Verus was the son of an elder Marcus Annius Verus, who gained the rank of
senator and
praetor. The
Annia gens was ancient. Its first known member is mentioned by Livy as
praetor of
Setia, in central Italy, for the year 340 BC; the branch of the Annii Veri settled in the colony of Ucubi (modern
Espejo) near Corduba (modern
Córdoba) in the
Roman province of
Hispania Baetica. The family came to prominence and became wealthy through
olive oil production in
Spain. He was close friends with the emperor
Hadrian. He was
urban prefect of
Rome and was enrolled as a
patrician when
Vespasian and
Titus were
censors. Verus was three times
consul, the first time as a suffect in 97, then as ordinary consul in both 121 and 126. This is apparently the cause for a "very strange inscription, found on a large marble tablet excavated in the sixteenth century at
St. Peter's in Rome" which alludes to this achievement while celebrating his skill "playing with a glass ball".
Edward Champlin notes it was likely the creation of a friendly rival,
Lucius Julius Ursus Servianus, who also held the consulate three times the last after Verus. He died in 138, aged nearly ninety. Marcus Aurelius says in his "Meditations": "From my grandfather Verus, [I learned] a kindly disposition and sweetness of temper". In his elder years, he had a mistress, of whom he expresses gratitude that "I wasn’t raised by my grandfather's mistress for longer than I was". == Family ==