Battle of Cibalae

date	October 8, 314 or 316
place	near Cibalae (today Vinkovci in Croatia )
output	Victory of Constantine I.

Parties to the conflict
Constantine's army	Licinius's army
Commander
Constantine I.	Licinius
Troop strength
approx. 20,000	approx. 35,000
losses
unknown	approx. 20,000

In the battle of Cibalae , the Roman emperor Constantine defeated his rival Licinius .

prehistory

After the death of Galerius in the spring of 311, the system of tetrarchy established by Diocletian finally began to dissolve . Constantine and Licinius initially entered into a strategic alliance to fight their rivals Maxentius in the west and Maximinus Daia in the east. After the defeat of Maxentius and the death of Maximinus, Constantine and Licinius, who had married Constantine's half-sister Constantia in the spring of 313, shared control of the empire. Constantine kept the west while Licinius ruled the eastern provinces.

Despite their marriage, the relationship between the two remaining emperors remained tense. Constantine's offer to defuse the conflict by setting up a buffer zone was rejected by Licinius. Constantine's brother-in-law Bassianus , who should have administered this part of the empire consisting of Italy as well as Raetia , Noricum and Pannonia as Caesar , was executed shortly afterwards. It is said that his brother Senecio, a courtier of Licinius, instigated him to rise up against Constantine. When Licinius refused to extradite Senecio, Constantine took this as an opportunity to campaign against his rival.

Course of the battle

The opposing forces met on October 8, 314 or (more likely) 316 in the plain between the Sava and Drava rivers near the town of Cibalae (now Vinkovci , Croatia ). The battle lasted all day. After a few skirmishes, the main bodies of the two armies met in close combat. The decision brought about an equestrian attack on the right wing, personally led by Constantine . 20,000 Licinius soldiers are said to have died in the battle. Under cover of darkness, the defeated emperor and some surviving cavalrymen managed to escape from the battlefield to Sirmium .

consequences

After the heavy defeat, Licinius had to retreat to Thrace with his family and his state treasure . There he assembled a new force under the command of Valerius Valens , whom he raised to the rank of Augustus . Another losing battle at Mardia ended in a draw. In the peace treaty that had now been concluded, Licinius renounced the Illyricum and thus lost most of his European dominion; only Thrace and Moesia remained under his control. On March 1, 317, Constantine's sons Crispus and Constantine were raised to Caesars , as was Licinius' son of the same name . For Valerius Valens, this agreement meant the death sentence.

swell

Anonymous Valesianus 5, 14-18

literature

Thomas Grünewald : Constantinus Maximus Augustus. Propaganda of power in contemporary tradition. (= Historia individual fonts, issue 64). Steiner, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-515-05568-1 .
Michael DiMaio, Jörn Zeuge, Jane Bethune: The Proelium Cibalense et Proelium Campi Ardiensis. The First Civil War of Constantine I and Licinius I. In: The Ancient World 21, 1990, pp. 67-91.
Elisabeth Herrmann-Otto : Constantine the Great . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2007, ISBN 978-3-534-15428-9 .
Dietmar Kienast : The "bellum Cibalense" and the murders of Licinius. In: Michael Wissemann (Ed.): Roma renascens. Contributions to late antiquity and reception history. Ilona Opelt from her friends u. Dedicated to school students on July 9, 1988. Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1988, ISBN 3-8204-0979-3 , pp. 149-171.
Charles M. Odahl: Constantine and the Christian Empire . Routledge, London a. a. 2004, ISBN 0415174856 .
Oliver Schmitt: Constantine the Great (275–337) . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-17-018307-0 .

Remarks

↑ The dating of the battle, which is not clear from the narrative sources, is problematic. In the past, the military conflict was usually set in 314, but from the point of view of recent research plausible arguments speak in favor of 316: the numismatic evidence and the lack of inscribed evidence of Constantine's rule over the Illyricum at his Decennalien (ten-year rule celebration). See Thomas Grünewald, Constantinus Maximus Augustus , pp. 109–112; Oliver Schmitt: Constantin the Great , p. 178f. Draw Elisabeth Herrmann-Otto: Constantine the Great , p. 105f.

[1] The dating of the battle, which is not clear from the narrative sources, is problematic. In the past, the military conflict was usually set in 314, but from the point of view of recent research plausible arguments speak in favor of 316: the numismatic evidence and the lack of inscribed evidence of Constantine's rule over the Illyricum at his Decennalien (ten-year rule celebration). See Thomas Grünewald, Constantinus Maximus Augustus , pp. 109–112; Oliver Schmitt: Constantin the Great , p. 178f. Draw Elisabeth Herrmann-Otto: Constantine the Great , p. 105f.