Sabinianus (Eastern Roman general)

Sabinianus was an Eastern Roman general in the 5th and 6th centuries after the birth of Christ. He was the son of the Magister militum per Illyricum Sabinianus Magnus , who came from a humble background and who had been executed by Emperor Zenon in 481.

Life

Despite the fate of his father, Sabinianus made a career as an officer in the Eastern Roman army. In the struggles of Eastern Europe against the advancing "barbarians" ( Teutons , Huns and Bulgarians ) who had invaded the Roman Danube provinces, he quickly rose to the magister militum per Illyricum and thus attained the same position that his father already held would have. Other late antique authors call his title differently, such as Marcellinus , who calls him ductor militiae or dux in Ennodius , while Jordanesin the history of the Goths it is expressly referred to as magister militum per Illyricum , the official title of military leader customary in the Eastern Roman army at a larger theater of war. Since Sabinianus was the commander-in-chief of the Roman troops in the Danube provinces and fought against the army of the Mundo , consisting of Goths , Huns and Herulers , who had invaded the Danube and Sava , the title magister militum is likely. This Mundo had joined the Ostrogothic general Pitzia , who had defeated the Gepids for his King Theodoric the Great . Since this Gothic army, reinforced by Mundo's troops, set fire to Illyricum, Sabinianus attacked the Gothic army. In a great battle near Horreum Margi in the plain between the Danube and Morava (505) the Eastern Roman troops, which were reinforced by 10,000 Bulgarians, were crushed. Sabinianus had to retreat to Fort Nato with the remains of his troops . Cassiodorus speaks in his chronicle for the year 504 (the battle took place in 505) of victis Bulgaribus , Ennodius of exterminatis . Whatever the case, whether only the Bulgarian contingent or, as with Ennodius, the entire army was destroyed, the result of this battle was the end of Roman rule in Illyricum and the abandonment of the Danube-Sava border.

Regardless of the military events, Sabinianus became consul for the eastern part of the Roman Empire in 505 , while Flavius ​​Theodorus became consul for the western part.

literature

• John Robert Martindale: Sabinianus 5. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1980, ISBN 0-521-20159-4 , pp. 967-968.
• Alfred Nagl : Sabinianus 11 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IA, 2, Stuttgart 1920, column 1586 f.

Remarks

1. ↑ John of Antioch , Fragments 213.
2. ↑ Paulys Realencyclopadie der classical antiquity , Volume IA, 2. Article Sabinianus, No. 11, Col. 1586f.
3. ↑ Jordanes, Getica 300 ff.
4. ^ Pauly-Wissowa, Volume IA, 2, Col. 1587.