Flavius ​​Ablabius

Flavius ​​Ablabius ( Graecized Ablabios ; * in Crete ; † 338 ) was a high Roman official of late antiquity and a confidante of Emperor Constantine .

Ablabius was born to poor parents on the island of Crete. In Crete he was first official (officialis) of the Roman governor before he made a fortune in maritime trade. The convinced Christian won the trust of Emperor Constantine the Great and rose by his side to the highest honor. Perhaps Ablabius was the vicarius in the province of Asia , who between 324 and 326 supported the request of the inhabitants of the city of Orkistos in Phrygia for the status of a civitas .

From 326 to 337, Ablabius Praefectus praetorio was without a clearly defined official parish. In 326 he stayed in Italy in this capacity , then in the east. In 331, Ablabius held the consulate . He is said to have been the driving force behind the execution of the pagan philosopher Sopatros of Apamea . After Constantine's death in 337, he was dismissed by Constantius II and finally executed on suspicion of aspiring to the emperor. Ablabius' daughter Olympias was betrothed to the future emperor Constans - proof that Constantine was extremely fond of him. His house in Constantinople later belonged to Galla Placidia .

swell

• Libanios , speeches 42:23
• Eunapios , Sophistenleben 3,7,13; 6,2,12; 6.3.1-13
• Athanasios , Easter letters 5
• Zosimos 2,40,3
• Ammianus Marcellinus 20.11.3
• CIL 3, 352

literature

• Arnold Hugh Martin Jones , John Robert Martindale, John Morris : Fl. Ablabius 4th In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971, ISBN 0-521-07233-6 , pp. 3-4.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 1: Aaron - Azarethes . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2007, ISBN 978-2-503-52303-3 , pp. 17-18.
• Otto Seeck : Ablabius 1) . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Col. 103.

Remarks

1. ↑ Libanios , Speeches 42:23; Eunapios of Sardis , Sophist Life 6: 3, 1-7.
2. ↑ On the inscription of Orcistus ( CIL 3, 352 ) see André Chastagnol : L'inscription constantinienne d'Orcistus . In: Mélanges de l'Ecole Française de Rome. Antiquité . tape 93 , 1981, pp. 381-416 . Presentation of the resulting possibilities for the career of Ablabius with a very careful definition by Joachim Migl: The order of the offices. Praetorian prefecture and vicariate in the regional administration of the Roman Empire from Constantine to the Valentian dynasty . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-631-47881-X , p. 41-47 .