Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVII: Imperial Wrath

(10) NEPOTIANUS –

USURPER: CONSTANTINIAN (ITALY)

(350 AD: 27 DAYS)

Technically a usurper but like Vetranio in my honorable mentions, he was effectively a counter-usurper, usurping another usurper – indeed in the very same year, 350 AD, against the very same usurper, Magnentius, who had usurped the Constantinian dynasty in the western empire, usurping Constans as western emperor, and facing off the eastern emperor and older brother of Constans, Constantius II. Yes – I know that’s a lot of usurping in that last sentence, but that pretty much sums up the Roman empire at times.

Unlike Vetranio, who did his usurping at the request of Constantine’s daughter – the sister of Constans and Constantius II – to protect her family (and hold the line for Constantius), Nepotianus actually was part of the family in the Constantinian dynasty, being the son of Constantine’s half-sister.

Where Vetranio effectively blocked Magentius from moving eastwards into Illyria, Nepotianus tried to block Magnetius from Rome itself – which is where he asserted his imperial claim for 27 days until Magnentius sent a trusted military subordinate to Rome to crush the revolt, literally parading Nepotianus’ head on a stick (well, lance) around the city after defeating and killing him.

What stops me from ranking Nepotianus similarly to Vetranio as a good usurper for honorable mention is just how brief and ineffectual his attempt to usurp the throne in Rome was – and that unlike Vetranio, Nepotianus’ attempt may have been a genuine bid for the imperial throne, which would make it even more pathetic, not least in that it saw him get killed rather than retire peacefully as Vetranio did.

On the other hand, he gets bonus points – and higher numerical ranking than other dishonorable mentions so far – for doing it by literal gladiatorial coup. I have to admire his sheer ballsiness in that he didn’t even have any soldiers for his attempt, but instead entered Rome with a band of gladiators. Gladiators! And pulled it off enough that Rome’s prefect and loyal supporter of Magnentius had to flee the city. This is what the Gladiator sequel film should have featured!

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

I feel Dovahhatty short-changed Nepotianus by not featuring him in full but only as an icon on the map – a wojak face. Still, I like the humor of his mother pleading with him against his coup attempt, as she was killed after it as well.

RATING: 2 STARS**

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVI: Constantine the Great

(9) VALERIUS VALENS & MARTINIAN –

TETRARCHY (WESTERN EMPIRE – IN NAME ONLY)

(316-317 AD & 324 AD: 2-3 MONTHS EACH)

Think of that trope of someone trying to stop or at least stall an implacable pursuer by desperately throwing things, ineffectual or otherwise, at them or in their path, only for that pursuer to effortlessly brush or shrug those things aside as barely an inconvenience.

When the Tetrarchy had boiled down to a civil war between the last two men standing – Licinus as eastern emperor and Constantine as western emperor – that someone was Licinus, his implacable pursuer was Constantine, and the things Licinus desperately threw at Constantine were these two guys.

I’m not sure whether one can count them as usurpers – nor as ‘western emperors’, as both didn’t actually rule anything despite Licinus appointing them as such, given that Licinus did not control the western empire and was only appointing them in opposition to Constantine, each only for two or three months.

Valens was a frontier general in Dacia who helped Licinus raise another army after the latter’s crushing defeat by Constantine at the Battle of Cibalae. Licinus rewarded him by proclaiming him western emperor or augustus – only to abandon him and have him executed pursuant to a peace treaty with Constantine after being defeated again.

That peace ultimately broke down into another bout of civil war between Constantine and Licinus, so Licinus tried the same trick again – proclaiming Martinian, an imperial bureaucrat, as ‘western emperor’. This time, Constantine decisively and conclusively defeated Licinus – deposing and banishing both Licinius and Martinian before changing his mind to execute them instead.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

So inconsequential that Dovahhatty didn’t even depict them in full but only as icons on a map – wojak face for Valens and an alien for Martinian as a play on the similarity of the name to Martian (a trick Dovahhatty repeated for the eastern emperor Marcian). At least they got depictions, unlike some others in these dishonorable mentions.

