Iulius Placidianus

Iulius Placidianus was a Roman senator in the 3rd century; In 269 he commanded the city guards of Rome as praefectus vigilum , served as Praetorian prefect in the first half of the 270s and was consul in 273 .

career

On an inscription from Grenoble , dedicated to the emperor Claudius Gothicus , he bears the title of vir perfectissimus and holds the office of praefectus vigilum , but appears as a commander of troops ( vexillationes adque equites ). The fact that a commander of the Roman city guards ( vigiles ) commanded military units was the absolute exception and was possibly connected with a temporary maneuver to ward off the Goths in the province of Gallia Narbonensis . On the other hand, it was suspected that Placidianus was already campaigning against the Gallic Empire this year , which in turn may have sparked the pro-Roman uprising of the citizens of Autun around the same time.

Dedicatory inscription by Iulius Placidianus from Die, reused as building material for the church there

On a further, undated inscription, Iulius Placidianus has been raised to vir clarissimus and now holds the office of Praetorian prefect . Since the stone was found in Die , not far from the first inscription, it seems to have been erected not long after this, i.e. either under Claudius Gothicus or under the Emperor Aurelian, who came to power in 270 . There may be a connection between the dedication of this second inscription to the stars ( ignibus aeternis , probably sun and moon) based on a vow ( ex voto ) and the great importance that the sun god Sol had under the new ruler. If Placidianus had not already acted against the Gallic Empire in 269, this mission was directed against the local counter-emperor Victorinus at the latest . According to Peter Jacob, he accompanied Emperor Aurelian to Pannonia in the year 270 following his missions in Gaul and there possibly acquired the favor of the Emperor.

In 273 a Placidianus held the ordinary consulate together with a certain Tacitus (possibly the later emperor Marcus Claudius Tacitus or more likely Aulus Caecina Tacitus ). It is considered certain that this consul is the same man who is also known from the two inscriptions from southern France, who apparently had the confidence of the reigning emperor and had now been accepted into the Senate. Presumably he even retained the office of Praetorian prefect during his time as a consulate; However, it is controversial whether he was automatically admitted to the Senate as Praetorian prefect or whether a separate admission by the emperor ( adlectio ) was necessary.

According to another research opinion, the second inscription comes from Die only in the years 273/274. This dating is based on the assumption that one could only have become vir clarissimus as a Senator . Placidianus had therefore retained the chivalrous office of Praetorian prefect at least until the inscription was placed around 274, but had already been admitted to the Senate (and made consul for the year 273). He could just as well have held the consulate in absentia and only nominally, while he continued to act against the separation movement in Gaul.

literature

• Ernst Hohl : Iulius 391. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume X, 1, Stuttgart 1918, Col. 772.
• Laurence Lee Howe: The Pretorian Prefect from Commodus to Diocletian. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1942, esp.p. 82.
• Arnold Hugh Martin Jones , John Robert Martindale, John Morris : Placidianus 2. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971, ISBN 0-521-07233-6 , p. 704.
• Michel Christol : Essai sur l'Évolution des Carrières Sénatoriales dans la 2 ^e moitié du III ^e s. ap. J.-C. (= Études Prosopographiques. Volume VI). Nouvelles Editions Latines, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-7233-0307-1 , pp. 111-113, 199-200.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ CIL 12, 2228 .
2. ^ Otto Hirschfeld : The imperial administrative officials except for Diocletian. 2nd Edition. Weidmann, Berlin 1905, pp. 255 f., Note 6 ( online ).
3. ↑ John Frederick Drinkwater: The Gallic Empire. Separatism and Continuity in the North-western Provinces of the Roman Empire AD 260-274 (= Historia individual fonts. Issue 52). Steiner-Verlag Wiesbaden, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-515-04806-5 , p. 120 f.
4. ↑ On the Paneg uprising . lat. 8.2.5 and 8.4.2. For the role of the operation of the Placidianus see Ingemar König : Die Gallischen Usurpatoren from Postumus to Tetricus (= Vestigia . Volume 31). CH Beck, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-406-04801-3 , p. 149 f.
5. ↑ CIL 12, 1551 .
6. ^ Arnold Hugh Martin Jones , John Robert Martindale, John Morris : Placidianus 2. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971, ISBN 0-521-07233-6 , p. 704.
7. ↑ Otto Hirschfeld (ed.): Inscriptiones Galliae Narbonensis Latinae (= Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum . Volume XII). Georg Reimer, Berlin 1888, p. 189, no.1551.
8. ^ Peter Jacob: Aurelian's reforms in politics and legal development. V&R unipress, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89971-148-3 , p. 85 ( online ).
9. ^ Laurence Lee Howe, The Pretorian Prefect from Commodus to Diocletian. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1942, p. 121 f.
10. ^ André Chastagnol : Recherches sur l'Histoire auguste (= Antiquitas . Series 4, Volume 6). Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 1970, p. 50 f.
11. ↑ Michel Christol : Essai sur l'Évolution des Carrières Sénatoriales dans la 2 ^e moitié du III ^e s. ap. J.-C. (= Études Prosopographiques. Volume VI). Nouvelles Editions Latines, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-7233-0307-1 , p. 200.
12. ↑ Ingemar König : The Gallic usurpers from Postumus to Tetricus (= Vestigia . Volume 31). CH Beck, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-406-04801-3 , p. 167, note 1.