This is the first part in a series of several essays I wrote a few months back, about the Roman emperors of the period 275-305 CE. I may post a few more shortly.



Of all of the later Roman emperors, it seems Aurelian (r. 270 – 275) enjoyed the best reputation, both in ancient times and amongst modern students of history. His fame is well-earned – by reuniting an empire divided into three, he saved Rome from collapse and won the unique title of Restitutor Orbis. A decade after Aurelian’s murder in 275 CE, the Empire was in the hands of Diocletian and Maximian. The Tetrarchy they established bore more resemblance to what the Romans of a previous era would have termed an “oriental despotism”, but it did manage to restore a measure of order and stability to the Empire.



The decade between Aurelian and Diocletian was an era of political intrigue and brutal warfare on a scale that was nearly unprecedented, even compared to the half century of civil strife that proceeded it. Unfortunately, our knowledge of this short, if crucial chapter of Roman history is very incomplete, and there is no way of gauging the accuracy of our contemporary sources.



The Death of Aurelian and the Interregnum



Like many an emperor, Aurelian nursed the ultimate ambition of an eastern conquest. His series of intoxicating victories against Palmyra and the so-called “Gallic Empire” had unified the Empire, and endeared him to the rank-and-file of the soldiery. Having celebrating his triumph in Rome, he spent the final months of his reign marching across Europe gathering an army, with the intentions to invade Sassanid Persia and dethrone Rome’s greatest rival. Aurelian, however, was a heavy-handed disciplinarian who had imposed old-fashioned penalties on offenders in the ranks of his army; legend claims that he executed one legionary offender by having the man pulled in half between two bent trees. His reputation as a punisher had instilled both paranoia and bitterness in the ranks of many of his advisors and officers.



During the fall of 275 CE, as Aurelian and his army were camped in Thrace, just outside Byzantium, he caught his freedman secretary Eros in a lie. Aurelian threatened to punish Eros, and the latter fled to the officers of the Praetorian Guard in a panic. Eros deliberately embellished his story, telling the Praetorians that Aurelian was planning to execute all of his senior officers. The result of his slander was predictable. The Praetorians staged a coup, evidently led by a Thracian officer named Mucapor, who personally murdered the Emperor in his chambers.



Aurelian’s murderers did not commit this crime to place their own choice of emperor on the throne; like the assassins of Commodus a century before they acted out of (real or perceived) self-defense and thus had no long-term goal in mind. The immediate aftermath of the assassination is a mysterious gap in the chronology of the Roman Empire. Traditionally it has been believed that a six-month interregnum followed Aurelian’s death, in which the Empire in fact had no central authority. More recently the theory has also been put forward that Aurelian’s wife Ulpia Severina ruled the Empire for the six months between Aurelian and Tacitus – she is, incidentally, very well represented by contemporary coinage.



The notion of a female holding total control over the Empire, even for just a short period, is sufficiently novel that we can assume that if Severina indeed seceded her husband, history would have recorded this. The most likely explanation for the “interregnum” is that it simply didn’t exist, or at the least was not nearly as long as sixth months – this is the opinion of Michael Grant, as well as Aurelian’s biographer Alaric Watson. At any rate, the reign immediately following Aurelian’s is just as poorly known as the supposed gap between them.



Tacitus and Florian – a resurgent Senate or more military dictators?



Emperor Tacitus is one of Rome’s most obscure emperors, but has also managed to become one of its most controversial. This is largely because modern historians contend that virtually nothing that ancient historians wrote about him is true. Supposedly, Marcus Claudius Tacitus was an elderly senator, residing in retirement on his villa in Campania, when the Senate and army jointly decided to elect him emperor some months after Aurelian’s death. Tacitus – a modest and noble-spirited old man supposedly descended from the historian Tacitus – humbly accepted this honor, reigning for only around half a year but spending that time inflicting crippling defeats on barbarian pillagers in Asia minor.



Modern historians contend that Tacitus was more likely another of the Danubian military officers, in the spirit of Claudius Gothicus and Aurelian. Technically, we have no excuse to doubt that he was an elderly senator living in retirement in Campania, but the odds of his being a seventy year-old descendant of the famous historian who also restored the Senate to much of its future influence are very slim. The Historia Augusta attributes many bizarre traits to him – supposedly he seldom bathed (an expression of his extreme modesty) and had a collection of marbles and glassware. Such details are not only nonsensically trivial, but considering their source their accuracy is dubious. A more truthful source on his reign is the coinage – for the brevity of his imperial career he minted a bewildering variety of coins, most of them bearing hopeful, patriotic motifs.



