Cannabaudes

Cannabaudes or Cannabas († 271) was a military leader of the Gothic Terwingen tribe who fell in battle against the troops of the Roman emperor Aurelian .

Life

In the 3rd century AD, numerous Germanic tribes invaded the Roman Empire again and again and plundered the border regions ( Imperial crisis of the 3rd century ). The Balkans and the coasts of the Black Sea and even the Aegean Sea were mainly visited by the Goths. Especially while Emperor Aurelian , the magister equitum of Emperor Claudius Gothicus , who died of the plague , fought his brother Quintillus and then the Vandals and Juthungen invading Italy , the inhabitants of the provinces on the lower Danube had difficulties with incursions of the Gothic Terwingen under their military leader Fight cannabaudes (or cannabas).

On his move to the east against Zenobia's separate empire of Palmyra , which had formed on Roman territory, Aurelian drove the Goths out. But in contrast to earlier Roman military leaders, he did not leave it at that, but crossed the Danube to pursue Cannabaudes and his men. 5,000 Goths, including Cannabaudes, were killed in a great battle.

Aurelian was nicknamed Gothicus Maximus for this victory . On the triumphal procession that he celebrated after his victory over the Palmyrenians, Aurelian also took captive Gothic women disguised as Amazons who are said to have fought like men in the Gothic defeat, as well as a chariot drawn by four deer that had belonged to Cannabaudes.

Despite his victory over Cannabaudes, Aurelian had the province of Dacia on the left bank of the Danube evacuated. The threat from the Goths was then averted for a long time. Scared off by the heavy defeat and occupied with the vacated settlement land in Dacia, a century would pass before they would again push into the Roman Empire in greater numbers.

How great the power of Cannabaud was is controversial. While most scholars consider him the only king of the Terwingen, others believe that he was just one of the more powerful chiefs of many.

The only ancient source that Cannabaudes mentions is the Historia Augusta , which is not always reliable, especially for Cannabaudes' time . Other authors who report Aurelian's victory over the Goths do not mention the name of the Goth leader, yet he is generally considered a historical person. Because of the similarity of the two names, some researchers want to equate Cannabaudes with Kniva , the Goth leader against whom Emperor Decius lost battle and life two decades earlier at Abrittus , others suspect that he was his son.

Herwig Wolfram suspects that the name Cannabas is a corruption of the name Cannabaudes, so that it sounds like cannabis ( hemp ).

literature

• Thomas Gerhardt, Udo Hartmann : Fasti. The Germanic rulers. In: Klaus-Peter Johne (Ed.): The time of the soldiers' emperors. Berlin 2008, pp. 1192–1198, ISBN 978-3-05-004529-0 .
• Andreas Goltz: The peoples on the middle and north-eastern border of the empire. In: Klaus-Peter Johne (Ed.): The time of the soldiers' emperors. Berlin 2008, pp. 449-464, ISBN 978-3-05-004529-0 .
• Udo Hartmann: Claudius Gothicus and Aurelian. In: Klaus-Peter Johne (Ed.): The time of the soldiers' emperors, Berlin 2008, pp. 297-324, ISBN 978-3-05-004529-0 .
• Peter J. Heather : The Goths. Blackwell, Oxford et al. a. 1996, ISBN 0-631-16536-3 .
• Herwig Wolfram : The Goths. 3rd edition Beck, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-406-33733-3 .
• Herwig Wolfram: Kniva. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Vol. 17, de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 2001, ISBN 3-11-016907-X , pp. 34-37.

Remarks

1. ↑ CIL XII, 5549 ; Inscriptiones Latinae selectae 8925.
2. ↑ Andreas Goltz: The peoples on the middle and north-eastern border of the empire. In: Klaus-Peter Johne (Ed.): The time of the soldiers' emperors. Berlin 2008, here p. 461; Alaric Watson: Aurelian and the Third Century. London / New York 1998, pp. 54f .; Herwig Wolfram: The Goths. 3rd edition Munich 1990, p. 106; Herwig Wolfram: The Goths and their history. 2nd edition Munich 2005, p. 34.
3. ↑ Thomas S. Burns: A History of the Ostrogoths. Bloomington 1984, p. 31; Peter J. Heather: The Goths. Oxford et al. a. 1996, p. 44.
4. ↑ Historia Augusta , vita Aureliani 22, 2.
5. ^ Edmund Groag: Domitius [36] Aurelian. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume V, 1, Stuttgart 1903, Sp. 1347-1419, here Sp. 1378; Herwig Wolfram: The Goths. 3rd edition Munich 1990, p. 46; Herwig Wolfram: Kniva. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Vol. 17 (2001), p. 36.
6. ↑ Timothy D. Barnes: The Sources of the Historia Augusta. Brussels 1978, p. 70.
7. ↑ Herwig Wolfram: The Goths. 3rd edition Munich 1990, p. 394; Herwig Wolfram: Gothic studies. Munich 2005, p. 108.