Mareades

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The Syrian Mareades (also Mereades , Mariades , Mariadnes or Cyriades ) was apparently involved in the Persian raids on Roman territory in the 50s of the 3rd century AD . The reports about him are contradicting, even the exact spelling of his name is unclear.

Biographies

The Byzantine chronicler Johannes Malalas (490-570) mentions a member of the city council of the Syrian metropolis Antioch , which was part of the Roman Empire, named Mariades , who was excluded from the council because of irregularities in the organization of chariot races. Mariades allegedly embezzled funds earmarked for the city's hippodrome . He then fled to Persia and promised the Persian great king Shapur I support in an attack on his hometown, which, according to Malalas, also took place in the year 314 of the Antiochene era (= 265/66). Mariades was subsequently executed by the Persians as a traitor to his own land.

The late antique historian Ammianus Marcellinus (330–395) mentions a certain Mareades in an excursus about a Persian surprise attack on Antioch that took place during the reign of Gallienus (253–268) . This is said to have been burned alive by the Antioches because he had led the troops of Shapur into Roman territory and thus contributed to the destruction in Antioch.

The Anonymus post Dionem , an author unknown by name, who continues the historical work of Cassius Dio , apparently treats the same person in a fragment, but names her Mariadnes . His account is similar to that of Ammianus Marcellinus, but according to him many Antiochenes remained in the city, although they knew of the impending attack by the Persians. They are said to have had a positive attitude towards Mariadnes and expected him to improve their situation.

The Sibylline Oracle , a collection of prophecies that were mostly written after the events predicted therein, may also tell about Mareades. You link his appearance with the death of the Roman emperor Decius (249-251) in the fight against the Goths :

Then a cunning and deceitful man will come, a brigand emerging from Syria, an obscure Roman [Mareades] , and he will treacherously go against the Cappadocian people [the inhabitants of the Cappadocia province ] and insatiable in war, besieging and besetting them. Then he will reach for you, Tyana and Mazaka [Caesarea] , and you will be enslaved and hold your neck under his yoke. And Syria will mourn dead men and Selene will not save the Holy City [probably Hierapolis Bambyke ] . When the swift-footed man [Mareades] flees Syria through Sura , fleeing from the Romans over the floods of the Euphrates , no longer resembling the Romans, but the arrogant arrow-shooting Persians, then the king of the Italians [Decius] will fall in battle, tortured with red-hot iron, in utter chaos. And his sons will be destroyed with him.

Mareades is represented in this oracle, which is presumably associated with the Jewish community of Alexandria , as the embodiment of evil. Its pro-Roman author was evidently a witness to the events described, but it can be assumed that he exaggerates the extent of the destruction caused by Mareades.

The Historia Augusta , a late antique collection containing the biographies of the emperors from Hadrian to Numerian , assigns Mareades, whom it calls Cyriades (a play on the Greek form of his name), to the thirty tyrants , thirty usurpers who allegedly opposed Emperor Gallienus raised. The biography in the Historia Augusta comes up with a few details that can hardly be verified due to the poor sources:

This man, rich and of high birth, fled from his father, Cyriades, when he had become a burden to the old man because of his excesses and wastefulness. After stealing much of his gold and a large amount of silver from him, he fled to the Persians. He became an ally of King Sapor [Shapur I] and urged him to wage war against the Romans. He first brought Odomastes [Shapur's son Hormizd ] and then Sapor himself to Roman territory. By conquering Antioch and Caesarea , he won the title of Caesar. Then, when he had been proclaimed Augustus [and thus anti-emperor] and the whole Orient trembled for fear of his strength and daring, and he had also killed his father (which some historians deny), he came at the time as Valerian was on his way to the Persian War because of the betrayal of his followers to death.

However, due to the long time lag between the Historia Augusta and the events and the tendency of its author to mix truth and fiction, it is questionable whether Mareades can actually be described as the anti-emperor . But it is rather unlikely that he held the title of emperor or was proclaimed Augustus by the troops .

Even modern antiquity has failed to clarify the person of Mareades. Some scholars see him as the head of a party in Antioch that is friendly to Persians or hostile to Rome and formed during the reign of Philip Arab (244–249), while others even doubt the existence of such a party. Hartmann interprets Mareades as a Roman defector who was installed as satrap in Antioch by the Sassanids after the defeat of Valerian . After the Persian retreat he was executed as a usurper or traitor by the Antioches.

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literature

  • Warwick Ball: Rome in the East. The Transformation of an Empire . Routledge, London / New York 2000, ISBN 0-415-11376-8 , pp. 152 f .
  • Udo Hartmann : Mareades - a Sasanian Quisling ? In: Josef Wiesehöfer , Philip Huyse (Ed.): Eran ud Aneran. Studies on the relations between the Sasanid Empire and the Mediterranean world (=  Oriens et Occidens . Volume 13 ). Steiner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-515-08829-6 , pp. 105-142 .
  • Fergus Millar : The Roman Near East, 31 BC – AD 337 . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1993, ISBN 0-674-77885-5 , pp. 161 .
  • Jiří Ohlídal: Mariades. A contribution to the history of the Roman East in the third century AD In: Acta Universitatis Carolinae - Philologica 3. Graecolatina Pragensia . tape 16-17 , 1998, pp. 65-82 .
  • David Potter: Prophecy and history in the crisis of the Roman Empire. A historical commentary on the thirteenth Sibylline oracle . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1990, ISBN 0-19-814483-0 .
  • Michael Sommer: The soldier emperors . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-17477-1 , pp. 41, 43, 46 f .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Chronographia 295 f.
  2. ↑ Ammianus 23: 5, 3.
  3. ^ Anonymus post Dionem , Fr. 1.
  4. ↑ Oracula Sibyllina 13.89-102.
  5. ↑ Quoted from Sommer, Die Militärkaiser , p. 47.
  6. ↑ Thirty Tyrants 2: 1-4.
  7. ↑ Historia Augusta, Thirty Tyrants , 2: 1–3.
  8. ^ So Ball, Rome in the East , p. 152 f.
  9. ^ Millar, The Roman Near East , p. 161.
  10. ↑ Hartmann, Mareades , p. 131
personal data
SURNAME Mareades
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mereades; Mariades; Mariadnes; Cyriades
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Syrian who worked with the Sassanids
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd century or 3rd century
DATE OF DEATH 3rd century