Venutius

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Venutius († after 70 AD) was a king of the Britannian people of the brigands and the husband of the Cartimandua .

Life

The brigands were an important people in northern England in the 1st century AD, settling between the Humber and Hadrian's Wall . It was nominally independent from the Romans , but entered into a loose alliance with them. 51 n. Chr. Cartimandua provided the refugees to their leader the Silures , Caratacus from the Romans. After Tacitus , Venutius became the most capable British general who, as the Roman historian had already stated earlier, had long been loyal to Rome and had enjoyed the support of world power for it. This earlier mention of Venutius does not exist in the surviving part of the annals , so that it must have been in their lost passages (which dealt with the years 43–47 AD). Cartimandua and Venutius probably entered into an alliance with the Romans shortly after their invasion of Britain (43 AD).

Under Aulus Didius Gallus , who was the Roman governor of Britain from 52–57 AD, Cartimandua had the brother and other relatives of Venutius murdered through intrigues to strengthen their position. This now gathered armies hostile to Rome and probably invaded the kingdom of the Cartimandua from the outside, probably from the north, as it bordered Roman territory in the south. The Brigantine Queen received military support from the Romans, allied with her, through Caesius Nasica and was therefore able to defeat her husband after a hard fight.

Accordingly, Venutius had to remain hostile to Rome. It is not known whether he took part in the Boudicca uprising in AD 61; in any case, brigands participated in the successful attack on Camulodunum .

Even before the annals , Tacitus had written his histories (which cover the period from 69 to 96 AD) and in them gave only very brief reports on Venutius and Cartimandua. Here it is stated that Cartimandua became prosperous and cocky because of their extradition of Caratacus. She divorced Venutius - for whatever reason - and took Vellocatus as her new husband. The date of this disgrace for Venutius is disputed in research. On the other hand, it can be safely dated that Venutius took advantage of the Roman civil war in 69 AD, which tied the forces of the world empire. At that time he caused the defection of large parts of the brigands and fought his former wife so successfully that she again called the Romans for help. But the governor Marcus Vettius Bolanus could only send a few cohorts who could save the queen and get her out of the country, but had to leave the government of the brigands to Venutius. The time span of these events seems to be much shorter according to the account of the histories than according to that in the annals . But since it is said that on the one hand the outbreak of the conflicts took place soon after the extradition of Caratacus, on the other hand the final victory of Venutius was made possible by the Roman civil war in the year of the Four Emperors , the expulsion of Venutius in the middle of the 50s AD is likely. to be set, who then lived in exile until 69 AD.

The further fate of Venutius has not come down to us because of the scarce sources. Tacitus' report about the defeat of the brigands by the governor Quintus Petilius Cerialis is very brief and does not mention Venutius. After all, the Roman poet Publius Papinius Statius glorifies the successes of Vettius Bolanus in the Silvae and mentions that he captured the breastplate of a British king. Since Bolanus freed the Cartimandua, this remark by Statius could refer to Venutius. In this case the brigant king would have survived the battle against Bolanus and probably fell in the battle against Petilius Cerialis between 71 A.D. 74 AD

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Tacitus , Annalen 12, 36, 1.
  2. ↑ Tacitus, Annalen 12, 40, 2.
  3. ^ So Dobson, ODNB vol. 56, p. 272.
  4. ↑ Tacitus, Annalen 12, 40, 2.
  5. ^ Tacitus, Agricola 31, 5.
  6. ^ Tacitus, Historien 3, 45, 1.
  7. ^ Tacitus, Historien 3, 45, 2.
  8. ^ So Dobson, ODNB Vol. 56, p. 273.
  9. ^ Tacitus, Agricola 17, 2.
  10. ↑ Dobson, ODNB Vol. 56, p. 273.
personal data
SURNAME Venutius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of the British people of the Brigantes and husband of the Cartimandua
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century
DATE OF DEATH after 70