Extract

A significant public figure in the time of *Trajan, although attempts to reconstruct his career are largely speculative and depend partly on the disputed attribution to him of an acephalous inscription also ascribed to L. *Licinius Sura (ILS 1022). Married to the daughter of the distinguished Sex. *Iulius Frontinus, he was one of the first two ordinary consuls of the reign (for consules ordinariisee consul), and the date of his second consulship held with Sura, and the honorary statue granted to him by the emperor (Cass. Dio 68. 16), suggest that he held a command in the second Dacian war (105–6; see dacia). On one hypothesis he had already held a governorship, perhaps in Upper *Moesia (cf. Plin.Ep. 4. 4).Senecio was a cultured man, interested in poetry and philosophy, a friend of *Pliny the Younger, whose literary interests he shared, and of *Plutarch, who dedicated several works to him, including the Parallel Lives and Table Talk, and refers to many congenial conversations over dinner; Senecio also enjoyed the friendship of *Hadrian (SHAHadr.