Numerian

Proclamation by Caesar

The future emperor Marcus Aurelius Numerius Numerian was born around 253 or in 254 ^{[2] [1]} . Nothing is known about his early biography. In 282, the legions stationed along the Upper Danube in the provinces of Rétius and Norik proclaimed the emperor Father Numerian Marcus Aurelius Kara, who was then the prefect of the praetorium , and began an uprising against the then reigning emperor Proba ^[3] . The Proba army, located in the Pannonian city ​​of Sirmia (modern Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia ), decided that it did not want to fight against Kara, and Proba was killed by its soldiers ^[4] .

Kar, who at the time of accession to the throne was already sixty years old, wanted to establish his dynasty and in order to strengthen power in September 282 ^[5] awarded his sons the titles of “noble Caesars ” ( lat. Nobilissimus Caesar ) and “leaders of youth” ( lat . princeps iuventutis ) ^{[4] [6]} . Numerian was clearly the youngest of the two Caesars, not taking an equal position with his brother. If Karin was proclaimed August August by his father and in the same year took the post of ordinary consul along with Kar, then Numerian continued to be just a Caesar ^[6] . Kar made efforts to keep his dynasty in power, and therefore organized a marriage between the daughter of the new prefect Praetor Arria Apra (her name is unknown) and his youngest son ^[6] .

In 283, Kar, who proclaimed his goal the destruction of the Persian state , which Bahram II ruled, began a campaign against the Persians . The campaign was facilitated by riots in the enemy state: the Sassanids were embroiled in a dynastic crisis that arose after the death of Shah Shapur I , and therefore were not able to withstand the Roman army ^[6] . The emperor left his eldest son in charge of order in the West, especially in Gaul , and he, along with Numerian and Arri Aprom, went to the East ^[3] . Along the way, Kar defeated the Sarmatians and Quads , for which he and his sons received the victorious title "The Greatest of Germany" ^[2] .

According to historians John Zonara , Eutropius and Festus , Kar won an important victory over the Persians, capturing Seleucia and the Persian capital Ktesifon (near modern Al-Madain in Iraq ), after which he crossed to the opposite bank of the Tigris ^{[7] [8] [9]} . In honor of this event, Kar, Numerian and Karin took the victorious title "Persian Greatest" ^[3] . However, Kar passed away in July or early August 283 ^[6] , possibly due to lightning that struck his tent ^[10] . William Leadbetter suggests that Car was killed by Aprom with the tacit consent of Numerian ^[6] .

Board as August and death

After the death of his father, Numerian ascended the throne as August , becoming co-ruler of Karin, who received this title during the life of Kara. In 283 he received the title of Great Pontiff , and in 284 he became an ordinary consul with his brother ^{[6] [1]} . Despite the fact that on some coins Numerian is still present with his former title “Leader of Youth”, on others both emperors are in an equal position ^[1] . In addition, on one bronze medallion, where Numerian is depicted in a magnificent oriental robe, you can see that the brothers nearby are speaking to legionaries, although in reality they were separated by great distances ^[1] .

Karin quickly arrived from Gaul to Rome, where he spent the winter of 283/284, while Numerian lingered in the East ^[3] . The sudden death of his father put an end to the campaign, and the Romans began an orderly retreat from Persia, to which the Persians posed no obstacles. ^[6] Perhaps Numerian ended the war due to a bad omen, which was the death of his father ^[11] , or he simply did not want to continue military operations ^[1] . At that time, coins were issued with the inscription "Peacebreaker" ^[1] . However, formally the war did not end, and negotiations with Persia were held only at the beginning of Diocletian's reign in 288, and also after the successful campaign of the co-ruler Diocletian Galerius ^[6] .

According to some modern historians (for example, the Italian scholar S. Mazzarino ), the version of the successful withdrawal of Numerian’s troops was Roman propaganda, the purpose of which was to hide the emperor’s defeat from the Sassanian king Bahram II and his subsequent death ^[12] . This assumption is based on the messages of John Zonara and John Malala : according to Zonara, Numerian continued the offensive and was defeated by the Persian army, was taken prisoner, where he was skinned; Malala reports that the emperor was besieged by the Persians in Karra , then was captured and killed (and, like Zonara, Malala reports that the skin was stripped from Numerian) ^{[7] [13]} . But, apparently, these events were copied from the circumstances of the death of Emperor Valerian I , which occurred twenty years before the reign of Numerian ^[14] . In 284, Numerian took the British Greatest title, as Karin won several victories in Britain at that time ^[2] .

By March 284, Numerian reached only the Syrian city of Emesa , and in November he was in Asia Minor ^[3] . According to Christian tradition, during his visit to Antioch, Numerian ordered the execution of St. Babylon of Antioch , but this event obviously happened much earlier ^[6] . Also, the death of the martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria of Rome is referred to the reign of Numerian, and, according to their lives , they were executed by order of the emperor ^[15] . In fact, this could not happen, because Numerian did not live in Rome throughout his reign. Therefore, researchers either believe that Chrysanthus and Daria were executed by order of Karin, or attribute their martyrdom to the rule of Valerian ^[15] . In Emes, the emperor, in all probability, was still alive and in good health, since there he published the only surviving script that was later included in the Justinian code ^{[16] [17]} . Coins with the name of Numerian, issued in the Asian city of Kizik at the end of 284, do not allow us to determine its location ^[18] .

