by David Potter
After repulsing Shapur, Macrianus had his sons declared emperors, and then invaded the Balkans, where two revolts had broken out at the news of Valerian’s defeat. Gallienus defeated the uprisings and Macrianus’ attempted invasion but, realizing that he could not restore order in the east without help, recognized Odaenathus as commander there. Palmyrene armies enjoyed considerable success against Shapur, and Odaenathus proclaimed himself ‘King of Kings’, governing and dressing in a style more evocative of a Persian king than a Roman official. Nevertheless, Odaenathus remained loyal to Gallienus, never challenging his authority to appoint his own officials to provincial commands. The fruitful symbiotic relationship that developed in Palmyra between local initiative and centralized control demonstrates the continuing effectiveness of the traditional Roman policy of allowing regional rulers a large measure of self-determination in their dealings with the central Roman administration.
In fact, Gallienus faced a far worse situation in the west than in the east. Although he was able to deploy an army to regain control of the Balkans that had much greater battlefield mobility than traditional legionary forces, Gallienus could not reverse the effects of the revolt on the Rhine that had begun in AD 260. The leader of that uprising, Postumus, proclaimed the ‘Empire of the Gauls’ from his headquarters in Trier (Augusta Treverorum) and ruled the western provinces, including Spain and Britain, until his death in a military coup in the summer of AD 269. In AD 268, Gallienus, whose major effort to unseat Postumus had failed when he was wounded in battle during AD 265, fell victim to a plot by his own senior officers while trying to suppress yet another rebellion, staged this time by a senior commander in northern Italy.
A new model of governance
The eight years of Gallienus’ sole reign presented a new model for governing the Roman empire that would, with refinements, re-emerge time and again over the next two centuries, before the western empire ceased to function altogether. This model conceived the empire not as a monolithic whole but as a series of self-contained units. The eastern provinces from Egypt to what is now Turkey formed a natural unit, as did the central European provinces along with Italy and – for the present, at least – North Africa, whose surplus grain was crucial for Rome’s survival. The provinces north and west of the Alps could look after themselves. In the long run, the main issue would be whether central Europe should be joined to the eastern provinces or remain as a unit of empire in conjunction with Italy. While North Africa remained secure, Italy’s importance remained unquestioned; the key question yet to be posed was what would happen to the empire if North Africa should ever be lost?
The death of Gallienus coincided with yet another crisis. The central European tribes launched a major attack in AD 268 by both land and sea. The emperor who succeeded Gallienus, a Balkan general named Marcus Aurelius Claudius (AD 213–270), comprehensively defeated his barbarian foes in two key battles later that summer, crushing the Goths at Naissus and the Alamanni, a new confederation of Germans that had emerged in the earlier part of the third century in southern Germany, at Lake Benacus. Emperor Claudius II’s accession came as the regimes in both Gaul and Palmyra were undergoing radical changes; Odaenathus was killed by an assassin from within his own entourage at the spring festival of Elagabal at Emesa in AD 268, while the government of Gaul descended into temporary chaos after Postumus’ murder. Yet Claudius completely mismanaged the opportunity that these changes presented. He was unable to turn the situation in Gaul to his advantage, and wrecked good relations between Rome and Palmyra by insisting that Odaenathus’ position as general had died with him. After the defeat of a Roman expeditionary force in western Turkey, Palmyrene armies took over direct control of Arabia and Egypt. The driving force behind the operation was Odaenathus’ young widow, Zenobia.
Claudius did not survive long enough to deal with the situation in the east. He died of disease while on campaign in the Balkans in the early part of AD 270, and was remembered ever afterwards as a great hero for his victories in AD 268. After a brief period of conflict, power passed to another of Gallienus’ former marshals, again a man from the Balkans. This man would become the emperor Aurelian.
Steadying the Ship of State:
Restoration of the Imperial Office
(AD 270–305)
Aurelian faced daunting challenges when he came to power. The events of AD 268–269 had upset the equilibrium between the three parts of the empire, and the northern tribes were once more on the move. Between AD 270 and 271, Aurelian was forced into a desperate defence of Italy. Despite losing at least one major battle and having to put down a revolt in Rome, he finally swept the enemy from his part of the empire. Aurelian then went on to cement good relations with the Roman people, constructing a massive new ring of defensive ramparts around the capital. At the same time, he took the bold step of renouncing Roman control over Trajan’s Dacian provinces.
After achieving stability at home and commencing the withdrawal from Dacia, Aurelian’s next step was to launch a two-pronged invasion of Syria through Egypt and Asia Minor with the aim of crushing the armies of Zenobia and capturing Palmyra. He rapidly achieved his objective, but sought reconciliation over revenge; Zenobia was taken to Rome, where she remarried. Her descendants were serving in the senate more than a century later. Back in Syria, many Palmyrene officials were allowed to remain in their posts, possibly as a reward for abandoning their erstwhile masters when Aurelian invaded. It appears that Aurelian tried to make the transition back to direct Roman control as painless as possible. Yet however well-intentioned his policies, they did not work; no sooner had he embarked on his homeward journey than an anti-Roman faction in Palmyra seized control of the city and defended it to the death. This time Aurelian showed no mercy. Palmyra’s long history as one of the great trading posts of antiquity came to an abrupt end when his forces sacked the city in AD 273. The remainder of the trade that it had once controlled now shifted northwards to the cities of Mesopotamia.
