Gaius Eggius Ambibulus information

Gaius Eggius Ambibulus was a Roman senator active in the second century AD. He was ordinary consul for 126 as the colleague of Marcus Annius Verus; Lucius Valerius Propinquus replaced Verus by 1 March and was his colleague for the remainder of the first nundinium of that year.^[1] Ambibulus is known only through inscriptions.

An inscription from Aeclanum, a town of Campania, which the decurions of that town erected to honor Ambibulus as their patron, preserves his full name, an example of polyonymy: Gaius Eggius Ambibulus Pomponius Longinus Cassianus Lucius Maecius Postumus.^[2] The third element in his name, "Ambibulus", is a cognomen Ronald Syme describes as "peculiar and uncommon"; he could only count five examples of its use in inscriptions found at Rome, and one more in North Africa.^[3] Obviously the fourth and fifth elements in his name come from his mother. Edmund Groag suggested that the last three elements in his name may be due to a testamentary adoption by the suffect consul of the year 98, Lucius Maecius Postumus.^[4] In his study of the politics following the death of Domitian, John D. Grainger describes Postumus as one of "the usual aristocratic drones".^[5] The origins of "Cassianus" in Ambibulus' name are unknown.

Ambibulus' origins are in Aeclanum. Two tombstones erected by Ambibulus provide details of his mother's family. One honors his mother's brother, Marcus Pomponius Bassulus Longinianus;^[6] the other honors his maternal grandfather, Marcus Pomponius Bassulus, and includes a somber funeral poem.^[7] From these inscriptions we can infer his mother's name was Pomponia Longina, and his father's also Eggius Ambibulus.^[8] An inscription from Pisidian Antioch offers the name Eggia C.f. Ambibula, the wife of Publius Calvisius Ruso Julius Frontinus, governor of Cappadocia; she might be Ambibulus' sister or cousin.^[9]