Dagalaifus (Army Master)

Dagalaifus was a Roman army master ( magister militum ) in the 4th century AD.

Dagalaifus was a pagan of Germanic descent. He was appointed comes domesticorum (commander of the guard) by Emperor Julian in 361 and used against the rebellious army master Lucillianus , whom he arrested at Sirmium. In the spring of 363 he accompanied Julian on his Persian campaign , which, despite initial successes, turned out to be a complete failure: The Roman army was pushed aside by the Persians and threatened to be completely wiped out. Julian died on June 26 of a combat injury. Dagalaifus, who together with Victor had been in command of the rearguard, played an important role in the choice of the new emperor. The officers' college (in addition to Dagalaifus and Victor, this also included Nevitta and Arintheus ) finally agreed on the guard officer Jovian as the next emperor, a Christian whose father Varronianus had already been the commander of the guard.

After Jovian's uprising, who soon had to conclude a peace with Persia that was not very beneficial for the Romans , Dagalaifus was appointed magister militum (army master), or more precisely magister equitum , commander of the cavalry. Presumably he succeeded Lucillianus in the army master's office, who had meanwhile been rehabilitated. After Jovian's early death, Dagalaifus was also involved in the uprising of the new emperor Valentinian and was present in Gaul . 365/366 he fought against the Alemanni and in 366 he held the consulate together with Valentinian's son Gratian .

literature

• Alexander Demandt : magister militum. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Supplementary volume XII, Stuttgart 1970, Sp. 553-790, here Sp. 585ff.
• Arnold Hugh Martin Jones , John Robert Martindale, John Morris : Dagalaifus. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971, ISBN 0-521-07233-6 , p. 239 ( online version ).
• Klaus Rosen : Julian. Emperor, God and haters of Christians . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-608-94296-3 , pp. 189, 214, 367, 376.
• Otto Seeck : Dagalaifus 1 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IV, 2, Stuttgart 1901, column 1983 f.

Remarks

1. ↑ On the background and the course of the campaign cf. Rosen, Julian , p. 333ff. with further literature. Special mention should be made to Gerhard Wirth , Julian's Persian War. Criteria of a catastrophe , in: Richard Klein (Ed.), Julian Apostata , Darmstadt 1978, p. 455ff. pointed out.
2. ↑ Ammianus Marcellinus 26,5,2, which is one of the most important sources on the career of Dagalaifus.
3. ↑ Demandt, Col. 586.
4. ↑ See Demandt, Sp. 590ff. with references to the question of which army command Dagalaifus was specifically assigned.