The rehabilitation of Elagabal
Victory in the east had one other momentous outcome. One of the decisive battles against the Palmyrenes took place near Emesa (Homs), and when victory was assured, Aurelian suddenly announced that he had received aid from none other than the local sun god, Elagabal, who had been restored to his home under Alexander Severus some 50 years before. In homage, Aurelian ordered that the god’s cult be reintroduced to Rome. In contrast to Elagabalus’ theatrical observances, the deity was now worshipped in more sober fashion as the ‘Invincible Sun’, with none of the exotic trappings of the earlier cult. No one in Rome seems to have objected to the revamped cult, and Aurelian’s action set an important precedent for the close identification of an emperor with a non-Roman divinity. The rationale for this new cult – a divine vision experienced by an emperor – would be invoked several decades later when Constantine introduced a heavily Romanized form of Christianity to the capital.
In reintroducing the cult of Elagabal, the new emperor dramatically reversed the avowedly chauvinistic, Romanocentric attitude to religion taken by Decius and Valerian. Aurelian’s approach was far more in tune with the spirit of the age; he and his successors all came from the provinces, and as a result had a better feel for what would play well to an empire-wide audience. In tune with this trend, the concept of virtus that had for so long been the lynchpin of the personality cult of the emperor also began subtly to change. Virtus ceased to be identified with the moral code of ancient Rome, and instead became part of a more homogenized form of imperial propaganda with wider appeal.
Aurelian next turned his attention to the breakaway Gallic empire. Tetricus I (reigned AD 271–273), the most recent incumbent of the Gallic throne, realized that his days as ruler were numbered. Accordingly, he signalled his willingness through diplomatic channels to relinquish his throne and, in a face-saving exercise, arranged with Aurelian to desert to the Roman camp when the two armies met in battle at Châlons-en-Champagne. As a reward for his compliance, Tetricus was allowed
to go into retirement with a sinecure administrative post in southern Italy. Within four years, then, Aurelian had achieved the seemingly impossible task of restoring the unity of the Roman empire. Success was, however, fleeting. There were many parts of the empire that had become freshly militarized in the years of chaos and that were still not fully reintegrated within the imperial system, including parts of Gaul, Syria, Egypt and southern Turkey. Aurelian did not command the loyalty of all of his military commanders, and he further compounded the problems of the empire by issuing a ‘reformed’ coinage that destroyed the existing tariff relationship between gold and silver, causing rampant inflation that was not cured for generations.
Confusion reigns supreme
In the late summer of AD 275, as he prepared for another campaign, Aurelian was murdered in Thrace (European Turkey) by members of his staff. Although his record as an administrator would for ever be marred by his monetary reform, his other achievements had endeared him to the rank and file. The army buried him with great ceremony near Perinthus, where he was killed, and lamented him as the saviour of Rome.
Aurelian’s assassins quickly realized that whatever plans they may have had for the future were fated to founder on the opposition of the army. They withdrew temporarily to the deserts of Jordan, where pockets of resistance against the peace Aurelian had imposed on Palmyra still held out. Loyalist officers now fell to considering the question of who should succeed as emperor. Their candidate was a general by the name of Marcus Claudius Tacitus (c. AD 200–276; no relation to the famous historian), who proved incapable of resolving the tensions that still seethed within the high command. While the army was engaged on operations in central Turkey, Aurelian’s assassins infiltrated its main camp and slew Tacitus too.
The period of turmoil did not end with the murder of Tacitus. It had been his intention that the throne would pass to his brother Florian; yet that too was unacceptable to the army in the east, which promptly proclaimed its own general Probus (AD 232–282) as emperor. Florian failed to suppress the revolt, and Probus assumed leadership of the whole empire. He duly summoned a ‘reconciliation’ meeting with Aurelian’s assassins. The meeting ended with a dinner party at which Probus resolved the dispute that had divided the governing class for more than a year by murdering his guests. Having seized power in such a violent manner, Probus spent most of his reign trying to suppress uprisings in areas as diverse as southern Turkey, Egypt and Gaul. In each case, these revolts arose as a result of particular local tensions, but they all combined to undermine his authority in Rome. In AD 282, the praetorian prefect, Marcus Aurelius Carus, realized that he had sufficient support to overthrow Probus, and promptly did so.
Nefarious machinations
Carus decided that the best method of consolidating his rule was to embark upon a punitive military expedition against Rome’s old enemy, the Persians. In the aftermath of the deaths of Shapur I of Persia in AD 272 and his successor Hormizd I the following year, the Sassanian empire found itself weakened and fraught with discord. Claiming that he was avenging Valerian’s disgrace, Carus was able to invade Iraq with relative ease. Then something went terribly wrong. Tradition has it that Carus’ tent was struck by lightning. This may indeed have been the case, or perhaps the historical sources used the phrase as a euphemism for mutiny. Whatever the truth, it is clear that Carus’ younger son, who had accompanied him east with the title of Caesar, now became Numerian Augustus, while his elder brother, who had remained at home, became Carinus Augustus.
