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Roman Emperor (Crisis of the Third Century)

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The Crisis of the Third Century (also known as the Anarchy of the 3rd Century) marked the end of the Principate, the early phase of Imperial Roman government. A series of soldiers, the Barracks Emperors, assumed the highest office, leading to the breakdown of the previous system of Imperial government, in which the Emperor had functioned within the fiction of a preservation of the old republican forms of government. The crisis came to a close with Diocletian, who reformed the Imperial office and initiated the period known as the Dominate.

Maximinius "Thrax"

Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus "Thrax" ("the Thracian") (reigned 235 – 238) was arguably the first "Barracks Emperor". Previous military Emperors (Vespasian, Septimius Severus) had come from noble or middle-class plebeian families, but Maximinus came from a low-class family in a disreputable part of the Empire, and started as an enlisted soldier (miles). Remarkably, Maximinus never visited Rome while Emperor. Under his reign the increasingly impotent Senate made some of their last attempts to control the Empire; the Senate backed two pairs of co-Emperors from its own number against Maximinus.

He was commander of new recruits on the Rhine frontier when Alexander Severus was murdered by mutineers; he was acclaimed Emperor by his troops in March 235, and in January 238 put down a rebellion by the governor of Africa Proconsularis (modern Tunisia) Gordian I and his son Gordian II. Gordian I was a consul of distinguished family and reigned 20 days with his son as co-Emperor. Immediately afterward the Senate backed a second pair of co-Emperors, the patrician consuls Marcus Clodius Pupenius and Decius Caelius Calvinus Balbinus, and Maximinus was murdered by his own troops in April that year. The senatorial co-Emperors were murdered by the Praetorian Guard a month later in May 238, having reigned 99 days.

Gordianan dynasty

Gordian I's wife Fabia Orestilla bore him two sons (Gordian II and a son of unknown name) and a daughter (Antonia Gordiana); that daughter was mother of emperor Gordian III( Marcus Antonius Gordianus), 238 – 244.

The preceding Gordiani may be regarded as failed usurpers rather than Emperors, but Gordian III's accession makes the family a quasi-dynasty.

More instability

Philip the Arab (Marcus Iulius Philippus, 244-249) was a Syrian soldier and the second praetorian prefect to have supplanted his Emperor (the first was Macrinus) when Gordian III's own soldiers mutinied against him. He was once erroneously thought to have been a Christian. Philip installed his son, also called Marcus Julius Philippus, as co-Emperor in 247, but both were killed in 249 by partisans of Philippus's rebellious governor of Moesia and Pannonia, the consular Quintus Traianus Decius.

Decius reigned from 249-251. He was a noble senator of distinguished career, and the first Emperor from the former Illyria, and also the first Emperor to be killed in battle with a foreign enemy (the Goths). His younger son Gaius Valens Hostilianus Messius (Hostilian) was then adopted by and proclaimed co-Emperor with Gaius Vibius Trebonianus Gallus in June 251, but died of plague in July 251.

Trebonianus Gallus replaced Decius's son with his own, Gaius Vibius Volusianus, but father and son co-Emperors were murdered in August 253 by partisans of Trebonianus Gallus's own rebellious governor of Moesia Superior, the consular Marcus Aemilius Aemilianus, who was murdered by his own soldiers after a reign of 88 days. He was another African, from Jerba off the coast of southern Tunisia.

Valerianan dynasty

The founder of the short-lived Valerianan dynasty, Publius Licinius Valerianus (Valerian, 253-260), was of a particularly distinguished patrician, Etrurian family, the Licinii. For his efforts at retrieving the badly deteriorating situation in the East, the Senate awarded him the titles Restitutor Orientis ("Restorer of the East"), Restitutor Generis Humanis ("Restorer of the Human Race") and finally Restitutor Orbis ("Restorer of the World"), but his reign ended ignominiously: he was the first Emperor to be captured by a foreign enemy, and was used as a footstool by Shapur I of Persia, who then had his skin stuffed and put on display. (The only other Emperor to be so humiliated was Rhomanos IV 800 years later in 1071).

In the reign of Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus (253-261) there were several rebellions: in 261 Postumus established an independent so-called Gallic Empire (composed of Gallia, Britannia, and Hispania), and Gallienus created a co-Emperor in all but name in Septimius Odenathus, king of Palmyra, whom he gave the titles Dux Romanorum, "Leader of the Romans", and Corrector Totius Orientis, "Corrector of the Whole East").


Dynastic relationships

Valerian's wife Egnatia Mariniana bore him two sons (Egnatius Gallienus and Valerianus). Gallienus himself had by his wife Julia Cornelia Salonina three sons (Valerianus, Saloninus, and Egnatius Marinianus).

The crisis at its height

The murder of Gallienus left his Dalmatian cavalry commander, Marcus Aurelius Claudius "Gothicus" ("conqueror of the Goths"), to don the purple. The Emperor from Illyricum recovered Hispania from the Gallic Empire, but Septimius Odenathus's widow, Zenobia, broke with him and began to seize power in the East for herself (in 272 she began styling herself "Zenobia Augusta"). Lucius Domitius Aurelianus built the first new wall around Rome, defeated Zenobia and recovered the lands of the Empire claimed by Palmyra, and reclaimed the remainder of the Gallic Empire; for his efforts at reunifying the Empire he was titled Restitutor Orbis ("Restorer of the World"). Aurelianus's successor Marcus Claudius Tacitus received a similar title, Restitutor Rei Publicae ("Restorer of the Republic").

Claudius II "Gothicus" died of plague in August 270, and was briefly succeeded by his brother, Quintillus, who committed suicide in September and allowed the purple to pass to his own cavalry commander, Aurelianus, who was himself murdered by his Praetorian Guard (again). Tacitus was an elderly senator and probably a general brought out of retirement when it was realised that no-one stood ready to don the purple after Aurelianus's death, and was murdered after six months and succeeded for 88 days by his praetorian prefect, Florianus, who promptly became the third Emperor murdered in 276. Probus, a formiddable general of unknown family from the Danube frontier, next donned the purple, only to be murdered at the instigation of his praetorian prefect, Carus (see below).

Caran dynasty

The Caran dynasty was a Gallic family from Narbo on the Mediterranean coast. It was another family which came to power through treachery; Marcus Aurelius Carus, the founder of the extremely short-lived dynasty, had been his predecessor's praetorian prefect. death: Carus is the only Emperor to have been struck by lightning.

Caran emperors

Dynastic relationships

Carus's wife (name unknown) bore him two sons (Numerianus and Carinus) and a daughter (Aurelia Paulina).

See also

Roman Emperors by Epoch

List of Roman Emperors · Concise list · Roman Empire · Family tree

Principate Crisis of the 3rd century Dominate Division Successors







   
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