Marcus Mettius Rufus
{{short description|1st century Roman eques and governor of Egypt}}
{{Infobox governor
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Marcus Mettius Rufus
| honorific_suffix =
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| order =
| office = Governor of Roman Egypt
| term_start = 89
| term_end = 92
| lieutenant =
| predecessor = Gaius Septimius Vegetus
| successor = Titus Petronius Secundus
|birth_date = {{circa|1st century}}
|birth_place = Arles, Gallia Narbonensis, Roman Empire
|death_date = {{circa|1st century}}
|death_place = Roman Empire
| occupation = Ancient Roman politician
| known_for =
}}
Marcus Mettius Rufus was a Roman eques who flourished during the reign of the emperors Domitian and Trajan. He was appointed to a series of imperial offices, including praefectus or governor of Roman Egypt.
Hans-Georg Pflaum first traced the rise of his family, the Mettii, identifying their origins in Petelia, a small Greek-speaking town in Bruttium, whence they emigrated to Arles when Julius Caesar settled one of their ancestors, a soldier or centurion of his Legio VI, there. Rufus' father was Marcus Mettius Modestus, procurator of Syria; he is known to have a brother, Mettius Modestus, suffect consul in 82. Two men have been identified as sons of Rufus: Gaius Trebonius Proculus Mettius Modestus, suffect consul in 103;Bernard Rémy, [http://www.persee.fr/doc/anatv_1013-9559_1989_mon_2_1 Les carrières sénatoriales dans les provinces romaines d'Anatolie au Haut-Empire (31 av. J.-C. - 284 ap. J.-C.)] (Istanbul: Institut Français d'Études Anatoliennes-Georges Dumézil, 1989), p. 292 and Marcus Mettius Rufus, who died before he could reach the consulate.Rémy, Les carrières sénatoriales, p. 293
Career
While it can be assumed Mettius Rufus passed through the tres militiae, the first steps of every equestrian career, the earliest office Rufus is known to have held was praefectus annonae at some point prior to 88. This person was in charge of the public dole of bread to the inhabitants of Rome. He is attested as holding the office of praefectus of Egypt from some point before 2 August 89 (his predecessor is last attested in office 26 February 88) to some point after 12 July 90 (his successor is first attested on 14 March 92).Guido Bastianini, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20180880 "Lista dei prefetti d'Egitto dal 30a al 299p"], Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 17 (1975), pp. 277-278
His primary concern as governor of Egypt was to safeguard the harvest and delivery of grain to the populace of Rome, but surviving letters from his administration show his responsibilities extended further. One records an edict he issued on 1 October 89 for the inhabitants of Roman Egypt: having learned that records of property ownership were allowed to become so out of date as to be unusable, Rufus issued an edict that all property owners register the lands they owned within the next six months, and that legal clerks tighten their processes for updating property records accordingly, as well as revise the records at least once every five years.Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 237, col. 8 lines 27-43. English translation in A. S. Hunt and C.C. Edgar, Select Papyri, II. Non-literary Papyri. Public Documents (London: Loeb, 1932), pp. 104-109 no. 219 The motivation for his edict may have been that the 14-year tax cycle for the province fell in that year.Richard Duncan-Jones, Money and government in the Roman empire (Cambridge: University Press, 1994), p. 61
Another record concerns the administration of the trade route between Coptos on the Nile and the Red Sea ports. Inscribed on 10 May 90 by Antistius Asiaticus, prefect of the port of Berenice, it lists the tax levied on goods brought through that port of entry, assessed per type of person: for example a skipper of a Red Sea boat is tariffed at eight drachmas, a sailor five drachmas, a craftsman eight drachmas, and a prostitute 108 drachmas.IGRR 1.1183 = OGIS ii.674. English translation in Robert K. Sherk, The Roman Empire: Augustus to Hadrian (Cambridge: University Press, 1988), p. 107
References
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{{succession box |
before=Gaius Septimius Vegetus |
title=Prefect of Egypt |
years=89–92 |
after= Titus Petronius Secundus |
}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mettius Rufus, Marcus}}
Category:1st-century Roman governors of Egypt