Aurelius Achilles

Aurelius Achilles
"Aschils, the great ruler." Restoration of a cartouche in the Temple of Esna by François Lenormant .

Aurelius Achilles , usually just called Achilles for short († 298 in Alexandria ) was a Roman counter-emperor who probably ruled briefly in Egypt in early 298 .

Achilles was initially the corrector of the opposing emperor Lucius Domitius Domitianus , who had been elevated to emperor in 297 in the course of an uprising that had broken out in the Thebes area and quickly spread to Lower Egypt . Diocletian put down the rebellion in the spring of 298. Domitianus may have died earlier and Achilles followed him, but fell during the fighting for Alexandria. This would explain why the literary sources always refer to Achilles instead of Domitianus. Sometimes Domitianus and Achilles were also taken for one and the same person. The source situation is problematic and in some cases extremely contradicting.

literature

• Frank Kolb : The dating of the Egyptian rebellion under L. Domitius Domitianus and Aurelius Achilleus . In: Eos No. 76 (1988), pp. 325-343.
• Stephen Williams: Diocletian and the Roman Recovery. Methuen, New York 1985, ISBN 978-0-416-01151-7 .

Remarks

1. ↑ For example Otto Seeck : Achilleus 7 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Col. 245. Seeck speculates that Achilles "exchanged his freedman's name with the genteel-sounding L. Domitius Domitianus".
2. ↑ Williams, Diocletian , pp. 81ff. with the corresponding notes on pp. 244–246.