Constantius Gallus

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Solidus of Gallus on which Rome and Constantinople are praised.

Flavius ​​Constantius Gallus (* 325/326 in Massa Veternensis , Etruria ; † 354 in Flanona , Istria ) was Caesar from 351 until his deposition in 354 , i.e. sub-emperor of his cousin, the Roman emperor Constantius II . He resided in Antioch and was recalled by Constantius after disputes with imperial officials and city dignitaries and finally executed. His younger brother Julian later succeeded Constantius.

Contemporary history background

The Roman Empire went through a profound change at the beginning of the 4th century. Gallus' uncle Constantine the Great had prevailed in the succession struggles that brought about the end of the tetrarchy founded by Emperor Diocletian , and established the Constantinian dynasty . Constantine's reign was important primarily for two reasons: On the one hand, he relocated the central power with the new capital Constantinople to the eastern part of the empire, which had already become more and more important. On the other hand, he promoted Christianity and thus initiated the Christianization of the Roman Empire ( Constantinian turn ), whereby at the same time the traditional cults of the gods were not abolished, but lost in power and influence; Gallus' brother Julian later tried to stop this development.

The decision of Constantine the Great for the new capital was made not least for reasons of foreign policy, because Constantinople was about the same distance from the threatened borders of the empire on the Danube and Euphrates . However, while the situation on the Danube was largely secured on the eve of the Huns' storm and the Great Migration , the situation in the east remained dangerous, as the Persians went on the offensive again after a restless peace towards the end of the reign of Constantine under Shapur II . Another foreign policy focal point was and remained the Rhine border in Gaul .

During the turmoil after Constantine's death, 337 was purged , which killed many members of the imperial family, including Gallus' father Julius Constantius and his eldest son. Only at the end of 337 did the situation calm down again. The successors to Constantine were his sons Constantine II , Constantius II and Constans . Constantine II died in 340 when he tried to attack his younger brother Constans.

The bloody domestic purges of the sons of Constantine prevented a civil war, but could not hide the differences between the three new emperors. In the religious sphere, the dispute between Arians and Orthodox divided the imperial family. While Constantine II and Constantius leaned towards the Arians, Constans took the line of Orthodoxy. The dispute between Constantine and Constans escalated in 340, a fratricidal war was only prevented by Constantine's death in a skirmish near Aquileia .

Life

Childhood and youth

Constantius Gallus was born in 325/26 as the son of Julius Constantius, the half-brother of Constantine the Great, and his wife Galla , the sister of the later consuls Vulcacius Rufinus and Naeratius Cerealis , in the Etrurian Massa Veternensis. His younger half-brother was the future emperor Julian, the son of Julius Constantius with his second wife Basilina . His sister was the first wife of his cousin Constantius II.

Like his half-brother, Gallus survived the wave of purges that followed the death of their uncle Constantine in 337. The church father Gregor von Nazianz claims that Constantius II saved the two. From 340 the two lived under the care of Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia in Constantinople . Then Gallus spent a few years in Ephesus . On the initiative of Constantius II, he lived with Julian in the Cappadocian Macellum (in today's Anatolia) after Eusebius' death . Constantius, who feared the bad influence of their circle of friends on the two, decreed that they were not allowed to receive acquaintances there.

Gregor von Nazianz, who was an opponent of Julian, and, following him, the church historian Sozomenos pass on an anecdote from the time in Macellum, which Gallus shows in a very favorable light. According to Gregory, the brothers wanted to build a church in nearby Caesarea that was to be dedicated to the martyr Mamas . But while the part of the church taken over by Gallus was completed in a very short time, Julian's part collapsed in an earthquake. The Christian chronicler Gregory interprets the events in such a way that God was well-disposed towards the pious Christian Gallus and was angry with the unbelieving Julian.

Gallus stayed in Macellum for five years. In the meantime the empire had got into crisis again with the rising of three opposing emperors in the west. Meanwhile, Constantius II stayed in the east endangered by the Persian Sassanids. The fight against the usurper Magnus Magnentius , whose captor Gaiso Kaiser Constans had fallen victim to, required his presence in the west from 350 onwards. Constantius II therefore appointed Gallus Caesar in 351 in the absence of a biological son , because he did not want to leave the East without an emperor.

Gallus as Caesar

On March 15, 351, the official appointment ceremony took place in the Pannonian Sirmium . As confirmation of his new position as Caesar, Gallus, who now took the name Flavius ​​Claudius Constantius , married his cousin Constantina , the eldest sister of Constantius II. He initially stayed at the imperial court while his cousin fought against the counter-emperor Magnentius in Pannonia .

When it was foreseeable that the dispute between the emperor and the counter-emperor would last longer, Gallus set off for Syria . On the way he met his brother Julian in Nicomedia , who had left Macellum without Constantius' consent. Constantius, who was interested in a good understanding with his new under-emperor, refrained from punishment. At first the relationship between the two developed quite positively. In a speech, the speaker Himerios raved about the emperor that Gallus had "risen like the morning star".

The Caesar, who resided in Antioch , was fortunate that the Persian King Shapur II was distracted by fighting in the northeast of his empire. There were frequent skirmishes with Isaurians and Saracens , but these were successfully waged by the army master Ursicinus , who had been stationed in the east since 349, even without his help. Ursicinus brutally struck down an uprising of the Jews in Galilee under Patricius that flared up in 352 , and the city of Diocaesarea was destroyed in the process. Here, too, it was not Gallus himself who took over the leadership of the military action.

