Longinus of Cardala

Longinus of Cardala (with Johannes Malalas Λογγῖνος ὀ φαλακρὸς, Latin Longinus Calvus ; † 497 with Tarsus ) was a high Eastern Roman officer of Isaurian origin and rebel against Emperor Anastasios I.

Life

Under Emperor Zenon , who was an Isaur himself, Longinus of Cardala held the high court office of magister officiorum from 484 onwards . When Zenon died childless in 491, his brother Flavius ​​Longinus (whom Euagrios Scholastikos mistakenly equates with Longinus of Cardala) was passed over by the imperial widow Ariadne in the succession to the throne. The latter, however, insisted on his claim to the throne and instigated an Isaurian revolt in Constantinople, which was suppressed. Anastasios banished his rival to Upper Egypt in 492 . Longinus of Cardala had the majority of the Isaurian leadership the capital left, but put together with Athenodorus of Asia Minor continued from the resistance.

In Isauria, Longinus, Athenodorus and the provincial governor Lilingis , a half-brother of Illus , gathered an army of about 15,000 men and marched against the capital, but were defeated in the Battle of Cotyaeum in Phrygia in the autumn of 492 by troops loyal to the emperor under the leadership of the army master John the Humpbacked and John Scytha beaten.

While Lilingis fell in battle, Longinus and Athenodorus managed to retreat to the Isaurian mountains and continue the guerrilla war for another five years. In 497 both were captured and executed by Johannes Scytha, their heads speared on lances were displayed in Tarsus and then sent to Constantinople. Scytha was then awarded the Consulate of 498.

swell

• Priscian , De laude imperatoris Anastasii , verses 52-65 .

literature

• Alexander Demandt : The late antiquity. Roman history from Diocletian to Justinian. 284–565 AD (= Handbook of Classical Studies . Dept. 3: Ancient Orient, Greek History, Roman History. Part 6). CH Beck, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-07992-X , p. 191.
• Karl field: barbarian citizens. The Isaurians and the Roman Empire (= Millennium Studies. Vol. 8). de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2005, ISBN 3-11-018899-6 , p. 332 ff. (At the same time: Berlin, Freie Universität, dissertation, 2004).
• Gerard Friell, Stephen Williams: The Rome that did not fall. The Survival of the East in the Fifth Century. Routledge, London et al. 1999, ISBN 0-415-15403-0 , pp. 199 f.
• Arnold Hugh Martin Jones , John Robert Martindale, John Morris : Longinus of Cardala 3. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971, ISBN 0-521-07233-6 , p. 688.