Liberius (Patricius)

Petrus Marcellinus Felix Liberius (* around 465, † around 554) was a Western Roman diplomat and Praetorium Prefect ( praefectus praetorio ), who served both under the Ostrogoths and under the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I as an official and general . He was related to the important urban Roman family of the Anicii .

Early life, origins and family

Nothing is known about the exact origin of Liberius. However, it is believed that his family came from Liguria in northern Italy . The year of birth is approximately determined based on the year of death and age. His career in the western part of the Roman Empire began under Odoacer , who deposed the illegitimate Western Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476 and killed his father Orestes , whereupon he formally submitted to the Eastern Roman emperor.

With his wife Agretia, Liberius had several sons and a daughter. Only his son Venantius is known by name, who around 507/511 was probably due to the merits of his father comes domesticorum vacans and 507 consul .

Offices and titles in the Western Roman Empire and in the Ostrogoth Empire

After the rex or usurper Odoacer had been murdered by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, who had been sent to Italy by the Eastern Emperor Zenon , Liberius entered his service and was appointed Praetorium Prefect for Italy ( praefectus praetorio Italiae ) around 493 . This post, which made him head of the civil administration, he held probably until the year 500, when Theodoric, with the consent of the Emperor Anastasius, bestowed him the high honorary title of patricius . Liberius had previously been entrusted with the delicate task of settling the Gothic foederati in Italy without unnecessarily provoking the senatorial landowners. How exactly he proceeded is controversial, but what is certain is that he was able to solve the task within a short time and was praised from all sides for his skillful approach. The appointment as patricius seems to belong in this context.

Liberius remained one of the closest Roman collaborators of the Gothic lords of Italy. Around 510 he was entrusted with the administration of the newly conquered area in the former Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis , where he performed both civil and military tasks as praefectus praetorio Galliarum and was injured in a raid by the Visigoths . Around 533 he was appointed patricius praesentalis under Theodoric's grandson and successor Athalaric or his mother Amalasuintha , who ruled as regent , which meant the nominal commander of the Gothic army, and at the same time kept the title of Gallic praetorium prefect.

Work under Emperor Justinian

In the run-up to the long war (535–554 / 62) between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Italian Ostrogoths, Liberius acted as the envoy of King Theodahad , who was held responsible for the death of Amalasuinthas. In 534 he was sent to the court of Justinian with some Western Roman senators to negotiate with the emperor and justify Theodahad's policies. But since he was probably dissatisfied with his rule himself, although the latter had given him some property, he did not return to Italy and initially stayed in Constantinople after the beginning of the Gothic War .

Liberius now entered the imperial service. Between 538/539 and 542 he acted as Justinian's prefect in the important province of Egypt ( praefectus Augustalis ). In the later years of the Gothic War he was to be entrusted with military tasks in 549 and 550. Here Liberius could not record any real success, because the emperor had him replaced by other generals, partly because of his old age and partly because of his presumably insufficient military experience. The penetration into the port of Syracuse , which was besieged by the Ostrogoths under King Totila, was a partial success, but this ultimately had no effect on the siege.

His greatest, but it seems little attention in contemporary understanding military operation put a campaign in the kingdom of the Visigoths in Spain. This was outwardly an intervention Justinian for the pretenders Athanagild directed against the unpopular King I. Agila rebelled. Liberius was sent from Africa to southern Spain in 551 with a small force and, as magister militum Spaniae, was able to place a strip of territory and important cities along the Mediterranean coast to the Strait of Gibraltar under Eastern Roman rule. Although these conquests are only marginally considered in the Roman sources, the province of Spania was able to hold out until 625.

In early 553 Liberius returned from Spain to Constantinople, where he took part in the 5th Ecumenical Council . In 554 he went back to Italy, where he died in the same year at the age of almost 90. He was buried by his children in his wife's grave in Rimini ( Ariminum ).

Liberius' career under Emperor Justinian was due to his old age almost indicative of the increasing aging of the Eastern Roman officials in the second half of Justinian's government, which in retrospect almost gives the impression that it was a gerontocracy : the 565 who died at 85 years old At the beginning of his long reign, Kaiser had surrounded himself with numerous talented men such as Belisarius and Narses, who served him well into their old age. The career of Liberius is one of the longest in the late ancient Roman state and is characterized by the change between civil and military offices in almost the entire Mediterranean area.

swell

• Prokopios of Caesarea (selected passages):
  • War history ( Bella / de Bellis ):
    • Prok. Bella V, 4.24
    • Prok. Bella VII, 36.6
    • Prok. Bella VII, 37.26-27
    • Prok. Bella VII, 39.7
    • Prok. Bella VII, 39.11-12
    • Prok. Bella VII, 40.12-14
    • Prok. Bella VIII, 24.1
• Jordanes
  • Getica 303
• Funerary inscription CIL 11, 382 in Rimini

literature

• John B. Bury : History of the Later Roman Empire. From the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian. Volume 2. Dover, New York NY 1958, pp. 286-288, (reprinted from 1923 edition).
• James AS Evans: The age of Justinian. The circumstances of imperial power. Reprinted edition. Routledge, London et al. 2000, ISBN 0-415-23726-2 , pp. 180-181, 199.
• John R. Martindale (Ed.): The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire , Vol. II, 3rd ed., Cambridge (et al.) 2000, p. 36 (Agretia), pp. 677-681 (Liberius 3), p 1153 (Venantius).
• Mischa Meier : The other age of Justinian. Experience of contingency and overcoming contingency in the 6th century AD (= Hypomnemata . Vol. 147), 2nd, unchanged edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-25246-3 , pp. 265-266.
• Massimiliano Vitiello: Theodahad. A Platonic King at the Collapse of Ostrogothic Italy , Toronto / Buffalo / London 2014 ISBN 978-1-4426-4783-1 pp. 96 f., 99 f., 103, 112, 121–124, 127, 168, 175, 190 f.

Web links

• Maria Assunta Nagl : Liberius 2 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XIII, 1, Stuttgart 1926, Col. 94-98.
• James J. O'Donnell: Liberius the Patrician