Eleutherius (Exarch)

Eleutherius ( Middle Greek Ἐλευθέριος ; † 620 in Luceoli ) was an Eastern Roman Patricius , Exarch of Ravenna (616-619), usurper and eunuch.

Life

Eleutherius was a valet ( cubicularius ) and thus a eunuch . Emperor Herakleios sent him to Italy as the avenger and successor of the exarch John, who was killed in an uprising . Eleutherius killed his predecessor's murderers in Ravenna, then went through Rome towards Naples, where a leader of the uprising, John of Compsa , had asserted himself, and took the city. Thereupon Eleutherius waged a hapless war against the Lombards , which ended with the Eastern Romans / Byzantines again having to promise tribute payments.

The Emperor in Constantinople was then oppressed on all sides and almost incapable of resistance, like Phocas a few years earlier; In 619 the breadbasket of the empire, the province of Egypt, fell into the hands of the Persian Sassanids . Herakleios' own rise had shown in 610 that an energetic exarch could really carry out what Byzantium had always trembled about - usurpation - and had no need to fear a beleaguered emperor. So Eleutherius came up with the plan, at least in Italy, to win his own domain for himself. On the advice of the clergyman John he moved to Rome in order to be crowned emperor by the Pope (according to other sources he only sought a regnum , i.e. an Italian kingship). The army with which Eleutherius wanted to march on Rome consisted of parts of the Orient army, which Herakleios himself had sent him, and part of the Ravenna militia. Before the usurper had reached Rimini, soldiers loyal to the emperor attacked him in the Luceoli castle, killed him and sent his head to the emperor in Constantinople.

His successor in the exarchate was probably Isaacius , and he was followed by a period of peace that finally gave the emperor the peace he needed for his war of revenge against the Sassanid king Chosrau II .

swell

• Paulus Deaconus , Historia Langobardorum 4 , 34
• Liber Pontificalis 70-71
• Auctarium Havniense Extr. 21-23

literature

• Hans Hubert Anton : Solium imperii and Principatus sacerdotum in Rome, Franconian hegemony over the Occident / Hesperia - foundations, development and nature of the Carolingian empire. In: Franz-Reiner Erkens , Hartmut Wolff (Ed.): From Sacerdotium and regnum. Spiritual and secular violence in the early and high Middle Ages. Festschrift for Egon Boshof on his 65th birthday (= Passau historical research. Vol. 12). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2002, ISBN 3-412-16401-1 , pp. 203-274, here: p. 213.
• Ludo Moritz Hartmann : Studies on the history of the Byzantine administration in Italy (540-750). Hirzel, Leipzig 1889, p. 13 f. ( limited preview in Google Book search)
• Walter E. Kaegi: Heraclius. Emperor of Byzantium. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2003, ISBN 0-52181-459-6 , pp. 93 f.
• John Robert Martindale: Eleutherius. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 3A, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992, ISBN 0-521-20160-8 , pp. 435-436.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 2: Baanes-Eznik of Kolb . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2008, ISBN 978-2-503-52377-4 , pp. 383-384.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Paulus Diaconus, Historia Langobardoum 4, 34 expressly describes him as a eunuch. In addition, there is no evidence that a cubicularius was a non-blended man at that time.

predecessor	Office	successor
John	Exarchs of Ravenna-Italy	Isaacius