Roman usurpers were individuals or groups of individuals who obtained or tried to obtain power by force and without legitimate legal authority. Usurpation was endemic during the Roman imperial era, especially from the crisis of the third century onwards, when political instability became the rule.
37-560: Julius Valens Licinianus , known as Licinian , was a Roman usurper in 250. Apparently, Licinian, who was a senator, had the support of the Roman Senate and parts of the population when he initiated an uprising against Decius , who was fighting the Goths. However, Valerian , who had been left in charge in Rome by Decius , had little trouble in suppressing the rebellion. It is possible that Licinian
74-798: A critical number of legionaries , weakening the Roman position, and the town was besieged by the Persians. In 260, probably in June, Valerian was decisively defeated in the Battle of Edessa and held prisoner for the remainder of his life. Valerian's capture was a tremendous defeat for the Romans. While fighting the Persians, Valerian sent two letters to the Senate ordering that firm steps be taken against Christians . The first, sent in 257, commanded Christian clergy to perform sacrifices to
111-473: A long period of such treatment, Valerian offered Shapur a huge ransom for his release. In reply (according to one version), Shapur was said to have forced Valerian to swallow molten gold (the other version of his death is almost the same but it says that Valerian was killed by being flayed alive ) and then had Valerian skinned and his skin stuffed with straw and preserved as a trophy in the main Persian temple. It
148-668: The Persian emperor Shapur I after the Battle of Edessa , causing shock and instability throughout the Roman Empire . The unprecedented event and his unknown fate generated a variety of different reactions and "new narratives about the Roman Empire in diverse contexts". Unlike many of the would-be emperors and rebels who vied for imperial power during the Crisis of the Third Century , Valerian
185-498: The Roman gods or face banishment. The second, the following year, ordered the execution of Christian leaders. It also required Christian senators and equites to perform acts of worship to the Roman gods or lose their titles and property, and directed that they be executed if they continued to refuse. It also decreed that Roman matrons who would not apostatize should lose their property and be banished, and that civil servants and members of
222-461: The Roman provinces . Provinces were ruled by a governor, whether a proconsul , propraetor or procurator , and were ascribed a certain number of legions, according to the degree of pacification that they required. Thus, the governors of, for instance, Moesia or Pannonia in the Danubian border had huge military contingents on their hands. The greater the number of legions a provincial governor had,
259-514: The Severan dynasty , triggered what historians call the Crisis of the Third Century . From 235 to the accession of Diocletian and the establishment of the Tetrarchy in 286, Rome saw 28 emperors, only two of whom had a natural death (from the plague ). However, there were also 38 usurpers who raised revolts across the empire, a clear sign that the security of the frontiers was not the only problem within
296-447: The status quo and political credibility behind them, the usurper had to be a charismatic man to avoid doubts in his ranks and an untimely death. Valerian I , who defeated Aemilianus , himself a usurper, is an example of that kind. Other usurpers, like Philip the Arab , became emperor by a planned murder directed at an established sovereign (in that case, Gordian III ). However successful,
333-541: The Imperial household who would not worship the Roman gods should be reduced to slavery and sent to work on the Imperial estates. This indicates that Christians were well-established at that time, some in very high positions. The execution of Saint Prudent at Narbonne is taken to have occurred in 257. Prominent Christians executed in 258 included Pope Sixtus II (6 August), Saint Romanus Ostiarius (9 August) and Saint Lawrence (10 August). Others executed in 258 included
370-464: The Parthians." An early Christian source, Lactantius (thought to be virulently anti-Persian, thanks to the occasional persecution of Christians by some Sasanian monarchs) maintained that, for some time prior to his death, Valerian was subjected to the greatest insults by his captors. For example, being used as a human footstool by Shapur when mounting his horse. According to this version of events, after
407-460: The Roman world. Usurpation attempts were a constant worry for the emperors in this period since it was a too-common method of acceding the throne. Successful usurpers were usually provincial governors; commanders of a large grouping of Roman legions ; or prefects of the Praetorian Guard, which had control of Rome , where the imperial palace still lay. The danger of usurpation was greater after
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#1732851462948444-500: The Senate quickly acknowledged Valerian. Valerian's first act as emperor was to appoint his son Gallienus augustus , thus making him co-emperor. Early in his reign, affairs in Europe went from bad to worse, and the whole West fell into disorder. In the East, Antioch had fallen into the hands of a Sassanid vassal and Armenia was occupied by Shapur I (Sapor). Valerian and Gallienus split
