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus, a fact Anthony Birley uses to deduce Quietus was born in the early AD 40s. Literary references to other members of his family, the Avidii, indicates they had their origins in Faventia (modern Faenza, Italy), located on the Via Aemilia. Archeological evidence points to Quietus owning at least two houses at Rome, and inscriptions found in Sardinia indicate he owned estates on that island.

Political career Only two posts from his career before he was appointed to the consulship are known. In 82 the veterans of Legio VIII Augusta stationed in Germania Inferior asked Quietus, who is described as leg. Aug. ornatissimo viro, to become the patron of the colony of Deultum in Thrace, where they had settled. This petition, recorded in an inscription set up in Rome, led Birley to suspect that Quietus "was chosen as patron of Deultum because he was legionary legate at the time the men were settled, i.e. in 82." Later, perhaps in 91–2, Quietus served as proconsul of Achaea; Birley suggests it was while in this post that Quietus became the friend of Plutarch, who mentions him fondly in his Quaest. conv. and De fraterno amore.

His career after Britain, if any, is unknown. Birley concludes that he was dead by the time Pliny wrote his second letter mentioning him, which experts date to c. 107.

Family Literary references to other members of his family, the Avidii, indicates they had their origins in Faventia (modern Faenza, Italy), located on the Via Aemilia. Quietus had a son of the same name. The younger Avidius Quietus was suffect consul in 111, and later Proconsul of Asia. The nephew of the older Quietus, Gaius Avidius Nigrinus, consul in 110, was put to death at Faventia in 118 on charges of conspiring against Hadrian. However Nigrinus' daughter, Avidia, married the man Hadrian later was to adopt and make his successor, Lucius Ceionius Commodus.