Constans II (counter-emperor)

Siliqua of Constans II.

Constans (II.) († 411 in Vienne ) was from 409 (or 410) to 411 co-regent of the western Roman counter-emperor Constantine (III.) . Because he was never generally recognized as an emperor, he only uses ordinal number II unofficially or from a Western Roman perspective. It is reserved for Emperor Konstans II (641–668) in the lists of emperors in the east and all of Rome .

Life

Constans was the elder of the two sons of Constantine (III), who had risen against Emperor Honorius in Britain in 407 and ruled over Gaul and Spain after the military evacuation of the island . When relatives of Honorius started a revolt in Spain in 408, Constans was fetched from the monastery by his father, made Caesar and sent to Spain with the army master Gerontius . His younger brother Julian received the title of Nobilissimus . After the rebellion was put down, Constans left his wife and court in the care of Gerontius in Saragossa to return to the report in Arles , where his father had established his residence.

In 409 Constans was commissioned to return to Spain to repel the Suebi , Alans and Vandals who reached the Pyrenees on their way through Gaul in September . Constantine elevated Constans to the rank of Augustus (co-emperor) and transferred command to the new General Justus. Thereupon Gerontius rebelled and proclaimed his son (or subordinate) Maximus also to be Augustus . The feared attack from Spain took place in 410, when Gerontius advanced to Gaul in association with Germanic allies. At the beginning of 411 Constans was besieged, captured and executed by Gerontius in Vienne. His father Constantine met the same fate a little later in Arles through the army master and later emperor Constantius .

literature

• Kay Ehling: On the history of Constantine III. In: Francia 23, 1996, pp. 1-11 ( online ).
• Michael Kulikowski: Late Roman Spain and Its Cities . Baltimore / London 2004, ISBN 0-8018-7978-7 .
• John Robert Martindale: Constans 1. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1980, ISBN 0-521-20159-4 , p. 310.
• Otto Seeck : Constans 6 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IV, 1, Stuttgart 1900, Col. 952.
• Sandra Seibel: Typological research on the usurpations of late antiquity. Diss. Duisburg 2006.
• Courtnay E. Stevens: Marcus, Gratian, Constantine . In: Athenaeum 35, 1957, pp. 316-347.

Web links

• Hugh Elton: Short biography (English) at De Imperatoribus Romanis (with references).