Marcus (usurper)

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Marcus († 406 ) was a late antique Roman usurper in Britain , who was made emperor by the troops there in 406 .

Life

Almost nothing is known about his person. Olympiodorus of Thebes , on whose work other ancient historians relied significantly in their description of the usurpation, reports that Marcus was a soldier and was proclaimed emperor by discontented troops in Britain. Shortly thereafter, however, he was murdered and Gratian made emperor in his place . This was also killed after four months. Only the new Emperor Constantine was able to hold out and moved with his troops to Gaul , where he established his own sphere of power.

The little information we have received from the lost history of Olympiodorus does not allow us to precisely determine the reign of the usurper Marcus. It is only known that this and subsequent usurpations took place in front of the consulate of Emperor Honorius in 407. At least some conclusions can be drawn about the motives of the British troops. Britain itself had been susceptible to usurpation since the end of the 3rd century (see Carausius , then Magnus Maximus in the 4th century ). It is likely that the politics of distant Italy on this western edge of the Roman Empire saw oneself neglected. The elevations of Marcus, Gratian and Constantine were, however, also influenced by the situation in Gaul. There at the turn of the year 406/07 barbaric tribes had crossed the Rhine, which had led to the collapse of the border defense (see Rhine crossing of 406 and migration of peoples ). This development was probably foreseeable beforehand, but some modern researchers even move the Rhine crossing to the turn of the year 405/06, which makes the impact on Britain, which is politically connected to the Gallic mainland, even more plausible.

But even without this special occasion it is quite possible that the peoples' displacements in the Rhine area were also known in Britain and that the troops wanted to intervene to protect Gaul, as a statement by the historian Zosimos suggests. Neither Marcus nor Gratian, however, lived up to their soldiers' expectations. Only the usurper Constantine drew the right conclusions and went to the mainland, although he carried the last remnants of the British field army with him, with which the island was completely bared militarily. This initiated the subsequent development, which led to the loss of the island for Rome and the conquest of the land by the Anglo-Saxons .

literature

  • Peter Heather : The Fall of the Roman Empire. A New History. Macmillan, London 2005, ISBN 0-333-98914-7 , pp. 206 ff.
  • Michael E. Jones: The End of Roman Britain. Cornell University Press, Ithaca et al. 1996, ISBN 0-8014-2789-4 , pp. 163, 246 f.
  • Michael Kulikowski: Barbarians in Gaul, Usurpers in Britain . In: Britannia . Vol. 31, 2000, pp. 325-345.
  • Christopher A. Snyder: An Age of Tyrants. Britain and the Britons, AD 400-600. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park PA 1998, ISBN 0-271-01742-2 , p. 398 (index, see Marcus there ).
  • Courtenay E. Stevens: Marcus, Gratian, Constantine. In: Athenaeum. Vol. 35, No. 3/4, 1957, ISSN  0004-6574 , pp. 316-347.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Marcus is only mentioned in the Greek (going back to Olympiodoros), but not in the Latin sources.
  2. ↑ Olympiodoros, fragment 12 [13.1 in the edition by Roger Blockley]. Constantine was defeated and killed by loyal troops in 411.
  3. ^ Michael Kulikowski: Barbarians in Gaul, Usurpers in Britain . In: Britannia 31, 2000, pp. 325-331.
  4. ↑ Zosimos 6, 3. Cf. also Heather: The Fall of the Roman Empire. London 2005, p. 211.
  5. ↑ Cf. generally on the development of Jones: The End of Roman Britain. Ithaca et al. 1996.
personal data
SURNAME Marcus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Counter-emperor in the west of the Roman Empire 406/07
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century
DATE OF DEATH 406