Tacitus appears to have assumed power as both an emperor and a consul in December of 275 CE; considering that Aurelian likely died in the fall of that year (September-November), this renders the speculation about the nature of the so-called “interregnum” largely futile. Tacitus seems to have made a conscious effort to stabilize his regime by installing family members in important posts around the Empire. His brother or brother-in-law (his name would suggest the latter), Marcus Annius Florianus, received the post of Praetorian prefect and effectively functioned as the Emperor’s right-hand man. Another relation, one Maximinus, was made the governor of Syria and possibly ruled the entire region. Maximinus proved a poor choice – he was corrupt and monstrously cruel.



After assuming his consular duties in January of 276, Tacitus and Florian set out for Asia minor at the head of an army that included the Praetorian Guard and likely the Second Parthica Legion (based at Albanum just outside of Rome). The provinces of Asia were presently being ravaged by warbands of Gothic warriors from the Black Sea coast. Exactly when these Goths had entered the scene is unknown (Gothic bands had been raiding Asia minor for several decades at the time), but its possible that they were on Aurelian’s agenda in addition to (or even instead of) the Persians. If so, Tacitus and Florian were facing the daunting task of removing freebooters who had spent at least a year ravaging some of the Empire’s previously safest provinces.



It was a task they faced with skill and courage – Tacitus even issued a coin with the legend “Virtus” (courage) perhaps to commemorate victories over the barbarians. It seems to have been Florian, rather than Tacitus, who personally directed the Roman forces in Asia minor, and in this task he displayed a reasonable measure of talent. Whether Florian genuinely possessed potential as a general, or if these victories were won due to the unorganized and ill-disciplined nature of their enemies (who were, in effect pirates) is unknown.



Either way, winning victories could help to stabilize the new Emperor’s regime. But other events were to overtake both Tacitus and then Florian. Tacitus died, apparently in June of 276; we have conflicting reports of the circumstances. One version of the story claims that Maximinus, his relative and appointee to the governorship of Syria, had been murdered in a revolt (whether it was a mutiny or a civilian uprising is unclear); the murderers feared punishment and thus felt the need to put Tacitus out of the way as well.



Alternatively, Tacitus may have died of a fever while resting at Tyana in Cappadocia; the idea of his dying a natural death is not improbable considering his advanced age. Michael Grant says of the notion “[it] was so unusual among third-century emperors that the story may well be true.”



Tacitus’ death saw the declaration of two emperors. In Asia minor, his brother and Praetorian prefect Florian assumed imperial power for himself with the support of the army with which he had just driven out the Goths. The rest of the East, however, preferred one Marcus Aurelius Probus, a Danubian military man who appears to have seceded Maximinus as the primary Roman strongman in the East. Florian seems to have been more successful at courting the support of the rest of the Empire; coins bearing his name were minted in Italy and the Danubian regions. As with his brother, Florian displayed a remarkable variety in coinage during his brief stint as emperor, and many of these show a deceptive confidence and optimism about the future.



In the late summer of 276, Florian (who appears to have never left Asia during his short reign) and Probus confronted each other outside of Tarsus. Florian’s army was larger, but inferior in terms of morale, many were apparently in poor health and this was intensified by Probus’ delaying tactics. The result was Florian’s death – whether his killers were legionaries of his own army, or agents of Probus is impossible to determine considering the scanty and biased nature of our sources.



Probus, in most respects, proved to be a second, and long-lived, version of Aurelian. In a series of successful campaigns he reasserted Roman prestige and dominance along the Rhine, Danube, and Euphrates frontiers only to perish tragically as another victim of a military mutiny, this time headed by his Praetorian prefect Carus.



The events of the year of 275-276, however, reveal that a measure of stability was being returned to the Roman world. Emperors were managing to inflict defeats on barbarians and usurpers, and a degree of confidence had risen concerning the army's ability to effectively defend the Empire.



In the 270s CE, a new dawn was beginning to break in the Roman world. This dawn, however, would only partially illuminate an Empire much darker and colder than that of the Severans half a century before.