RATING: 2 STARS**

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

(8) SALONINUS –

NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY

(260 AD: 1 MONTH)

Somewhat similar to the emperors in my previous entry, Saloninus was briefly co-emperor as son of the reigning emperor Gallienus but was more notable than the previous entry in his brief reign. Gallienus had appointed him, not as co-emperor but as caesar – effectively crown prince or imperial heir – and sent him to Gaul to help shore up imperial authority there, under the protection of the praetorian prefect Silvanus.

The political intuition of Gallienus that his imperial authority needed shoring up in Gaul was spot on, his timing less so. Poor Saloninus and Silvanus walked pretty much straight into a simmering revolt by legions hostile to a distant emperor who seemed to be failing in his duty to protect the Gallic provinces from Germanic barbarian invasion. That revolt went from simmering to full boil, as the legions proclaimed their commander Postumus as emperor, who then led the western third of the empire to break away or secede as what history has called the Gallic Empire.

Silvanus and Saloninus had fled with what few loyal troops they had to the Roman city at Cologne (in the German marches), where they were besieged by the army of Postumus. It was during that siege that Saloninus’ soldiers desperately proclaimed him emperor, perhaps hoping to sway Postumus’ army to defect or desert to their side – if so, it didn’t work as the citizens of the city surrendered Saloninus and Silvanus to Postumus’ army after a month of siege. No prizes for guessing what happened to them at that point.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Like father, like son

RATING: 2 STARS**

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Dovahhatty’s Unbiased History of Rome: Crisis of the Third Century

(7) HOSTILIAN & HERENNIUS ETRUSCUS –

NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY

(EACH – 251 AD: 1 MONTH OR LESS)

Somewhat similar to my previous dishonorable mentions for child co-emperors (but apparently older in age), these two emperors were also co-emperors as sons of the emperor Decius but actually did something of note in their brief reigns. .

Well, at least Herennius did something. Hostilian was the surviving son of Decius, whom Decius’ successor Trebonianus Gallus proclaimed as his co-emperor to lend some legitimacy and continuity to his reign, only for Hostilian to die of disease shortly afterwards. Gallus then proclaimed his own son Volusianus as co-emperor – and we’ve already seen how both of them were equally useless, embodying the Crisis of the Third Century.

In fairness, the thing of note Herennius did in his short reign was similarly to die, but at least to die in battle – the same Battle of Arbritus against the Goths in which his father Decius was killed, except that he was killed first, which would technically make him rather than his father the first Roman emperor to be killed in battle by a foreign enemy.

It was his death for which Decius exhorted the troops in battle – “Let no one mourn, the death of one soldier is no great loss to the Republic”.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Hostilian a wojak dying pathetically from disease and Herennius a chad dying in battle – I’d say Dovahhatty got it right. Also, I love the humor in Trebonianus Gallus’ double take when Hostilian up and dies on him.

RATING: 2 STARS**

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Crisis of the Third Century

(6) PHILIP II –

NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY (247-249: 2 YEARS 2 MONTHS)

Another child emperor, Philip II or Philip the Younger was the son of Philip the Arab and was killed at 12 years of age. He was his father’s heir, proclaimed as co-emperor, only to run afoul of the same fate as his father killed by a rival imperial claimant. The only difference is that that there is some uncertainty of who killed Philip II, although the consensus of moden historians seems to be that the Praetorian Guard killed him after his father was killed.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT

I do like how Dovahhatty makes him a younger wojak version of his father, but he looks a little older than he should!

RATING: 1 STAR*

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Crisis of the Third Century

(5) VOLUSIANUS –
NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY
(251 – 253 AD: 2 YEARS)

Surprisingly not a usurper but one of those emperors of “varying ascribed status” in Wikipedia’s list of Roman emperors, Volusianus couldn’t even achieve his uselessness on his own, but as the son and junior co-emperor of that equally useless embodiment of the Crisis of the Third Century, Trebonianus Gallus.

