Marcus Aponius Saturninus

Marcus Aponius Saturninus was a Senator of Imperial Rome who was the child of wealthy senatorial parents, who owned property in Egypt. He is mentioned in the Acta Arvalia in the year 57; classicist Ronald Syme suggests that he was made a member of the Arval Brethren due to the influence of Annaeus Seneca. Saturninus is mentioned 66 as being present for sacrifices on the Capitol with the emperor Nero. Tacitus calls him a consul, but the date of his office is uncertain. He may have been consul in 55; Paul Gallivan has argued that Saturninus was suffect consul between 63 and 66, by which time he was recorded as becoming promagister. We hear of him as serving as the governor of Moesia in 69, which may have been an appointment of Galba. He repulsed the Sarmatians, who had invaded the province, and was in consequence rewarded by a triumphal statue at the commencement of Otho's reign.

In the struggle between Vitellius and Vespasian during the Year of the Four Emperors, Saturninus first espoused the cause of Vitellius, with his relation Gaius Dillius Aponianus, and reported on the fomenting rebellion in a letter to Vitellius. He seemed to only stick with Vitellius while this was a safe bet, however, and afterwards declared himself in favor of Vespasian, and crossed the Alps to join Marcus Antonius Primus in northern Italy. Saturninus decided to use the confusion of the shifting loyalties of the legions and tried to have killed the well-liked Tettius Julianus, a partisan of Vespasian in his legion, and brother-in-law of Vespasian's finance minister, on the pretext that Tettius was actually a secret Vitellius supporter. Primus, who was anxious to obtain the supreme command, excited a mutiny of the soldiers against Saturninus, who had after all attempted to assassinate pro-Vespasian factions in his legion. Saturninus was compelled to fly from the camp.

His fate afterwards is uncertain. While he was proconsul of Asia, which has been dated in the past to 73/74, Syme has pointed out some weaknesses in that argument, and argued that his office should instead be dated to 67/68. Based on Syme's proposed earlier date, and the fact he last appears in the records of the Arval Brethren January 69, it is possible Saturninus died not long after fleeing the legion.

There is a story of a man named "Aponius Saturninus" during the reign of the emperor Caligula, who may be the same as this Aponius Saturninus. In this tale, Caligula, keen to replenish the treasury he himself had depleted, decided to auction off some imperial gladiators. During the auction, Aponius Saturninus nodded off. Caligula noticed this and told the auctioneer to consider each of Aponius's nods as a bid. By the time Aponius had woken up, he'd purchased 13 gladiators for the astronomical sum of 9 million sesterces.