3. L.Arruntius, son of the preceding, consul A. D. 6. Augustus was said to have declared in his last illness, that Arruntius was not unworthy of the empire, and would have boldness enough to seize it, if an opportunity presented. This, as well as his riches, talents, and reputation, rendered him an object of suspicion to Tiberius. In A. D. 15, when the Tiber had flooded a great part of the city, he was appointed to take measures to restrain it within its bed, and he consulted the senate on the subject. The province of Spain had been assigned to him, but Tiberius, through jealousy, kept him at Rome ten years after his appointment, and obliged him to govern the province by his legates. He was accused on one occasion by Aruseius and Sanquinius, but was acquitted, and his accusers punished. He was subsequently charged in A. D. 37, as an accomplice in the crimes of Albucilla; and though his friends wished him to delay his death, as Tiberius was in his last illness, and could not recover, he refused to listen to their advice, as he knew the wickedness of Caligula, who would succeeed to the empire, and accordingly put himself to death by opening his veins. (Tac. Ann. 1.8, 13, 76, 79, 6.27, Hist. 2.65, Ann. 6.5, 7, 47, 48; D. C. 55.25, 58.27.)
It was either this Arruntius or his father, in all probability, who wrote a history of the first Punic war, in which he imitated the style of Sallust. (Senec. Epist. 114.)