Trebonianus Gallus first acclaimed his son as caesar, then as co-emperor or co-augustus – possibly murdering the preceding co-emperor Hostilian, the son of his predecessor Decius, to do so, at least according to Roman historian Zosimus.

Anyway, Volusianus was equally as weak and useless as his father, but without even achieving his imperial position for himself – “both chose to stay in Rome rather than confront the invasions” of Goths and Sassanid Persians that were overrunning large parts of the empire.

The governor of the province of Moesia, Aemilian, at least succeeded in repelling the Goths – and for that his soldiers proclaimed him emperor. He marched on Rome with his legions. Characteristically, the father and son team of Gallus and Volusianus called for help from someone useful, the future emperor Valerian as military commander in Gaul, but Aemilian got to them first – or rather, their own troops did, mutinying and killing both of them so as to avoid battle with Aemilian.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Yes – “now son, may we rule long and incompetently together”.

Well, at least they didn’t rule long

RATING: 1 STAR*
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Solidus of Leo II, coin in public domain image Wikipedia “List of Roman Emperors”

(4) LEO II –

LEONID DYNASTY: EASTERN EMPIRE

(18 JANUARY – NOVEMBER 474: 10 MONTHS)

Another child emperor, Leo II is the exception to my rule of dishonorable mention in that he was actually a legitimate emperor rather than usurper or other dubious claimant – indeed as the second emperor of the Leonid dynasty in the eastern empire that outlasted the fall of the western empire. So bonus points all round.

Except…he was sadly insignificant due to his youth (and corresponding lack of rule in his own name), capped by death still as a child. Leo I nominated him as heir, but only because his father Zeno – married to the daughter of Leo I and hence Leo I’s son-in-law – was unpopular.

Becoming increasingly ill, Leo I skipped over his son-in-law Zeno for his grandson Leo II as heir – Leo II was first made caesar or heir to the throne in October 472 AD, then proclaimed as augustus or co-emperor with Leo II in 17 November 473 AD.

Hence when Leo I died of dysentery on 18 January 474 AD, Leo II ascended the throne as sole emperor, but by 29 January 474 the eastern Roman Senate made his father Zeno co-emperor, as Leo II was too young to sign documents or do much of anything really.

And he was able to do even less when, at the age of 7 years and a brief reign of 10 months (although sources vary slightly), he died – of undocumented cause but probably natural, not unusually for the high child mortality rate at the time.

So rather than rank him against other legitimate emperors, I’ve included him in my dishonorable mentions – and even more sadly, I have to rank him low among them given the absence of any achievement, even if not through any fault of his own.

Shout-out to Marcus, son and (brief) co-emperor of the emperor who (briefly) usurped Zeno, Basiliscus, before Zeno was able to usurp the throne back from Basiliscus. Marcus appears to have met the same grim fate of Basiliscus when Zeno reclaimed the throne (just in time to preside over the eastern empire when the western empire fell). It’s a shout-out because other than a brief mention in parenthesis with Basiliscus, he does not feature in Wikipedia’s list of Roman emperors.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Again, Dovahhatty doesn’t mention him, despite featuring Leo and Zeno. (Dovahhatty also omits Basiliscus and Marcus as emperors, although he features Basiliscus – without naming him – as the naval commander who lost at the Battle of Cape Bon against the Vandals).

Presumably, it was just too sad to mention a child emperor who died at the age of 7 years without doing anything.

RATING: 1 STAR*

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Diadumenian on denarius 218 AD, British Imperial Museum, Wikipedia “List of Roman Emperors” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

(3) DIADUMENIAN –

USURPER: SEVERAN DYNASTY (MAY – JUNE 218: LESS THAN 1 MONTH)

Well, not quite a usurper but the child of a usurper attempting to make his own dynasty.

