Quintus Aelius Tubero

Quintus Aelius Tubero was a Stoic philosopher and a pupil of Panaetius of Rhodes. He had a reputation for talent and legal knowledge. He was a tribunate in 130 BC. He also possibly became a suffect consul in 118 BC. Cicero spoke of his character in parallel to his oratorical style: " harsh, unpolished, and austere." Despite this, Cicero also calls him "a man of the most rigid virtue, and strictly conformable to the doctrine he professed." He was the grandson of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, Thus, he was both the brother-in-law of Cato the Younger, and also the nephew of Scipio Aemilianus. This association, alongside the approval of Panaetius, gave him access to the Scipionic Circle. When Scipio Aemilianus died mysteriously in 129 BC, Tubero was responsible for the funeral arrangements. With Cynic-like aesthetics, he arragned Punic couches with goatskin covers and Samian pottery. The lack of public grandeur, allegedly, lost him the election for praetorship. Panaetius wrote an epistle to Tubero concerning endurance of pain. A scholar of Panaetius dedicated a treatise called De Officiis to Tubero.