Marcus Mettius Rufus


Marcus Mettius Rufus was a Roman eques who flourished during the reign of the emperors Domitian, and Trajan. He was appointed to a series of imperial offices, including praefectus or governor of Roman Egypt.
Hans-Georg Pflaum first traced the rise of his family, the Mettii, identifying their origins in Petelia, a small Greek-speaking town in Bruttium, whence they emigrated to Arles when Julius Caesar settled one of their ancestors, a soldier or centurion of his Legio VI, there. Rufus' father was Marcus Mettius Modestus, procurator of Syria; he is known to have a brother, Mettius Modestus, suffect consul in 82. Two men have been identified as sons of Rufus: Gaius Trebonius Proculus Mettius Modestus, suffect consul in 103; and Marcus Mettius Rufus, who died before he could reach the consulate.
The earliest office Rufus is known to have held was praefectus annonae prior to the year 88. This person was in charge of the public dole of bread to the inhabitants of Rome. He is attested as holding the office of praefectus of Egypt His tenure in this later office extended from some point before 2 August 89 to some point after 12 July 90.
His primary concern as governor of Egypt was to safeguard the harvest and delivery of grain to the populace of Rome, but surviving letters from his administration show his responsibilities extended further. One records an order he issued 1 October 89 for the inhabitants of Roman Egypt: having learned that records of property ownership have been allowed to become so out of date as to be unusable, Rufus issued an edict that all property owners register the lands they own within the next 6 months, and that legal clerks tighten their processes for updating property records accordingly, as well as revise the records at least once every 5 years.