A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

3. M.Perperna, son of No. 2, consul B. C. 92 with C. Claudius Pulcher, and censor B. C. 86 with L. Marcius Philippus. Perperna is mentioned by the ancient writers as an extraordinary instance of longevity. He attained the great age of ninetyeight years, and died in B. C. 49, the year in which the civil war broke out between Caesar and Pompey. He outlived all the senators who belonged to that body in his consulship, and at the time of his death there were only seven persons surviving, whom he had enrolled in the senate during his censorship. (Plin. Nat. 7.48; V. Max. 8.13.4; D. C. 41.14; the last writer gives the details a little differently.) Perperna took no prominent part in the agitated times in which he lived. In the Social or Marsic war, B. C. 90, he was one of the legates, who served under the consul P. Rutilius Lupus. (Appian, App. BC 1.40.) It was probably the same M. Perperna who was judex in the case of C. Aculeo (Cic. de Orat. 2.65), and also in that of Q. Roscius, for whom Cicero pleaded (pro Rose. Corn.1, 8). In B. C. 54, M. Perperna is mentioned as one of the consulars who bore testimony on behalf of M. Scaurus at the trial of the latter. (Ascon. in Scaur. p. 28, ed. Orelli.) The censorship of Perperna is mentioned by Cicero (Cic. Ver. 1.55), and Cornelius Nepos speaks of him (Cat. 1) as censorius.