Aulus Didius Gallus Fabricius Veiento was a Roman senator who played a major role in the courts of several Roman emperors during the first century AD. For his usefulness, Veiento was rewarded with the office of suffect consul three times in a period when three consulates were very rare for non-members of the Imperial family. Modern authorities have interpreted the nature of Veiento's role in different ways. Older writers, following the insinuations of Cassius Dio and Pliny the Younger, tended to ascribe to Veiento a malevolent role. For example, Ronald Syme summarized his career in this sentence: "Veiento began as a dealer in petty patronage, and he ended as a merchant of honor." William C. McDermott has since provided a more balanced evaluation of this figure. This has led more recent writers to evaluate him as "one of the most interesting of his Domitian's senatorial amici, frequently but erroneously classified as an informer during the so-called reign of terror." Life His name suggests that Veiento was related to Aulus Didius Gallus, suffect consul of AD 39 and governor of Roman Britain. Some experts, such as Edmund Groag and Mario Torelli, thought that Veiento was the son or grandson of the governor of Britain. Olli Salomies has shown that it is more likely that Veiento was adopted by Didius Gallus at some point before Veiento became praetor. Jones speculates that it was while he was with Didius Gallus that he first met the future emperors, "for Domitian's father and brother commanded two of Claudius's legions in the British invasions." Career under Nero An action Veiento took while praetor is his first certain appearance in history. According to Dio Cassius, the emperor Nero's favor of charioteers and horsekeepers had led them to make unreasonable demands. In response, Veiento replaced them with chariots drawn by trained dogs. This led Brian W. Jones to describe him as "one of the earliest known strike-breakers." However, the year Veiento was praetor is not fixed. S. J. de Laet proposed 41; McDermott believed he was praetor in 54; Jones in 1971 pointed out that "there is nothing to prevent its being dated to around 60, to some time towards the end of the Quinquennium Neronis", although in a later publication admitted that 54 was "possible". If Veiento reached the rank of praetor at the legal age of 30, and we accept McDermott's date of 54 as when