Gaius Julius Severus was a Roman senator and aristocrat of the second century. He was suffect consul around the year 138. Severus was a member of the ancient aristocracy of Asia Minor that persisted into Roman times. He claimed to have descended from Celtic and Macedonian Greek royalty, especially Attalus II, ruler of Galatia. More certainly, he was the son of Gaius Julius Quadratus. He is known to have a brother, Julius Amyntianus, and he is attested to have married Claudia Aquilla. Career Severus is notable for having held offices both in the cursus of his native Ancyra, the capital of Roman Galatia, as well as in the Roman cursus honorum. At a young age Severus held the offices of agoranoma, or overseer of the marketplace, agonothet; or overseer of the local games; and archon of Ancyra. He was also a flamen of the Imperial Cult at Ancyra, where he demonstrated his generosity by providing from his own purse oil to the inhabitants of the city, using the money allocated for this purpose to the maintenance of public buildings. Likewise his wife, also a priestess, showed munificence. He also demonstrated his generosity towards the emperor, providing provisions for the soldiers in the Winter of 113/114 as they marched to Trajan's Parthian campaign, and again in the Fall of 117 as they returned from the campaign. In return, the emperor Hadrian, Trajan's successor, adlected Severus into the Senate as an ex-plebeian tribune; few persons are known to have been adlected by Hadrian, so this was an even more prestigious honor. His career as a Roman senator is recorded in an inscription from his home of Ancyra. He was praetor, the next magistracy after plebeian tribune, probably around the year 126. Not long after this, Hadrian appointed Severus legate, or assistant, to the proconsular governor of Asia; usually the proconsul selected his own assistant, so this is another unusual step Severus benefited from. Mireille Corbier suspects Hadrian had wanted him to handle some thorny problems of administering some of the cities of the province. An inscription from Dorylaeum attests to his adjudication of the boundary between that city and one of its neighbors; Corbier believes that second city was Midaeum. Severus was then appointed legatus legionis or commander of Legio IV Scythica from approximately the year 130 to 132, then stationed in Syria; Corbier notes his homonymous son served as military tribune