481-538: The censorship with legislative and executive powers so extensive that it practically embraced the civil authority of the emperor, Valerian was chosen censor by the Senate, though he declined to accept the post. During the reign of Decius he was left in charge of affairs in Rome when that prince left for his ill-fated last campaign in Illyricum . Under Trebonianus Gallus Valerian was appointed dux of an army probably drawn from
518-512: The construction of Band-e Kaisar. It has been alleged that the account of Lactantius is coloured by his desire to establish that persecutors of the Christians died fitting deaths; the story was repeated then and later by authors in the Roman Near East fiercely hostile to Persia. The joint rule of Valerian and Gallienus was threatened several times by usurpers . Nevertheless, Gallienus held
555-475: The death of an emperor when his successor was not accepted by all provinces. Usually, the legions acclaimed their own commander as emperor on news of the accession of a less popular man. The acclaimed emperor, usually a provincial governor, would then march to Italy or where the opponent was stationed to contest for the purple. However, since legionaries disliked fighting against their brothers in arms, battles between legions rarely transpired. Two main factors decided
592-553: The factors that eventually contributed to the fall of the Western Roman Empire . Commodus , the last emperor of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty dynasty, was remembered by contemporaneous chronicles as an unpopular ruler notorious for his extravagance and cruelty, and he was assassinated in 192. Without sons to be his heir, a struggle for power immediately broke out among the governors of the most important provinces. Pertinax
629-620: The first comitatenses created. Men had to be removed from the frontier garrisons to create the internal legions. A smaller number of border legions meant less-secure borders and eventually, raids from the Germanic and Gothic tribes against the Rhine and the Danube became more frequent. In the East, the Persian Empire grew bolder in its attacks on the Roman communities. Moreover, since individual initiative
666-726: The garrisons of the German provinces which seems to have been ultimately intended for use in a war against the Persians. However, when Trebonianus Gallus had to deal with the rebellion of Aemilianus in 253 AD, he turned to Valerian for assistance in crushing the attempted usurpation. Valerian headed south but was too late: Gallus was killed by his own troops, who joined Aemilianus before Valerian arrived. The Raetian soldiers then proclaimed Valerian emperor and continued their march towards Rome. Upon his arrival in September, Aemilianus's legions defected, killed him and proclaimed Valerian emperor. In Rome,
703-502: The greater the temptation to make a bid to the throne. And indeed, most usurpation attempts came from the Asian province of Syria, and the Rhine and Danube provinces, frontier provinces with large military presence. Thus, provinces were slowly divided into smaller units to avoid concentration of power and military capacity in the hands of one man. Syria is a perfect example: a single province in AD 14, it
740-406: The invincibility of the emperor or added by later writers to embellish their own prose. Emperor Valerian I Valerian ( / v ə ˈ l ɪər i ən / və- LEER -ee-ən ; Latin : Publius Licinius Valerianus ; c. 199 – 260 or 264) was Roman emperor from 253 to spring 260 AD. Valerian is known as the first Roman emperor to have been taken captive in battle, captured by
777-426: The line. Nero committed suicide in 68 as an enemy of the people , resulting in a brief civil war . The Flavian dynasty started with Vespasian , only to end with the assassination of his second son, Domitian . Throughout most of the 2nd century, the empire enjoyed relative stability under the rule of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty , but the next century would be characterised by endemic political instability, one of
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#1732851462948814-452: The need of legions permanently in his reach to be deployed against possible internal threats. That caused the geographic division of the army into limitanei legions, which remained in the borders, and comitatenses , which were stationed in strategic points within the empire. Legio II Parthica , which was garrisoned in the Alban mountains outside Rome from the time of Septimius Severus, was among
851-413: The ones who would become emperors. The unsuccessful usurpation attempts inevitably ended with the rebel's execution, murder or suicide and the subsequent erasure of his life from all records. That often causes confusion in the contemporaneous sources that are contradictory in the details of a certain rebellion. For instance, the usurper Uranius is placed by some in the reign of Elagabalus and by others in
888-582: The other hand, a man capable of sustaining a rebellion for a couple of months in a remote area might fail to produce his own coins by lack of access to the instruments of minting technology. Later assessment of usurpations demonstrated that some are questionable or even fictitious. Gallienus was the emperor who suffered greatest number of usurpations, with a record of 14 attempts (excluding the Gallic Empire secession) in 15 years of rule. However, three of these are clear fabrications, either contemporaneous to show
925-505: The problems of the empire between them, with the son taking the West, and the father heading East to face the Persian threat. In 254, 255, and 257, Valerian again became Consul Ordinarius. By 257, he had recovered Antioch and returned the province of Syria to Roman control. The following year, the Goths ravaged Asia Minor . In 259, Valerian moved on to Edessa , but an outbreak of plague killed
