Statius Quadratus was proconsul of Asia somewhere about A.D. 155.
The evidence is not very clear or well authenticated; and we have
reason to fear that very little reliance can be placed on the
declarations of this afflicted rhetorician. His sickness is said
to have lasted seventeen years; and it is possible that,
meanwhile, his memory as to dates may have been somewhat impaired.
Dr. Lightfoot cannot exactly tell when his sickness commenced or
when it terminated. But he has ascertained that this Quadratus was
consul in A.D. 142; and, by weighing probabilities as to the
length of the interval which may have elapsed before he became
proconsul, he has arrived at the conclusion that it might have
amounted to twelve or thirteen years. Nothing, however, can be
more unsatisfactory than the process by which he has reached this
result. According to the usual routine, an individual advanced to
the consulate became, in a number of years afterwards, a
proconsul; and yet, as everything depended on the will of the
emperor, it was impossible to tell how long he might have to wait
for the appointment. He might obtain it in five years, or perhaps
sooner, if "an exceptionally able man;" [41:1] or he might be kept
in expectancy for eighteen or nineteen years. The proconsulship
commonly terminated in a year; but an individual might be retained
in the office for five or six years. [41:2] He might become consul
a second time, and then possibly he might again be made proconsul.
Dr. Lightfoot, as we have seen, has proved that Statius Quadratus
was consul in A.D. 142; and then, by the aid of the dreamer
Aristides, he has tried to show that he probably became proconsul
of Asia about A.D. 154 or A.D. 155. His calculations are obviously
mere guesswork. Even admitting their correctness, it would by no
means follow that Polycarp was then consigned to martyrdom. The
postscript of the Smyrnaean letter is, as we have seen, justly