Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus

Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus (died 66 AD), Roman senator, lived in the 1st century AD. Notable for his principled opposition to the emperor Nero and his interest in Stoicism, he was the husband of Arria the daughter of A. Caecina Paetus and the elder Arria, father-in-law of Helvidius Priscus, and a friend and relative by marriage of the poet Persius.

According to Dio, Thrasea belonged to a distinguished and wealthy family. It is certain that this family came from Patavium, but it is not known whether he was born there or in Rome. Certainly he maintained close links with Patavium, in later life taking an important part in the city's traditional festival. Nothing is known for certain of his early career, nor through whose influence he succeeded in entering the senate. By 42, however, he was married to Caecinia Arria, daughter of Caecina Paetus (suffect consul in 37). In that year Caecina was implicated in the revolt of Scribonianus against Claudius, probably with the aim of restoring the republic. According to his daughter Fannia, whose account is preserved in a letter of Pliny, Thrasea attempted unsuccessfully to prevent his mother-in-law Arria from killing herself along with her husband. It was probably after the death of Caecina Paetus that Thrasea added the name Paetus to his own, a very unusual step for a son-in-law and one which advertised his connection with an enemy of the emperor.

We have no information on the chronology of Thrasea's progression through the lower ranks of the cursus honorum. It is possible, but by no means certain, that his political career was at a standstill at least in the early years of Claudius' reign. He was suffect consul November -December 56 under Nero, perhaps due to the influence of Nero's adviser Seneca, who had preceded him in office in the same year. At some date probably not long after this, he was still in enough favour to be given an honorific priesthood as quindecimvir sacris faciundis. By the time of his consulship he had also acquired an important political ally in his son-in-law Helvidius Priscus.

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