Illyrian emperors

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The Illyrian emperors (lat. Illyriciani , "from Illyricum") were a large number of rulers who ruled the Roman Empire since the middle of the 3rd century . What they have in common is that they came from the Danube countries, which were later combined by Emperor Diocletian to form the prefecture of Illyricum . Furthermore, since Claudius Gothicus, they were all of low origin, unrelated to the old elites at the center of the empire, and their rise began with a military career. In particular, Decius referred to his origin with a coinage showing the personified Genius Illurici and the abbreviated legend GEN ILLVRICI (see illustration on the right).

Genius Illurici in Antoninian des Decius with Roman abbreviation GEN ILLVRICI
Diocletian
Probus

"Illyrian" was not an ethnic attribution, but referred to the regional origin. In fact, the ancestors of the Illyrian emperors belonged to the more or less strongly Romanized provincial population of the Danube countries - as far as this can be seen from the written sources . Only in some of them are indications of belonging to long-established peoples of the region. The Danube region had become one of the most important recruiting areas for the imperial army in the course of the 3rd century, and as the army's political influence grew at the same time, while it was no longer necessary to have been a senator to become emperor since about 260 now several soldiers of Illyrian origin the rise to rule.

Up to and including Diocletian, all Illyrian emperors were proclaimed rulers by the troops they commanded as part of a usurpation against the ruling Augustus . In this respect, this group partially overlaps with the so-called soldier emperors . Later Illyriciani such as B. Constantius Chlorus came to power in the system of tetrarchy through co-option . After an interruption of about 30 years, a new line of Illyrian emperors began in 363 with Jovian. Finally, the Eastern Roman ruler Justin I , who ruled in the 6th century, who had joined the army as a peasant's son around 470 and rose in it, and Justinian were people of simple origin from the Roman Danube provinces. They were also the last emperors whose mother tongue was Latin.

When in the last quarter of the 6th century the Danube area was devastated by Slavic, Avar and Hunnic invaders and finally slipped out of imperial control for a long time, the area lost its importance as a recruiting area for the army. From then on, most of the military leaders came from Asia Minor , and the time of the Illyrian emperors came to an end.

list

Illyrian emperors in the narrower sense: From the second half of the 3rd to the first half of the 4th century

Constantine
Jovian
Justinian

Illyriciani in the second half of the 4th century

Eastern Roman emperors of Illyrian origin in the 5th and 6th centuries

swell

literature

  • Edmond Frézouls (ed.): Les empereurs illyriens. Actes du colloque de Strasbourg (11-13 October 1990) organized by the Center de Recherche sur l'Europe centrale et sud-orientale (= Contributions et travaux de l'Institut d'Histoire Romaine, Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg. Volume 8 ). Strasbourg 1998, ISBN 2-904337-21-0 .
  • Klaus-Peter Johne : The Illyrian emperors as rulers of a new type . In: Klaus-Peter Johne, Thomas Gerhardt, Udo Hartmann (eds.): Deleto paene imperio Romano. Transformation processes of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century and their reception in modern times . Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-515-08941-1 , pp. 125-134.