The fact that Gallus was nevertheless popular with the troops disliked the suspicious emperor, as did his attempts to conduct politics independently. Constantius would have preferred if he had complied with the orders of the imperial officials. However, this was opposed by the ambition of Gallus and his wife, Augusta Constantina. The purely representative role to which the emperor would have liked to limit the two of them was not to their liking. Soon there were conflicts with the officials, especially with the head of civil administration in the east, the praefectus praetorio per Orientem Thalassius ; apparently Gallus could not accept that all Praetorian prefects were responsible only to the senior emperor Constantius II. The historian Ammianus Marcellinus , a subordinate of Ursicinus, reports that Caesar spared “neither the high officials nor the upper classes” .

Gallus' end

Constantius Gallus, like his half-brother Julian later, came into conflict with the senators of Antioch. Against the will of the wealthy Antiochians, he tried to lower the price of grain. He had uncooperative city councilors arrested. When he was still unable to realize his plan, he turned the anger of the population on the prefect of Syria, Theophilus , who shortly after fell victim to an angry crowd. He may have speculated that the people would proclaim him emperor.

The amphitheater of Pietas Iulia

When the emperor, who was still busy with Magnentius, heard of these events in 353, he sent Domitianus to Antioch to bring Gallus back to Milan to the imperial court. This, however, had the messenger and the quaestor Montius arrested and executed. He then tried alleged co-conspirators. Gallus had thus missed the last chance to reach an agreement with Constantius. Even a war between the two was no longer ruled out at the imperial court. Also in Constantinople Opel because border to visit Julian was directed against his brother mood to feel those days.

Meanwhile, there was a lively correspondence between Milan and Antioch. Constantius, who had returned to Italy, asked his sister to visit him. She actually set out in 354, but already succumbed to a fever in Bithynia . Since the wife of Constantius, a sister of Gallus, had also died the year before, there was now no one left who could speak for him to the emperor. Constantius continued to be generous and even offered his cousin dual power. He made his way to the West after all, not without staging magnificent games on the way in Constantinople. He already felt like Augustus .

The performance in the capital's circus broke the barrel. Constantius had the garrisons of the cities visited by his opponent discreetly withdrawn so as not to give the latter an opportunity to incite the troops against him. Gallus was finally arrested in Poetovio in Noricum and taken to Flanona on the Istrian peninsula . When he assigned responsibility for the events in Antioch to Emperor Constantius, the latter sentenced him to death. It was too late to repent now. The imperial chief chamberlain Eusebius and the guard commander Barbatio , who were loyal to Constantius, ensured that Gallus was executed in Flanona near Pietas Iulia at the end of 354 .

Ultimately, it was not only Gallus' mistakes and clumsiness that led to his overthrow, but also the almost ubiquitous palace intrigues. Julian made serious reproaches to Constantius: Even if there were some things to criticize about Gallus, he did not deserve such an end. However, with the rise and fall of Gallus, a structural problem of the empire under Constantius became clear: Both Gallus and, later, Julian, in their role as junior emperor, should not be completely independent rulers over a partial empire, but rather as with far-reaching, but not unlimited Regional governors equipped with competencies act. But Gallus and later Julian could not come to terms with this.

swell

A not unimportant source is Ammianus Marcellinus , who in his historical work Res Gestae in the 14th book deals with Gallus in an unflattering way, although some of what has been said is to be assessed as a topos . In this context, Gallus is portrayed (probably somewhat overdrawn) as a tyrannical personality. Furthermore, in the narrative sources, reference should be made to the works of Philostorgios , Zosimos , Theophanes and Zonara, as well as the various utterances of Julian, for example in his letters.

literature

Web links

Commons : Constantius Gallus  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Cf. Gregor von Nazianz, speech 4, 24-29; Sozomenos 5: 2, 12-14.
  2. ↑ On the battles between Romans and Persians in the reign of Constantius II, see Michael H. Dodgeon and Samuel NC Lieu (eds.), The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars (AD 226-363). A Documentary History , London / New York 1991, pp. 164ff.
  3. ↑ Himerios, Fragment 1,6, pp. 249f.
  4. ↑ On the Jewish uprising, cf. Socrates Scholastikos 2,33,2; Sozomenos 4,7,5. Günter Stemberger, Jews and Christians in the Holy Land, goes in detail . Palestine under Constantine and Theodosius , Munich 1987, pp. 132-150 on the uprising.
  5. ↑ Ammian 14,7,1.
  6. ↑ On the role of Gallus in the Antiochene supply crisis, cf. John F. Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus , London 1989, pp. 406-408.
  7. ^ Julian, Letter to Themistios , 259b – c.
  8. ↑ See also RN Mooney, Gallus Caesar's Last Journey , CPh 53, 1958.
  9. ↑ Ammian 14.11, 19-23. The exact place of death with Socrates Scholastikos 2,34,4 and Sozomenos 4,7,7 (Ammian 14,11,20 only "prope oppidum Polam"). Also Bleckmann, Constantina, Vetranio and Gallus Caesar , p. 66, note 200.
predecessor Office successor
Constantius II Roman Emperor
351–354 		Constantius II
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on July 20, 2006 .
personal data
SURNAME Constantius Gallus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gallus Caesar; Flavius ​​Constantius Gallus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Caesar of the Roman Empire
DATE OF BIRTH 325 or 326
PLACE OF BIRTH Massa Veternensis
DATE OF DEATH 354
Place of death Flanona