Aulus Pudens

Aulus Pudens was a native of Umbria and a centurion in the Roman army in the late 1st century. He was a friend of the poet Martial, who addressed several of his Epigrams to him. He has been identified by some with Saint Pudens, an early Roman Christian.

Martial writes of Pudens' marriage to "Claudia Peregrina" ("Claudia the Foreigner") in Epigrams IV:13, who is likely identical with Claudia Rufina, a Briton he writes of in Epigrams XI:53. Martial also writes of Pudens's passions for young male slaves, his desire to own original copies of Martial's poems, and his ambitions of being promoted to Primus Pilus, the chief centurion of a Roman legion. In one poem (Epigrams VI:58) he writes of a nightmare that Pudens had been killed in action in Dacia.