Gaius Asinius Quadratus


Gaius Asinius Quadratus was a Greek historian of Rome and Parthia in the third century. He was a senator who wrote a 15-book history of Rome, Chilieteris, which, according to the Suda, covered the period from the founding of Rome until the rule of Alexander Severus. He also wrote a Parthika in nine books, presumably a narrative of the Parthian campaigns of the preceding century. Some scholars attribute to him a Germanika, as well, although this is debated. All of his works were in Greek.
Thirty fragments of his work remain, which have been published by Felix Jacoby in the Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Most of these derive from the dictionary of Stephanus of Byzantium.
The "thousand years" of Quadratus' title has been explained in various ways. Jacoby argues that Quadratus unusually dated the founding of Rome to the first Olympiad in 776. Zecchini, though, claims that Quadratus used the traditional dating of the founding of Rome and intended the work to extend to 248, when Philip the Arab celebrated the first millennium, but that he died before its completion.
Asinius is the nomen of the gens Asinia of ancient Rome. He was the son of Gaius Julius Asinius Quadratus, who was brother of Gaius Asinius Rufus and Gaius Asinius Quadratus Protimus, Proconsul of Achaea circa 211 or in 220. These brothers were sons of Gaius Asinius Nicomachus and his wife and cousin Julia Quadratilla , and grandchildren of Gaius Asinius Rufus, a notable in Lydia in 134 and 135 who became a Roman senator in 136, and wife Julia.