Flavius ​​Pompey

Flavius ​​Pompey († January 19, 532 in Constantinople ) was an Eastern Roman patricius and nephew of Emperor Anastasios I.

Life

Pompeius was one of the influential aristocrats of late antiquity , which he owed not least to the protection of the childless emperor. He held the ordinary consulship in 501, a year after his brother Hypatius and a year before his cousin Probus . In the years that followed he remained a loyal helper to his uncle, but was hardly able to support him effectively during the severe crisis around 515, when General Vitalian rebelled. In 517/18 Pompeius was appointed magister militum per Thracias and entrusted with commanding a campaign against the Antes advancing in the Balkans .

When Anastasios died in 518, Pompey, like Hypatius, was arguably not in Constantinople , so he played no part in the settlement of the succession. Nevertheless, he also held high offices under the new Emperor Justin I. At the beginning of the reign of Justinian I , Pompey was promoted to magister militum praesentalis .

During the Nika rebellion in January 532, the hopes of those senators who did not agree with the new emperor were apparently directed towards Anastasios' nephews: on January 15, a crowd went to the house of Probus and shouted "Probus, emperor for Rome” weapons for the insurgents. When there was no answer, they set the house on fire. Three days later, Hypatius was proclaimed anti-emperor by the rebels at the Forum of Constantine. After Hypatius and Pompey had gone with their followers to the hippodrome to receive the acclamations of the people, troops loyal to the emperor entered the circus and caused a bloodbath. The brothers were captured and, after a short detention, executed on January 19, their bodies thrown into the sea.

sources

• Theophanes , AM 6024.

literature

• Geoffrey Greatrex : Flavius ​​Hypatius, Quem vidit validum Parthus sensitque timendum. An investigation of his career. In: Byzantium. Vol. 66, No. 1, 1996, ISSN  0378-2506 , pp. 120-142.
• John Robert Martindale: Pompey 2. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1980, ISBN 0-521-20159-4 , pp. 898–899.
• Mischa Meier : The “Emperor of the Luppa”: Aspects of Political Communication in the 6th Century AD In: Hermes . Vol. 129, No. 3, 2001, pp. 410-430, JSTOR 4477449 .