Vitalian (Byzantium)

Vitalian ( lat. Flavius ​​Vitalianus , Middle Greek Βιταλιανός Vitalianos ; † July 520 in Constantinople ) was an Eastern Roman army master and politician. He rebelled against Emperor Anastasios I in Thrace in 513 .

When Anastasios deposed the Patriarch of Constantinople Macedonios in 511 and appointed the Monophysite Patriarch of Antioch as his successor, unrest broke out in the Eastern Roman Empire. In the Staurotheis uprising in 512 in Constantinople, the Orthodox party first proclaimed the high-ranking politician Areobindus - against his will - as anti-emperor. A year later, the comes foederatorum Vitalian took the lead in the resistance. He appeared several times in front of the capital with a Hunnic and Bulgarian armed force, but was finally defeated in 515 after Anastasios had awarded him the post of magister militum per Thracias , whereupon he went into hiding.

Under Justin I , Vitalian was again appointed army master and consul of the year 520. Presumably at the instigation of the imperial nephew Justinian , however, he was attacked and murdered in the palace that same year. Euagrios assumes that Vitalian himself strived for the imperial throne, but this remains controversial.

swell

• Euagrios Scholastikos , Historia ecclesiastica 4 , 3
• Theophanes , AM 6006

literature

• Linda-Marie Günther : Anastasius. In: Manfred Clauss (Ed.): The Roman Emperors. Cult of rulers in the Roman Empire. Reprint of the first edition (1999). Saur, Munich et al. 2001, ISBN 3-598-77444-3 , pp. 418-424.
• Fiona K. Haarer: Anastasius I. Politics and Empire in the Late Roman World (= Arca , Vol. 46). Cairns, Leeds 2006, ISBN 0-905205-43-X (also: Dissertation, Oxford University 1998: The Reign of Anastasius I ), pp. 491-518.
• Allen D. Lee: Anastasius. In: Iorwerth ES Edwards et al. (Ed.): The Cambridge Ancient History . Volume 14: Averil Cameron et al. (Ed.): Late Antiquity: empire and successors, AD 425-600. New edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2000, ISBN 0-521-32591-9 , pp. 52-62.
• Mischa Meier : Σταυρωθεὶς δι 'ἡμᾶς. The uprising against Anastasios in 512. In: Millennium . Vol. 4, 2007, pp. 157-237, doi : 10.1515 / 9783110192797.157 .
• Klaus Rosen : Justin I. In: Reallexikon für Antiquity and Christianity . Volume 19: Itinerarium - Cannibalism. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-7772-0134-0 , pp. 763-778.
• Dan Ruscu: The revolt of Vitalianus and the "Scythian Controversy". In: Byzantine Journal . Vol. 101, No. 2, 2009, pp. 773-785, doi : 10.1515 / BYZS.2008.024 .
• Andreas Schwarcz : The uprising of Vitalianus, the Proto-Bulgarians and the Council of Heraclea, 515 . In: Bulgarian Historical Review. Vol. 20, No. 4, 1992, ISSN  0324-0207 , pp. 3-10.