Feletheus

Feletheus (also Feva, Feba, Foeba, Fevva, Fevvanus, Theuvanus ; † 487 in Ravenna ) was king of the Rugians from 475 to 487.

family

Feletheus was the son of King Flaccitheus and brother of Ferderuchus.

Feletheus married the goddess Giso (also Gisa), described as cruel , possibly an Amal cousin of Theodoric the Great , which initiated the alliance with the Ostrogoths. With her he had the son Fredericus.

Life

After the death of his father, Feletheus probably assumed the title rugorum rex (King of the Rugians ) in 475 . Rugiland , his domain, stretched north of the Danube from Favianis ( Mautern an der Donau ) to Boiodurum (near Passau ). He shared power with his brother Ferderuchus who ruled the area around Favianis in the east .

In 476, rugged warriors supported the Heruli and Skiren under Odoacer in the overthrow of the last Western Roman emperor. In the eyes of Roman observers, Odoakar was therefore considered a Herulian or Rugian king. The “rugische Regnum” then acted as a reasonably predictable protective power over Norikum Ripense, for example between the Vienna Woods and Enns .

Severin von Noricum , who was already at his father's side in an advisory capacity, often warned him to refrain from his iniquities. Nevertheless, the Arian Feletheus had a good relationship with the Catholic abbot, whom he had known from a young age and often visited. In contrast, Queen Giso was a staunch Arian who converted Catholics and was hostile to Severin. When some “barbaric” goldsmiths, who were imprisoned to make jewelry for Feletheus and Giso, took Fredericus, the queen's son, hostage in order to force her release, Giso felt this as a punishment for her behavior against Severin.

Because of the threat to Lauriacum from Thuringians and Alemanni , Feletheus finally took the important city, in which numerous refugees were staying, (before 482). Feletheus wanted to evacuate the Romanesque population and settle tributary places in it. Severin stepped up to him and asked to give him the protection of the "abducted", which the king granted him.

When the Rugians were instigated by the Eastern Roman Emperor Zenon to fight against Odoacer, there was a conflict between Feletheus and his brother Ferderuchus . Since the latter supported Odoakar, he was killed around 486/487 by his nephew Fredericus. Odoacer himself anticipated a possible attack from this side and defeated a rugged army near the Vienna Woods. Despite the support of the Roman provincials, the Empire of the Rugians was destroyed in two wars by Odoacer in 487/488. Feletheus and his wife were captured and executed in Ravenna in 487.

swell

• Paulus Diaconus , Historia Langobardorum , ed. Ludwig Bethmann and Georg Waitz , in: Monumenta Germaniae Historica , Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI – IX , Hahn, Hanover 1878
• Eugippius : Vita Sancti Severini

literature

• Pauly-Wissowa . Realencyclopedia of Classical Antiquity (RE) . Vol. 6.2. Stuttgart 1909, Col. 2161f.
• Friedrich Lotter: Severinus von Noricum, legend and historical reality: Investigations into the phase of transition from late antiquity to medieval ways of thinking and living . Stuttgart 1976.
• Arnold Hugh Martin Jones et al. a .: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire . Vol. 1, Cambridge 1971, ISBN 0-521-20159-4 , ISBN 978-0-521-20159-9
• Walter Pohl : The Gepids and the Gentes on the central Danube after the collapse of the Attila Empire . In: Herwig Wolfram , Falko Daim (ed.): The peoples on the middle and lower Danube in the fifth and sixth centuries . Vienna 1980, p. 239ff.

Web links

Wikisource: Historia Langobardorum  - Sources and full texts (Latin)

• Paulus Diaconus: History of the Langobards (English)
• Feletheus in The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE) Vol. 1 at google books (English)
• Eugippius, Vita Sancti Severini (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire , Volume 1, page 513
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume 1, page 457
3. ↑ Ludwig Schmidt : Die Ostgermanen , Munich, 2nd edition, 1941, p. 120
4. ^ The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume 1, page 465
5. ^ Eugippius, Vita Sancti Severini chap. 42
6. ↑ ^{a b} Herwig Wolfram (Ed.): The birth of Central Europe . Verlag Kremayr and Scheriau, Vienna 1987, ISBN 3-218-00451-9 , p. 40ff
7. ↑ Heinrich Beck u. a. (Ed.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Volume 25, Verlag de Gruyter, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-11017-733-1 , p. 452ff.
8. ↑ Historia Langobardorum I, 19
9. ^ ^{A b} Eugippius, Vita Sancti Severini chap. 8th
10. ^ ^{A b} Eugippius, Vita Sancti Severini chap. 31
11. ^ The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume 1, Page 484
12. ↑ Patrick J Geary: The Merovingians. Europe before Charlemagne . Verlag Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49426-9 , p. 14.
13. ↑ ^{a b} Friedrich Lotter: Displacements of peoples in the Eastern Alps-Central Danube region between antiquity and the Middle Ages (375–600). Supplementary volumes to the real dictionary of Germanic antiquity . 39, Verlag de Gruyter, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-11-017855-9 , p. 25f. and 114.
14. ↑ Felix Dahn:  Odovakar . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, pp. 154-161.
15. ↑ Arnulf Krause: The history of the Germanic peoples . Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-593-37800-8 , p. 173.

predecessor	Office	successor
Flaccitheus	King of Rugier 475-487	Fredericus