Publius Pomponius Secundus was a distinguished statesman and poet in the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius.
His full name was Publius Calvisius Sabinus Pomponius Secundus, as indicated by two fragmentary inscriptions from Germania Superior.
[3] That his praenomen was Publius, at least after his adoption, seems to be confirmed by an inscription from Veii, dating from his consulship, another from Cyrenae, when he was proconsul, and a third from Mogontiacum, when he was Legatus Augusti pro praetore.
Upon the latter's denunciation and execution in October of that year, mobs hunted down and killed anyone they could link to Sejanus.
[8][9][10] Tiberius died in 37, and his successor Caligula promptly released Pomponius from prison and appointed him as governor of the senatorial province of Creta et Cyrenaica.
In 50, Pomponius led the Roman legions to victory against the Chatti and freed the survivors of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest after forty years of slavery.
They are spoken of in the highest terms by Tacitus, Quintilian, and the younger Pliny, and were read even in a much later age, as one of them is quoted by the grammarian Charisius.
Quintilian asserts that he was far superior to any writer of tragedies he had known, and Tacitus expresses a high opinion of his literary abilities.
Tragedians in the Julio-Claudian and Flavian periods typically were men of relatively high social status, and their works often expressed their political views under an insufficient veil of fiction.