Germanus (general)

Germanus († 550) was a general of the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I.

Life

Germanus was a nephew of Emperor Justin I and thus a cousin (not, as is often found in literature, a nephew) of Justinian I. His first wife was called Passara and was of noble origin (from the Anicii family ?). There were three children from the marriage: Justin , Justinian and Justina. A note from Jordanes shows that Germanus was related to the important Anicii family in a way that is no longer comprehensible today .

Germanus developed into a very talented general, was appointed magister militum per Thracias and later magister militum praesentalis . In addition, he carried the title of patricius and held the rank of consul . In 536 he traveled to Africa and there ended the revolt of Stotzas ; then he successfully reorganized the administration there. In 540 he was sent to Antioch on the Orontes to defend against the Sassanid king Chosrau I.to organize. When he got there with only 300 men - probably his life guards - he found the defenses in a partly defective condition and found himself unable to organize effective resistance, especially since the promised reinforcements did not arrive. He left the city before the arrival of the Persians. In 541 he returned to Constantinople . All this time, Justinian I placed great trust in his cousin, which his wife Theodora tried to undermine. After her death in 548, Germanus continued to enjoy Justinian's trust, especially since he was involved in a murder plot against the emperor, but remained loyal.

In 550 Germanus was tasked with breaking the resistance of the Ostrogoth king Totila in Italy; for this purpose Germanus raised a new army and married Matasuentha , the granddaughter of the Ostrogoth king Theodoric the Great . This represented a connection between the imperial family, the Gothic royal family of Amal and the powerful gens Anicia ago. Apparently, this was supposed to make it easier for the Ostrogoths and the Western Roman senators to integrate into the empire and make their resistance more difficult. From this marriage came a son who was also called Germanus , but was only born after the death of his father (hence the nickname Postumus ). Because before there could be a fight with Totila, Germanus fought back an invasion of Slavs ; shortly afterwards he fell ill and died in Serdica , immediately before leaving for Italy.

Up until then, Germanus had been considered the first candidate for the succession to the throne. It is unclear whether he was intended by Justinian as the new Augustus of the West, as some sources suggest; actually, in this case, Germanus would have been expected to rise to the rank of Caesar before his departure.

Overall, Prokopios of Caesarea reports very positively about Germanus in his historical work; he describes him as sincere and friendly, as an energetic and capable commander and administrator who was also loyal to the emperor.

It is unclear whether Germanus' son of the same name played an important role in the following decades. In any case, a man named Germanus was the father-in-law of Theodosius , the eldest son of the emperor Maurikios , and at the beginning of the 7th century was involved in the overthrow of this ruler and in a conspiracy against his successor Phocas ; he was executed in 605.

literature

• Conrad Benjamin : Germanus 5 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VII, 1, Stuttgart 1910, Sp. 1258-1261.
• John Robert Martindale: Germanus 4. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1980, ISBN 0-521-20159-4 , pp. 505-507.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 3: Faber Felix - Juwayni, Al- . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2012, ISBN 978-2-503-53243-1 , p. 105.