Bruttius’ life and career left few coherent traces in the literary record, but a number of inscriptions, including his complete cursus honorum, fills out the picture considerably.
The element "Lucius Fulvius Rusticus" in his polyonymous name is commonly agreed to be his maternal grandfather's name, thus connecting Praesens to the Fulvii Rustici (see Fulvia gens), a senatorial family from Cisalpine Gaul.
Next he received the commission for the tribunus laticlavius in Legio I Minervia, when he led a vexillation from Germania Inferior to Pannonia and earned dona militaria, or military decorations, for service on the Danube in the emperor Domitian’s campaigns.
Praesens is next heard of in the winter of 114/115, during Trajan's Parthian war, commanding Legio VI Ferrata, during which, according to a fragment of the Parthica of Arrian he marched in deep snow (having secured snowshoes from native guides) across the Armenian Taurus Mountains to reach Tigranakert.
[6] Two fragmentary military diplomas, published in 2002, attest he was suffect consul as the colleague of Quintus Aburnius Caedicianus; while there is insufficient text to precisely date this document, this pair are thought to have held the fasces at some point in the months September-December 118 or July-October 119.
In a resplendent end to a long career, his second consulship came in 139, as colleague of the new emperor Antoninus Pius, and at the same time he became Praefectus urbi, succeeding Servius Cornelius Scipio Salvidienus Orfitus.