Paulus (Comes)

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Paulus was a late Roman military commander ( comes ) who operated in the northern Gaulish region around 469.

Life

Very little and partly contradicting information is known about the person of Paul. The political situation in Gaul was extremely confused in the 60s of the 5th century: The western Roman central government could only be in the south of Gaul due to the increasing threat from the Teutons , who were building their own empires on the soil of the western empire (see Migration ) intervene conditionally. In the north of Gaul, which was slipping more and more from the control of Western Rome , the Roman magister militum (army master) Aegidius , after falling out with the Western Roman government, established his own domain in the area around Soissons , although his (presumably) good relations with him had used to the Salfranken . However, it is uncertain whether Aegidius really was on such good terms with the Salfranken as is often assumed.

Aegidius died in 464 or 465. The sources report next to nothing about the further events in the “Empire of Soissons”. However, the Gallo-Roman bishop and historian Gregory of Tours describes a relevant episode in the second book of his history. Gregory, whose work is the most important source for the early Merovingian period , apparently relied on a local chronicle, which he probably reproduced literally, the so-called Annals of Angers . Accordingly, the Frankish petty king Childerich von Tournai , a former ally of Aegidius, took action against Saxon looters who had established themselves in the Loire region . The Saxons were led by a certain Adovacrius , about whom nothing else is known. In this context, the passage from Gregor, which deals with the battles for the city of Angers , is particularly important :

After that, Paul, the Roman commander, attacked the Goths with the Romans and Franks and made rich booty. But when Adovacrius came to Angers, King Childeric appeared the next day and, after Paul was killed, won the city.

On the basis of this passage, modern historians have put forward several theses as to who this Paul might have been specifically. It has been suggested that Paul was the successor of Aegidius, who perhaps directed the affairs of government for his son Syagrius or was under the command of Syagrius. Other researchers assumed that Paulus was possibly an independently acting Roman officer who operated on his own account after the collapse of Roman rule in northern Gaul (similar to Aegidius before). It was also considered that Paul was only comes civitatis from Angers or acted as a representative of West Rome.

The exact time at which these fights occurred is also unclear, but it is mostly assumed 469/70. It must also remain open whether the Franks mentioned here under Childerich operated as allies of Paul or independently, because the wording in Gregory suggests that Paul commanded a mixed Roman-Frankish contingent that was not necessarily connected with Syagrius. It is also possible that Paulus and Childerich were competitors. Due to the scarce sources, it is difficult to say anything concrete, except that in the breakup of Roman Gaul, Paul, as a representative of Gallo-Roman (or his own) interests, took action against Saxon invaders and was killed; the Salfranken under Childerich, however, were apparently able to act more successfully.

literature

  • David Frye: Aegidius, Childeric, Odovacer and Paul. In: Nottingham Medieval Studies. 36, 1992, ISSN  0078-2122 , pp. 1-14.
  • Guy Halsall: Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-43491-1 ( Cambridge Medieval textbooks ).
  • Reinhold Kaiser : The Roman Heritage and the Merovingian Empire. 3rd revised and expanded edition. Oldenbourg, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-486-56722-5 ( Encyclopedia of German History 26).
  • Penny MacGeorge: Late Roman Warlords. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2002, ISBN 0-19-925244-0 ( Oxford classical monographs ).
  • John Martindale, John Morris: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Vol. 2. Cambridge 1980, pp. 851f.

Remarks

  1. ↑ For details see MacGeorge (2002), pp. 71ff. Soissons was not necessarily the center of this special realm. In general, see also Halsall (2007), p. 266ff. and Kaiser (2004), p. 17f.
  2. ↑ See Edward James: The Franks . Oxford 1988, pp. 69ff .; see also Frye (1992), although some of his assumptions are quite speculative and open to attack.
  3. ↑ Historiae II 18f. See Frye (1992), p. 3; MacGeorge (2002), p. 102. The fact that Gregor used a local chronicle here, as the style and also the contextual references show, had already been recognized in the 19th century, see for example Wilhelm Junghans: The history of the Frankish kings Childerich and Chlodovech . Göttingen 1857, p. 12f.
  4. ↑ Historiae II 18.
  5. ↑ The attempt to equate this Adovacrius with Odoacer , the later ruler in Italy, who in 476 deposed the last Western Emperor Romulus Augustulus, is misleading. Cf. inter alia MacGeorge (2002), pp. 103ff.
  6. ↑ Historiae II 18 ("Paulos vero comes cum Romanis ac Francis Gothis bella intulit et praedas egit. Veniente vero Adovacrio Andecavus, Childericus rex sequenti die advenit, interemptoque Paulo comite, civitatem obtinuit."); Translation based on Wilhelm von Giesebrecht .
  7. ↑ See the compilation in Frye (1992); see. also MacGeorge (2002), p. 104.
personal data
SURNAME Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION late Roman military commander
DATE OF BIRTH 5th century
DATE OF DEATH 5th century