Carinus’ and Numerian’s succession incurred the displeasure of powerful elements in the eastern army. Numerian was murdered after the army left Antioch in the summer of AD 284. However, it appears that the only thing that his assassins could agree upon was that it was time for him to go; unable to decide on a successor, they concealed Numerian’s dead body in a litter, claiming that an eye infection prevented him from appearing in public. Eventually, the stench of the decomposing body became intolerable, leaving everyone in no doubt that the emperor was dead. Forced to act, the general staff halted just outside Nicomedia in western Turkey and on 20 November, AD 284, selected a mid-grade officer named Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocles as a compromise candidate. Standing on a high platform that had been erected some miles from the city, Diocles accepted the acclamation of the troops, drew his sword, and cleft the praetorian prefect Flavius Aper, whom he accused of having murdered Numerian, in two. Shortly afterwards, Diocles took the Latinized name Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus; he is known to history simply as Diocletian.
Stability at last
As Diocletian set out to contest the throne with Carinus in the spring of AD 285, few could have predicted that any great change would result. The contenders were typical third-century emperors who based their claims to power on the ability of their army to defeat those of their rivals. Whichever man won would be expected to spend the rest of his reign fighting on the frontiers until some northern barbarian, Persian or other Roman ended his life.
Alongside structural modifications to the army from the mid-third century onwards, the nature of imperial power had undergone a change over the 15 years prior to Diocletian taking office. Gallienus had been the last emperor to reside regularly at Rome. Aurelian, to be sure, had given the city new walls and a new god, but had spent most of his time on the march. So too had his successors, and that had important consequences for the composition of the governing class. The most obvious of these was that senators now only rarely enjoyed access to the emperor’s charmed inner circle of advisers. As emperors spent increasingly less time at Rome, senators no longer had the ready social access that had been an important feature of the Antonine age. In consequence, while there were a few who still managed to achieve prominence under the new emperors, only one of the new emperors (Tacitus) had been a senator before taking office. Rather, the people who had chosen Claudius, Aurelian and Tacitus were all army generals, while Probus and Carus were both victors in civil wars. As the role of the senate declined, so too did that of the imperial court. With the emperor on the march, most courtiers were removed from regular contact with their master, which had the effect of concentrating power in the hands of those staff members whom the emperor chose to take with him.
One negative result of the extreme centralization of power in the emperor’s camp became evident in the rebellions that dogged the reign of Probus: if people could not get access to the emperor, they took matters into their own hands. The new system of authority was in fact not worthy of the name, and it did not take Diocletian long to decide that, if he managed to defeat Carinus, major changes would need to be made. Diocletian did indeed win his victory, largely through treachery and desertions, and began to emerge from the shadow of more powerful men who had thought to install him as their placeman.
The new era began in the immediate aftermath of the victory over Carinus, when Diocletian married one of his daughters to a relatively junior officer named Maximian (c. AD 250–310), raised him to the position of deputy emperor, or Caesar, and dispatched him to show the eagle of the new regime to the western provinces. After initial success in quelling rebellions in Gaul, Maximian was made Augustus, with the proviso that important decisions would only be made in consultation with Diocletian. The relationship between the two men was presented to the empire through their symbolic association with the gods Jupiter and Hercules. As the chief emperor, Diocletian gave directions, while Maximian played the role of Hercules by wandering the earth to smash the foes of civilization. The association with these gods clearly expressed the nature of the virtus of the two emperors. Since the new relationship was also intrinsically familial – Hercules was the son of Jupiter – the domus was now intertwined once more with the concept of virtus in a way that had not been seen since the early days of the empire.
Devolving power
Diocletian was not content merely to reshape the outward image of government. Over the course of the next decade he replaced the ramshackle administrative system he
had inherited with a bureaucracy unlike anything the Roman empire had seen before. Out went the notion that the emperor was a friend rather than a boss, and out too went the obsolete conceit that the empire had a single capital. Diocletian plainly did not find the city of Rome agreeable: in 21 years as emperor he only visited the capital twice, spending in total less than six months there. The centre of power would henceforth be wherever the emperor chose to reside. A quasi-imperial residence already existed at Sirmium in the Balkans, where Marcus had died; it was soon joined by similar sites at Aquileia and Milan in northern Italy and Trier in Germany. Other significant administrative complexes were established at Antioch (perhaps too close to the Persian frontier to be a primary residence), Carnuntum on the Danube, and Thessalonica in northern Greece. Most significantly, Diocletian decided that his main residence would be at Nicomedia in northwestern Turkey. Nicomedia, formerly the capital of the kingdom of Bithynia, controlled all the key routes running from east to west through Asia Minor. The establishment of the imperial seat here indicates that Diocletian deemed this area – from where he had easy access to either of the two main frontier armies – the optimal site for the new capital.