Decimus Valerius Asiaticus (35 – after 69 AD) was a Roman Senator who served as a Legatus of Gallia Belgica.^[1]

Asiaticus was of praetorian rank.^[1] He was the son of the Roman Senator, consul Decimus Valerius Asiaticus^[2] and Lollia Saturnina. There is a possibility he may have had siblings. He and his family had their origins in Vienna,^[3] Gallia Narbonensis.

The father of Asiaticus was of Allobrogian origin^[4] and his political career was a contemporary of the rule of the Roman emperors Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius. His father was a respected,^[5] wealthy, and prominent Roman Senator.^[6] The elder Asiaticus in 35 served as a suffect consul and again in 46, served as an ordinary consul.^[7] He was the first man from Gaul to attain the consulship^[8] and became the first man from Gaul to be admitted into the Roman Senate.^[9]

The mother of Asiaticus was the social and beautiful Lollia Saturnina,^[10] whose younger sister Lollia Paulina was a Roman empress and the third wife of the Roman emperor Caligula.^[11] Saturnina was the first daughter of Marcus Lollius and the noble woman Volusia Saturnina,^[12] who was first cousin to the Roman emperor Tiberius. The father of Asiaticus was murdered on the orders of the Roman empress Valeria Messalina in 47^[5] and the junior Asiaticus was later raised by his mother.

After serving as a Legatus of Gallia Belgica,^[1] he became the Roman governor of that province^[3] in the reign of the Roman emperor Nero.^[13] In early 69 when Aulus Vitellius became Roman emperor, he was finding governors and commanders in the provinces as supporters for his emperorship who were genuinely enthusiastic.^[14] Among those supporters was Asiaticus.^[14] When Vitellius was in the city of Lugdunum in Gaul, proclaiming his son and daughter as heirs from his wife Galeria Fundana, Vitellius betrothed his daughter Vitellia to Asiaticus.^[3] Asiaticus and Vitellia had married in the reign of Vitellius.^[3]

He had become powerful through wealth and the skilful exploitation of imperial patronage.^[13] The alliance with Asiaticus and Vitellius was perhaps an attempt to reconcile the communities in Gaul with the Roman state.^[1] Asiaticus was unable to give Vitellius much support when the Roman army commanders appointed Vespasian as an alternative successor to Vitellius.^[1]

When Vespasian became Roman emperor in the second half of 69, Asiaticus was appointed for a consulship in 70.^[3] Before he could serve his consulship in early 70, Asiaticus died.^[15]

Asiaticus was survived by Vitellia and their son Marcus Lollius Paulinus Decimus Valerius Asiaticus Saturninus.^[16] Later in 70, Vespasian arranged for Vitellia to remarry another unnamed groom.^[15] Her second marriage was a splendid match for her and Vespasian provided for her the dowry and clothing.^[15]

• The Roman World: Gallia Narbonensis's Urbs of Vienna
• Decimus Valerius Asiaticus: A notable Gallo-Roman from Vienna in the 1st century, translated from French to English
• article of Decimus Valerius Asiaticus by P.J. Sijpesteijn of University of Amsterdam, 1989
• Marcus Lollius’ article at Livius.org Archived 2013-10-30 at the Wayback Machine
• Genealogy of M. Lollius by D.C. O’Driscoll
• Epilogue: The Fall of the Vitellii - Vitellia?, daughter
• E.M. Wightman, Gallia Belgica, University of California Press, 1985
• T.P. Wiseman, Talking to Virgil: A Miscellany, University of Exeter Press, 1992
• A.K. Bowman, E. Champlin & A. Lintott, The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 10, Cambridge University Press, 1996
• R. Alston, Aspects of Roman History AD 14-117, Routledge, 2002
• G. Morgan, 69 AD: The Year of Four Emperors, Oxford University Press, 2005
• A. Freisenbruch, The First Ladies of Rome: The Women Behind the Caesars (Google eBook), Random House, 2011