Pliny, writing to Praesens, refers to him as a
Lucanian and an inscription concerning
his son has been found at Volceii in
Lucania. His father has been identified as
Lucius Bruttius Maximus, proconsul of
Cyprus in AD 80. As Praesens was the first of his family to hold the consulship, he was considered a
novus homo. The element "Lucius Fulvius Rusticus" in his
polyonymous name is commonly agreed to be his maternal grandfather's name, thus connecting Praesens to the Fulvii Rustici (see
Fulvia gens), a senatorial family from
Cisalpine Gaul. As a teenager, Praesens was a member of the
tresviri capitales, one of the magistracies that comprised the
vigintiviri. This was the least desirable office to hold, for men who held that office rarely had a successful career: Anthony Birley could find only five
tresviri capitales who went on to be governors of consular imperial provinces. However, it is clear that Praesens succeeded despite this inauspicious beginning. Next he received the commission for the
tribunus laticlavius in
Legio I Minervia, when he led a
vexillation from
Germania Inferior to
Pannonia and earned
dona militaria, or military decorations, for service on the
Danube in the
emperor Domitian’s campaigns. He served as
quaestor in
Hispania Baetica, and it may have been at this time that he first became friends with the young Hadrian, but thereafter he retired from public life. In his book on the Roman Senate in this period, Richard Talbert notes that some senators in this period, including Praesens, abandoned their efforts at climbing the chain of offices, discouraged at the lengthy wait they faced to achieve the office of either
praetor or consul. Pliny in 107 wrote to Praesens urging him to no longer remain on his rural estates in
Campania and Lucania but to return to Rome and to public life. Two fragmentary
military diplomas, published in 2002, attest he was suffect consul as the colleague of
Quintus Aburnius Caedicianus; while there is insufficient text to precisely date this document, this pair are thought to have held the fasces at some point in the months November–December 120 or September–December 121. Subsequently, Bruttius was
curator operum publicorum, or overseer of the public works of Rome, then governed
Cappadocia followed by a tenure as governor of
Moesia Inferior from 124 to 128. He was
Proconsul of
Africa in the 130s and appears to have been governor of
Syria in 136 or 137, anomalous for a senior former Proconsul, but perhaps empowered to conduct diplomacy with the
Parthians. In a resplendent end to a long career, his second consulship came in 139, as colleague of the new emperor Antoninus Pius, and at the same time he became
Praefectus urbi, succeeding
Servius Cornelius Scipio Salvidienus Orfitus. However Praesens died in this office the following year, as revealed by a fragment of the
Fasti Ostienses published in 1982. We know from the Tunisian inscription that Praesens was a member of the
Quindecimviri sacris faciundis, one of the more prestigious
collegia of Roman priesthoods.
Eusebius of Caesarea and
John Malalas both cite a writer called 'Bruttius' or 'Boutios' as a source for events in the reign of
Domitian. == Family ==