Quintus Baebius Macer
Quintus Baebius Macer was a Roman senator active in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD. He served as suffect consul for April to June 103, alongside Publius Metilius Nepos, and he also held the post of Urban Prefect of Rome. He was a patron of the poet Martial and knew Pliny the Younger, who wrote him a letter listing the works of Pliny the Elder, apparently in response to a question from Macer.
His career is not fully known. The praetorship is usually dated to around 90–94. From Martial’s poetry we also know he was curator of the Via Appia around 95 and governor of Hispania Baetica about 100/101. After returning from Baetica, he was active in the Senate as an orator. Pliny records two occasions in which Macer spoke in Senate proceedings: before his consulship, he urged punishment in the case against Julius Bassus for mismanagement of Bithynia and Pontus; and in a money dispute involving Marcus Egnatius Marcellinus, he proposed that the imperial scribe’s heirs be paid when the scribe died before payment, rather than paying the imperial treasury.
He became Urban Prefect after his consulship, but before Trajan’s death. According to the Historia Augusta, Hadrian’s former guardian Attianus advised the emperor to have Macer killed for opposing Hadrian, but Hadrian did not act. What happened to Macer after he left the office of Urban Prefect is not known.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 21:33 (CET).