962-571: The remaining soldiers in engineering and development plans. Band-e Kaisar (Caesar's dam) is one of the remnants of Roman engineering located near the ancient city of Susa . In all the stone carvings on Naghshe-Rostam, in Iran, Valerian is represented holding hands with Shapur I, a sign of submission. According to the early Persian Muslim scholar Abu Hanifa Dinawari , Shapur settled the prisoners of war in Gundishapur and released Valerian, as promised, after
999-613: The saints Denis in Paris, Pontius in Cimiez , Cyprian and others in Carthage and Eugenia in Rome. In 259 Saint Patroclus was executed at Troyes and Saint Fructuosus at Tarragona . When Valerian's son Gallienus became emperor in 260, the decree was rescinded. Eutropius , writing between 364 and 378 AD, stated that Valerian "was overthrown by Shapur king of Persia, and being soon after made prisoner, grew old in ignominious slavery among
1036-409: The success of a usurpation attempt: the loyalty of the legionaries, which were heavily dependent on the amount of booty or monetary prizes promised on victory, and the trust of the military abilities of the commander upon which depended morale. Failure of either part to fulfill one or two of the criteria normally resulted in a mutiny and the death at the hands of their own soldiers. Since the emperors had
1073-517: The time of Gallienus . Every new emperor, either legal or illegal, marked the beginning of his rule by minting new coins, both to have the prestige of declaring oneself as Augustus and to pay the loyal soldiers their share. Thus, coinage is often the only evidence of a determined usurpation, but the number of coin types with the effigy of a usurper might not be equal to the total number of usurpations. The presence of minting facilities certainly allowed short-term usurpers to release their coinage, but on
1110-549: The usurpation procedure always left the new emperor in a somewhat fragile political position since the throne had been attained by violent means. The danger of another usurper was always present, and the first measures taken were inevitably to put trusted men into important commands. Frequently, the emperor embellished his ancestry and early life to enhance his credibility or the right to the throne. Mentions of obscure genealogical relations with previous popular emperors were common and certainly confused historians. However, most of all,
1147-423: The usurper maneuvered to keep his legions happy since he owed his power to their continued loyalty. The usurpation mania of the 3rd century had profound effects in the empire's bureaucratic and military organisation. Fear of potential rivals was to be the main driving force for the evolution of the Roman world from the early to the late Empire. One of the most striking changes was the division and multiplication of
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1184-405: Was a common way to assume the imperial purple, the giving of important commands to competent generals was asking for trouble. Jealousy and fear often prevented the presence of the right man to deal with a specific threat, and so marginal provinces were often raided, sacked or conquered. The only usurpers whose early life and specific circumstances of rebellion are known with reasonable certainty are
1221-405: Was elevated to the purple and recognized by his peers, but after his murder by a restive Praetorian Guard , Septimius Severus decided to make his bid for power and usurped the throne. Although initially a usurper, Severus managed to remain in power for the next 18 years and died a natural death while he was campaigning in northern Britain . The 235 death of Severus Alexander , the last emperor of
1258-482: Was further alleged that it was only after a later Persian defeat against Rome that his skin was given a cremation and burial. The captivity and death of Valerian has been frequently debated by historians without any definitive conclusion. According to the modern scholar Touraj Daryaee , contrary to the account of Lactantius, Shapur I sent Valerian and some of his army to the city of Bishapur or Gundishapur where they lived in relatively good conditions. Shapur used
1295-402: Was in the mid-3rd century divided into four different administrative regions: Tres Daciae, Cappadocia, Syria Coele and Syria Palestina. Similarly, Moesia and Pannonia were divided into Superior and Inferior (Upper and Lower) halves; Dardania was later separated from Moesia and Pannonia was further divided into Prima, Valeria, Savia and Secunda. As the fear of civil war increased, the emperor felt
1332-543: Was of a noble and traditional senatorial family. Details of his early life are sparse, except for his marriage to Egnatia Mariniana , with whom he had two sons: Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus (his co-emperor and later successor) and Licinius Valerianus . Valerian was consul for the first time either before AD 238 as a Suffectus or in 238 as an Ordinarius . In 238 he was princeps senatus , and Gordian I negotiated through him for senatorial acknowledgement for his claim as emperor. In 251 AD, when Decius revived
1369-522: Was the same Valens Senior , who usurped the purple in Rome during the absence of the Emperor Decius in the war against the Goths (250), and who was quickly executed. Roman usurper The first dynasty of the Roman Empire, the Julio-Claudian dynasty (27 BC – 68 AD), justified the imperial throne with familial ties through adoption . However, conflicts within the family led to the demise of
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