Shortly after visiting Emesa, Numerian fell ill ^[6] . His close associates, including Pretoria Prefect Arri Apre, told soldiers who constantly asked them about the emperor’s condition that Numerian suffers from eye inflammation due to prolonged insomnia and therefore is forced to move in a closed stretcher to protect his eyes from the sun and wind ^{[ 6]} . The exact cause of Numerian’s death is unknown: either he died of an illness, or April killed him, who intended to imagine the emperor’s death as natural and to seize the imperial title himself. However, when the army reached the Bethynian city ​​of Nicomedia ^[3] , the characteristic cadaverous smell emanating from the stretcher no longer allowed Apru to hide the truth ^[10] . The soldiers tore open the curtains that hid Numerian, and found that the emperor had been dead for several days ^[3] .

Board Summary

Apparently, the highest military officials were aware of the death of Numerian, but agreed to remain silent in order to verify the loyalty of the army towards Numerian ^[6] . April officially announced the news of the death of Numerian in November 284 near Nicomedia ^[19] , after which the prefect was captured by the legionnaires. The tribunes and military leaders gathered an army on the military council on November 20, 284 to elect a new emperor, where “by inspiration from above” ^[20] they selected the commander of the imperial horse-drawn bodyguards Valery Diocles ^[3] , despite Apra's attempts to enlist their support and become the emperor himself ^{[19 ]} . Flavius ​​Vopisk the Syracusan gives the following reasons for this choice:

“He was a wonderful person, smart, loving the state, loving his subordinates, able to do everything that the circumstances of that time required. He was always full of high intentions; sometimes, however, his face assumed a somewhat harsh expression, but by prudence and exceptional firmness he suppressed the movements of his restless heart ” ^[20] .

The army gathered in the hills outside Nicomedia and unanimously saluted its new emperor. ^[21] Diocles, who now assumed the name of Diocletian , was dressed in purple robes, and when asked about the circumstances under which Numerian was killed, he drew his sword from the scabbard and, pointing to the prefect Prairie Arri Apr, struck him, saying the following words: " This is the culprit of the murder of Numerian! ” ^{[20] The} soldiers preferred to choose their representative Diocletian as the sole ruler of the empire, and not the co-ruler of Numerian Karin (although Karin immediately deified his late brother) ^[1] .

Numerian was an emperor for about fourteen months, but in all likelihood he really ruled for an even shorter period of time ^[6] . From his biography in The History of Augustus , it can be seen that Numerian’s hobbies did not correspond to the tasks assigned to the emperor, especially in such a difficult era of the crisis of the III century - he turned his interest primarily to literature ^[1] . Soon after the death of Numerian, his brother was defeated by Diocletian near the tributary of the Danube Marga and died during the battle, apparently at the hands of his subordinate. It is believed that with his death the crisis of the III century ended and the era of domination began. Both brothers were betrayed by the memory curse ^[2] . There is an assumption that Diocletian was involved in the murder of Numerian, since he held an important position as chief of bodyguards and could prevent the murder of the emperor ^[22] . Moreover, in the end it was he who benefited the most from the death of Numerian ^[22] . All suspicions fell on Apra, and when Diocletian was proclaimed emperor, he killed his rival ^[22] . Therefore, it is unlikely that Diocletian had anything to do with the murder of Numerian ^[22] .

Flavius ​​Vopisk the Syracusan, in his biography of Numerian in The History of Augustus, enthusiastically speaks of him. According to him:

“Numerian possessed excellent moral qualities and was truly worthy of imperial power. He stood out for his eloquence, so that as a boy he publicly delivered speeches; his works are considered remarkable, however, they come closer to school exercises than to Tullius' style. It is said that he was an outstanding poet and surpassed all the poets of his time. He rivaled Olympia Nemesian, who wrote ἁλιευτικά κυνηγετικά and ναυτικά, and shone with all the beauties of the style. "The Yambic poet Aurelius Apollinaris, who in his poem described the affairs of his father, Numerian, like the sun, eclipsed his rays, publishing his previously read work." ^[23] .

In addition, the princeps biographer also says that the appeal that Numerian sent to the senators was, according to eyewitnesses, so expressively compiled that they issued an order according to which the Ulpiev Library (built by the architect Trayan Apollodor Damascus at the Trajan forum ) a statue was erected in honor of the emperor, but not as a sovereign, but as a rhetorician. The following dedication inscription was carved on it: “Numerian Caesar, the most powerful speaker of his time” ^[23] .

More than one source does not talk about the identity of Numerian ^[6] . However, it is known that the aforementioned poet Olympius Nemesian is in mentioned in his work “Kinegetics” (“On the Hunt”) about the desire to write an epic poem telling about the acts of Karin and Numerian, but this plan, apparently, was never implemented ^[24] .

Sources

1. Aurelius Victor . Kar, Karin and Numerian // About Caesars .
2. Flavius ​​Vopisk the Syracusan. Kar, Karin and Numerian // History of Augustus.
3. John Zonara . From Alexander North to Diocletian // Reduction of history . Archived May 21, 2008 on Wayback Machine

Literature

1. Grant M. Roman Emperors. Numerian . - M .: TERRA - Book Club, 1998.
2. Barnes, Timothy D. Constantine and Eusebius. - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.
3. Bowman, Alan K. The Cambridge Ancient History: The Crisis of Empire, AD 193–337. - 2004.
4. Jones A. H. M., Martindale J. R., Morris J. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire . Vol. 1. AD 260—395. - Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1971. - 1152 p.
5. Leadbetter, William. Numerianus (283-284 AD) (neopr.) . // An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors . 2001. Archived on December 25, 2012.
6. Mazzarino, Santo. Antico, tardoantico ed era costantiniana. - Edizioni Dedalo, 1980.
7. Potter, David Stone. The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180—395. - Routledge, 2004.
8. Southern, Pat. The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine. - London, New York: Routledge, 2001.

• Coins of Numerian . Date of treatment December 23, 2012.