Ru'sticus, Ju'nius
2. L.
Junius Arulenus Rusticus, more usually ally called Arulenus Rusticus, but sometimes also Junius Rusticus. Lipsius, however, has shown that his full name was L. Junius Arulenus Rusticus (
ad Tac. Agr. 45). Rusticus was a friend and pupil of Paetus Thrasea, and, like the latter, an ardent admirer of the Stoic philosophy.
He was tribune of the plebs B. C. 66, in which year Thrasea was condemned to death by the senate; and he would have placed his veto upon the senatusconsultum, had not Thrasea prevented him, as he would only have brought certain destruction upon himself without saving the life of his master.
He was praetor in the civil wars after the death of Nero, A. D. 69, and was subsequently put to death by Domitian, because he wrote a panegyric upon Thrasea. Suetonius attributes to him a panegyric upon Helvidius Priscus likewise; but the latter work was composed by Herennius Senecio, as we learn both from Tacitus and Pliny [SENECIO]. (
Tac. Ann. 16.25,
Hist. 3.80,
Agr. 2;
Suet. Dom. 10;
D. C. 67.13; Plin.
Ep.i . 5, 14, 3.11; Plut.
de Curios. p. 522d.)
