Lucius Fabius Cilo, full name Lucius Fabius Cilo Septiminus Catinius Acilianus Lepidus Fulcinianus, was a Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 senator

Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...

 of the 2nd century. He was born in Hispania

Hispania

Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....

, around 150 AD.

It was between 180 and 184 he became the Legate

Legatus

A legatus was a general in the Roman army, equivalent to a modern general officer. Being of senatorial rank, his immediate superior was the dux, and he outranked all military tribunes...

 for the XVI Flavia Firma

Legio XVI Flavia Firma

Legio sexta decima Flavia Firma was a Roman legion. The legion was created by Emperor Vespasian in 70, with the remains of the XVI Gallica , and still existed in the 4th century, when it guarded the Euphrates border camped in Sura . The emblem of the legion was a lion....

 and military Prefect (approx. 187-189). Around 185 it became Pro consul

Proconsul

A proconsul was a governor of a province in the Roman Republic appointed for one year by the senate. In modern usage, the title has been used for a person from one country ruling another country or bluntly interfering in another country's internal affairs.-Ancient Rome:In the Roman Republic, a...

 of the Roman Province of Gallia Narbonensis and afterwards Legate of III Gallica

Legio III Gallica

Legio tertia Gallica was a Roman legion levied by Julius Caesar around 49 BC, for his civil war against the conservative republicans led by Pompey. The cognomen Gallica suggests that recruits were originally from the Gallic Roman provinces. The legion was still active in Egypt in the early 4th...

, about 189 to 192.

Cilo was made consul

Consul

Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...

 suffectus in 193. In this role, he provided for the tumulation of the body of Commodus

Commodus

Commodus , was Roman Emperor from 180 to 192. He also ruled as co-emperor with his father Marcus Aurelius from 177 until his father's death in 180. His name changed throughout his reign; see changes of name for earlier and later forms. His accession as emperor was the first time a son had succeeded...

 in the Mausoleum of Hadrian

Castel Sant'Angelo

The Mausoleum of Hadrian, usually known as the Castel Sant'Angelo, is a towering cylindrical building in Parco Adriano, Rome, Italy. It was initially commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself and his family...

, by order of Pertinax

Pertinax

Pertinax , was Roman Emperor for three months in 193. He is known as the first emperor of the tumultuous Year of the Five Emperors. A high ranking military and Senatorial figure, he tried to restore discipline in the Praetorian Guards, whereupon they rebelled and killed him...

 (Historia Augusta, "Commodus", xvii 4). The following year, during the rule of Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus , also known as Severus, was Roman Emperor from 193 to 211. Severus was born in Leptis Magna in the province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of...

, his intimate friend, Cilo fought against the usurper Pescennius Niger

Pescennius Niger

Pescennius Niger was a Roman usurper from 193 to 194 during the Year of the Five Emperors. He claimed the imperial throne in response to the murder of Pertinax and the elevation of Didius Julianus, but was defeated by a rival claimant, Septimius Severus and killed while attempting to flee from...

 near Perinthus.

Nominated praefectus urbi, mayor

Mayor

In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....

 of Rome, for year 203, he saved the life of procurator

Procurator (Roman)

A procurator was the title of various officials of the Roman Empire, posts mostly filled by equites . A procurator Augusti was the governor of the smaller imperial provinces...

 Marcus Opellius Macrinus

Macrinus

Macrinus , was Roman Emperor from 217 to 218. Macrinus was of "Moorish" descent and the first emperor to become so without membership in the senatorial class.-Background and career:...

 (later emperor), when his patron Plautianus fell into disgrace (Cassius Dio, Roman History, lxxix). The next year he was nominated consul for the second time.

Cilo served also under Caracalla

Caracalla

Caracalla , was Roman emperor from 198 to 217. The eldest son of Septimius Severus, he ruled jointly with his younger brother Geta until he murdered the latter in 211...

. When the emperor decided to kill his own brother and co-ruler Geta

Publius Septimius Geta

Geta , was a Roman Emperor co-ruling with his father Septimius Severus and his older brother Caracalla from 209 to his death.-Early life:Geta was the younger son of Septimius Severus by his second wife Julia Domna...

 and Papinian, Cilo, who had counselled harmony between the brothers, was seized by the urbaniciani, and only after the soldiers had torn off his senator's robe and pulled off his boots, Caracalla stopped them. According to Cassius Dio:

He [Caracalla] also wished to take the life of Cilo, his tutor and benefactor, who had served as prefect of the city under his father, and whom he himself had often called "father." The soldiers who were sent to Cilo first plundered his silver plate, his robes, his money, and everything else of his, and then led him along the Sacred Way with the purpose of taking him to the palace and there putting him out of the way; he had only low slippers on his feet, since he had chanced to be in the bath when arrested, and was wearing a short tunic. The soldiers tore the clothing off his body and disfigured his face, so that the populace as well as the city troops began to make an outcry; accordingly, Antoninus, in awe and fear of them, met the party, and shielding Cilo with his cavalry cloak (he was wearing military dress), cried out: "Insult not my father! Strike not my tutor!" As for the military tribune who had been bidden to slay him and the detail of soldiers sent with him, they were put to death, ostensibly because they had plotted Cilo's destruction, but in reality because they had not killed him.

Antoninus pretended to love Cilo to such a degree that he declared, "Those who have plotted against him have plotted against me" [...]

Cassius Dio, Roman History, lxxviii 4-5

He married Cilonia Fabia.

A domus

Domus

In ancient Rome, the domus was the type of house occupied by the upper classes and some wealthy freedmen during the Republican and Imperial eras. They could be found in almost all the major cities throughout the Roman territories...

 on the Aventine was given as a present by Severus to Cilo. This domus, showed also in the Forma Urbis Romae

Forma Urbis Romae

The Forma Urbis Romae or Severan Marble Plan is a massive marble map of ancient Rome, created under the emperor Septimius Severus between 203 and 211...

, is presently under the basilica and the monastery of Santa Balbina

Santa Balbina

Santa Balbina is a basilica church in Rome, devoted to St. Balbina. It was built in the 4th century over the house of consul Lucius Fabius Cilo on the Aventine Hill, behind the Baths of Caracalla. Possibly the ancient Titulus Tigridae, the basilica was consecrated by Pope Gregory I.The adjoining...

, and was close to the horti Ciloniae Fabiae.