Vadomar

Notitia Dignitatum, chapter page of the Dux Foenis with details of towns and forts that were under his command

Notitia Dignitatum Occ., List of troops of the Magister peditum : Shield sign of the Brisigavi seniores , an Auxilia-Palatina unit of the Western Roman army

Vadomar (* before 354; † after 373; Latin Vadomarius ) was until 360/61 Alamannic Gau king of a gene (tribe) that is believed to be in an area on the right bank of the Rhine near Breisach im Breisgau . He was a brother of the Gundomad and father of the Vithicab .

Life

Vadomar's life is best reported in the Res gestae of the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus .

In 354 Vadomar and his brother Gundomad concluded a peace treaty after a lost battle against Constantius II near Augst . After Gundomad was killed in 357 by Alemanni settled in northern Breisgau, they rose against the Caesar of the West Julian . They were incited to do this by the regent in the east, Constantius II, who felt threatened by the successful Julian, who was popular in the army, and who stood with his army in the areas on the left bank of the Rhine. In 359, Julian's army crossed the Rhine near Mogontiacum ( Mainz ) and forced the Alemannic kings Vadomar, Makrian , Hariobaud , Ur , Ursicinus and Vestralp to conclude new peace treaties. In 360 Vadomar plundered the imperial territories bordering the province of Raetia . For many years he managed to skillfully play Julian and Constantius II off against one another. A courier from Vadomar who was intercepted by Julian and was carrying a letter to Constantius II finally revealed his duplicity. Vadomar was captured during a feast in Julian's camp and then exiled to Hispania . Between 363 and 364 he made a career under Julian's successor, Jovian , and was appointed Dux Foenicis , military leader in the province of Phoenice , in what is now Lebanon . However, due to his insincerity, he was soon deposed. Under Emperor Valens he fought in 365 as a general for special use against the usurper Procopius in Bithynia and in 373 against the Persians in Mesopotamia .

Geographical assignment

In historical specialist literature, Vadomar is often referred to as the king of the Breisgauer ( brisgavi ), which was derived solely from Ammianus Marcellinus' geographical information on Vadomar's activities. However, this assignment is considered uncertain, since the existence of a tribe of the Brisgavi cannot be proven during Vadomar's lifetime. The first, albeit indirect, mention of the landscape name brisgavi was only made between 395 and 398 in the Notitia Dignitatum .

swell

• Ammianus Marcellinus

literature

• Thorsten Fischer :  Vadomarius. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 35, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-018784-7 , pp. 322–326.
• Dieter Geuenich : The Alemannic Breisgau kings Gundomadus and Vadomarius . In: Sebastian Brather, Dieter Geuenich, Christoph Huth (eds.): Historia archaeologica. Festschrift for Heiko Steuer on his 70th birthday (=  Real Lexicon of Germanic Antiquity. Supplementary volumes . Volume 70 ). de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2009, ISBN 978-3-11-022337-8 , p. 205-216 .
• Dieter Geuenich: History of the Alemanni (= Kohlhammer Urban pocket books. 575). 2nd, revised edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-17-018227-7 .