John the Cappadocian

John the Kappadok ( i ) he or John of Cappadocia ( Latin Iohannes Orientalis; * around 490, † after 548) held the office of praefectus praetorio per Orientem under Emperor Justinian , which in late antiquity represented the most important post within the civil Roman administration .

Flavius ​​Marianus Michaelius Gabrielius Archangelius Ioannes came from Caesarea in Cappadocia . Although he is said to have lacked classical education ( paideia ) and apparently spoke Latin only very poorly - which meant that he lacked two essential prerequisites for an administrative career in the Eastern Roman Empire - he achieved a rapid rise. Around 522 he served as scriniarius in the prefecture of the east and got to know Justinian, who was then magister militum praesentalis . When he became emperor in 527, he immediately entrusted Johannes with important tasks. As early as 528 he took part in the collection of Roman laws ordered by Justinian, and in 531 he was appointed Praetorian prefect by the emperor . Because of his highly efficient but ruthless administration, Johannes quickly created numerous enemies (including the historian Prokop , to whom we owe a very negative description of the Cappadocian, and Johannes Lydos , who blames Johannes for the decline of the late Roman administration); and during the Nika uprising in January 532, the emperor was forced to temporarily dismiss him. But by October at the latest, Johannes, whom his enemies claimed to have “pagan” tendencies, was back in office and dignity.

As the only well-known official he seems to have dared to plead in 533 against an Eastern Roman attack on the Vandals ; Nevertheless, Justinian's favor was initially retained. John is said to have enriched himself personally; Above all, however, it was not least his rigid financial policy that provided the emperor with the funds necessary for the wars in East and West. In 538 John held the consulate . It was then evidently not least the hostility of Empress Theodora I that led to the fall of the Cappadocian in 541 as part of an intrigue. At first he was allowed to keep a significant part of his property, but a little later he was accused of murdering a bishop, expropriated and exiled to Egypt. After Theodora's death, he was allowed to return to Constantinople in 548 , but lived as an apparently impoverished priest until his death (at an unknown point in time).

His rapid rise and fall represent one of the most remarkable careers of late antiquity . The aftereffects of his administrative reforms - for example, he reduced the importance of the Latin language in the Eastern Roman administration and partially dismantled the state post - were considerable.

literature

• Geoffrey B. Greatrex : The composition of Procopius' Persian Wars and John the Cappadocian . In: Prudentia 27, 1995, pp. 1-13.
• John Robert Martindale: Fl. Ioannes 11th In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 3A, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992, ISBN 0-521-20160-8 , pp. 627-635.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The full name of the Praetorian prefect can be found in an inscription from Didyma from the year 532/33; see. D. Feissel, Un rescrit de Justinien découvert à Didymes, in: Chiron 34, 2004, pp. 285 ff. AE 2004, 1410 .