Marcellinus (General)

Marcellinus (Greek Μαρκελλιανός Markellianós ; † 468 in Sicily) was a Western Roman army master of the 5th century with the title Patricius .

family

The Roman Marcellinus came from an unknown family of dignitaries in Dalmatia. He had a sister, whose name has not been passed down: She married the officer Nepotianus, who under Emperor Maiorianus for about three years (458-461) as his second magister militum praesentalis commanded the Roman troops in southern Gaul and on the Iberian Peninsula, as himself Maiorianus himself stayed there. The son of Nepotianus was the later last Western Roman emperor Julius Nepos .

Military activity

Marcellinus served under the Western Roman army master and head of government Aëtius , who was active at the imperial court in Ravenna , and was his friend. Possibly he held the rank of regional commander in chief of the comes rei militaris in Dalmatia . As Aëtius on September 21, 454 by Emperor Valentinian III. was slain with his own hand, Marcellinus renounced this and established a semi-independent area of ​​power in Dalmatia, which was tacitly recognized by the emperors in Constantinople ( Aegidius created a similar position after the fall of Maiorianus a few years later in northern Gaul ). As the basis of his power, Marcellinus used the good connections to the leading regional families, the disposal of the precious metal deposits, the command of the troops remaining in the western Illyricum and the financial means to recruit additional soldiers ( foederati ) among the peoples in the northern Balkans.

When Emperor Maiorianus, who was raised in Ravenna in 457, undertook a campaign to Gaul and Hispania, which was ultimately to be directed against the Vandals in Africa , he was supported by Marcellinus with such auxiliary troops, which consisted mainly of Huns ; to transport these, he had his own ships. Probably because the emperor had appointed Nepotianus as his second imperial general, his brother-in-law decided on a new policy. The coniuratio Marcelliana handed down from Sidonius Apollinaris , a conspiracy of Gallic senators under the leadership of a Marcellus , therefore most likely has nothing to do with Marcellinus. Rather, this operated in the year 460 with his units in Sicily and was able to protect the island from an invasion of the Vandals from Africa. It is uncertain whether he received the title of magister militum per Dalmatiam at the time .

After Maiorianus had been deposed and executed at the instigation of General Ricimer in August 461 , the latter was able to steal Marcellinus' troops from him by promising money. Marcellinus then returned to Dalmatia. The action brought by Ricimer new emperor Libius Severus did not recognize his position there though on, however, the first commander in chief against him did not intervene militarily because Marcellinus from the Eastern Roman Emperor I. Leo was supported. Nepotianus, however, was dismissed from his office. Because of a rumor that Marcellinus could attack Italy, a senate delegation from Rome turned to Leo, and Leo instructed the Dalmatian ruler to refrain from any such plans. Therefore, a renewed intervention by Marcellinus in Sicily, which is recorded in the Chronicle of Hydatius for 465 and is discussed in scholarship, and indeed on behalf of Leo, appears to be rather improbable.

In the spring of 467, Marcellinus accompanied Anthemius , who was moving west from Constantinople and had been chosen by Leo as the new emperor, with an army to Italy. After his enthronement, a large-scale campaign against the Vandals was prepared in 468 , which was to be undertaken by an Eastern Roman fleet with land troops under the command of the brother-in-law of Emperor Leo, Basiliskos . Anthemius appointed Marcellinus as second Imperial General and Commander-in-Chief of the Western Roman troops involved in the campaign, also to have a counterweight to Ricimer; at the same time he awarded him the title of patricius . In this way he put him on a par with Ricimer, a measure that was a novelty because up until then only the first imperial general had carried this honorary title. While Marcellinus was able to recapture Sardinia and Sicily from the Vandals, the advance of the rest of the army and the fleet against Carthage , the capital of the Vandal rex Geiseric , failed on the coast. When this succeeded in destroying the fleet by incendiary ships, the land troops withdrew to eastern Roman territory. A little later, in August 468, Marcellinus was murdered by one of his officers in Sicily. Whether Ricimer is to be suspected behind this attack has always been debated: the contemporary and later sources do not express an accusation directed against him. However, by killing his colleague, Ricimer lost a rival who could have been dangerous to him. After Marcellinus' death, Sicily fell back to the Vandals.

Personality and aftermath

Marcellinus was not a Christian, but a committed adherent of the old cults and was friends with pagan philosophers; he is also said to have worked as a fortune teller. In military terms, he developed into a competent troop commander who always equipped his soldiers well. The literary tradition does not provide a detailed account of his life, but only provides partial details (especially Chronicle of Hydatius , Fragments of Priscus , Marcellinus Comes , Prokopios of Caesarea , the Getica des Jordanes , Library of Photios , Suda -Lexicon). Therefore many important questions about his life and work remain open. In any case, he did not have any coins minted and so renounced any claim to want to become emperor himself.

Julius Nepos was a nephew of Marcellinus and inherited his position in Dalmatia in the medium term and received the title magister militum Dalmatiae from Emperor Leo . In the year 474 he was appointed emperor in the west by the new Eastern Roman emperor Zenon and sent to Italy. After his fall in Ravenna as early as 475, he retired to Diocletian's Palace in Split in Dalmatia , where he held office until his assassination in 480 as the last emperor in the west recognized by the Eastern Roman ruler.

literature

Overview representations

• Stéphane Diebler: Marcellinus. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques . Volume 4, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-271-06386-8 , pp. 258-261.
• John Robert Martindale: Marcellinus (general). In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1980, ISBN 0-521-20159-4 , pp. 708-710.

Investigations

• Friedrich Anders: Flavius ​​Ricimer. Power and impotence of the Western Roman army master in the second half of the 5th century (= European university publications. Series 3: History and its auxiliary sciences. Volume 1077). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-61264-4 .
• Dirk Henning: Periclitans res publica. Empire and elites in the crisis of the Western Roman Empire 454 / 5–493 AD (= Historia . Individual writings. Volume 133). Steiner, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-515-07485-6 (also: Marburg, Universität, Dissertation, 1998).
• Wolfgang Kuhoff : Leo I, Eastern Roman Emperor. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon . Volume 25: Supplements XII. Bautz, Nordhausen 2005, ISBN 3-88309-332-7 , Sp. 810-829.
• Michael Kulikowski: Marcellinus "of Dalmatia" and the Dissolution of the Fifth-Century Empire. In: Byzantion. Volume 72, 2002, ISSN  0378-2506 , pp. 177-191.
• Penny MacGeorge: Late Roman Warlords. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2002, ISBN 0-19-925244-0 .
• John J. Wilkes : Dalmatia. Routledge & Kegan, London 1969, ISBN 0-7100-6285-0 .
• Frank E. Wozniak: East Rome, Ravenna and Western Illyricum. 454-536 AD In: Historia. Volume 30, H. 3, 1981, pp. 351-382 ( JSTOR 4435771 ).