View source for Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus

{{Short description|Politician of the Roman Empire}}
[[File:Diptych Nicomachi-Symmachi collated.jpg|thumb|[[Symmachi–Nicomachi diptych]]; the left leaf is at the [[Musée National du Moyen Âge]], Paris, the right leaf is at the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]] in London. It is possible that this diptych, honouring the bond between the two aristocratic and pagan families of the [[Symmachi]] and [[Nicomachi]], was issued in occasion of Memmius' marriage with a woman of the Nicomachi in 401.]]

'''Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus''' (383/384 – after 402) was a politician of the [[Roman Empire]], member of the influential family of the [[Symmachi]].

== Biography ==

He was son of the orator and politician [[Quintus Aurelius Symmachus]] and of [[Rusticiana]]; he was born in 383/384. Memmius had an elder sister, Galla, who married [[Nicomachus Flavianus (son)|Nicomachus Flavianus]], son of [[Virius Nicomachus Flavianus]].

At the age of ten, he became [[quaestor]], celebrating the public games connected with his office in December 393. Memmius was well educated, and studied [[Greek language]]; his father approved his style in writing letters and, in 401, he studied with a Gallic rhetor as his tutor. The year 401 marked several important events in Memmius' life: he married the granddaughter of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus;<ref>Alan Cameron, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/4436559 "The Antiquity of the Symmachi"], ''[[Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte]]'', '''48''' (1999), p. 503</ref><ref>It was probably in this occasion that the bond between the two aristocratic, pagan families was celebrated with the issue of a [[diptych]], whose valves are entitled one ''Nicomachorum'' and the other ''Symmachorum'' (Serena Ensoli, Eugenio La Rocca, ''Aurea Roma. Dalla città pagana alla città cristiana'',  L'ERMA di BRETSCHNEIDER, 2000, {{ISBN|88-8265-126-6}}, p. 467).</ref> he also celebrated the games connected with the second step in his ''[[cursus honorum]]'', the office of [[praetor]] (these games were postponed from 400, in order to allow Aurelius Symmachus to be present, and cost 2000 pounds of gold).

It was probably Memmius who, belonging to a family practicing the old Roman religion, built a temple devoted to [[Flora (mythology)|Flora]] in Rome; he is also the author of a dedicatory inscription in honour of his father-in-law Flavianus ([[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum|CIL]], [[:la:s:Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum/Tomus VI#1782|VI, 1782]]). After his father's death ''ca.'' 402, Memmius edited part of his correspondence (which Symmachus himself had likely started to do). {{cn|date=September 2022}}

== Notes ==
<references/>

== Bibliography ==
* [[Arnold Hugh Martin Jones]], [[John Robert Martindale]], [[John Morris (storico)|John Morris]], "Q. Fabius Memmius Symmachus 10", ''[[The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire]]'', Cambridge University Press, 1971, {{ISBN|0-521-20159-4}}, pp.&nbsp;1046–1047.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Symmachus, Quintus Fabius Memmius}}
[[Category:4th-century Romans]]
[[Category:5th-century Romans]]
[[Category:380s births]]
[[Category:5th-century deaths]]
[[Category:Year of birth uncertain]]
[[Category:Year of death unknown]]
[[Category:Imperial Roman praetors]]
[[Category:Aurelii Symmachi|Quintus Fabius Memmius]]
[[Category:Fabii|Symmachus, Quintus Fabius Memmius]]
[[Category:Memmii|Symmachus, Quintus Fabius]]
[[Category:Late-Roman-era pagans]]