Similarly to my mention for numismatic mystery imperial claimant Silbannacus, it may seem uncharitable to rank this child co-emperor as dishonorable mention and again so low in my rankings, but I just can’t rank him otherwise even if his pathetic reign as ephemeral emperor was not really his fault. And given how brief that reign was for Diadumenian – indeed the briefest of my dishonorable mentions – he ranks the lowest of my child-emperor rankings. Not to mention his ‘reign’ was so brief and pathetic, Dovahhatty doesn’t even mention him.

Diadumenian was the son of Macrinus, the praetorian prefect who plotted the assassination of his predecessor Caracalla and proclaimed himself emperor. When Elagabalus led a resurgent Severan dynasty in revolt against Macrinus, Macrinus proclaimed Diadumenian – then nine years of age – as co-emperor, a position Diadumenian held for less than a month before Macrinus was defeated in battle by Elagabalus. Diadumenian was sent by his father to the Sassanid Persian court in an attempt to ensure his safety, but he was captured and executed en route. The Senate declared damnatio memoriae for both Macrinus and Diadumenian.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

As I said, Dovahhatty didn’t do him at all – that’s how insignificant he was! Also, I suppose it’s one thing to have the victorious resurgent Severan dynasty under Elagabalus kill Macrinus, it’s another to have them kill a kid.

RATING: 1 STAR*

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVIII: Barbarians at the Gates

(2) PRISCUS ATTALUS –
USURPER: THEODOSIAN DYNASTY (ITALY & GAUL)
(409-410 AD & 414-415 AD)

You know – this one surprised me in ranking him as my worst usurper and second worst dishonorable mention.

After all, he usurped the Theodosian dynasty and its worst emperor Honorius at that, so you’d think I’d be all on board for him but I just can’t forgive him the circumstances. Foremost among them being that it wasn’t really him doing the usurping – he was a Senator acclaimed as emperor by the Visigothic leader Alaric just prior to sacking Rome as a puppet against Honorius, the first western emperor to be raised to that office by a barbarian and precursor of the last western Roman emperors to come.

And as easily deposed and stripped of his imperial regalia by Alaric as the latter alternated between beseiging Rome and seeking to achieve his aims through negotiations with Honorius instead.

Or rather, I might have been able to forgive him, given that Attalus did show some signs of trying to be more than a mere puppet, if it hadn’t happened twice – and he’d had the good sense to know when to call it quits, as he was again acclaimed as emperor in Gaul by Alaric’s successor Atalphaus, only to again be deserted by his Visigoth patrons. This time, he didn’t get off so easy, as he was captured by Honorius’ men and exiled to an unknown fate, although it might have been more pleasant than he deserved since he was exiled to the Aeolian Islands.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

He only appears briefly but Dovahhatty indeed does him right, as one of the more pathetic wojaks.

RATING: 1 STAR*
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

(1) SILBANNACUS –
NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY

A mystery numismatic imperial claimant too obscure even for Dovahhatty – if he had done anything worthwhile, someone would have written something about him, amirite? As it is, we only know about him from two coins.

Once again I refer to Adrian Goldsworthy’s observation that our list of imperial claimants is likely never to be complete or exhaustive, given the paucity of the contemporary historical record and that we are still finding ‘imperial’ coins minted in the name of new or unknown claimants. So it is literally possible for a new emperor to ‘drop’ even today from coins found in his name.

Well, Silbannacus is one such imperial claimant, about whom almost nothing is known as he doesn’t appear in any literary historical sources. It may seem a little unfair to rank him as dishonorable mention and as the lowest of them to boot, but two coins will only get you so far.

Curiously, Silbannacus makes the Wikipedia list of emperors, albeit as being of “ambiguous legitimacy – hence my dishonorable mention for him, which he earns from those two coins in his name found in the twentieth century.

“Based on the design of the coin and its silver content, Silbannacus was most likely concurrent with the reigns of Philip the Arab (r.244–249), Decius (r.249–251), Trebonianus Gallus (r.251–253), Aemilian (r.253), or Valerian (r.253–260). The two most prevalent ideas are the older hypothesis, that Silbannacus was a usurper in Gaul during the reign of Philip the Arab, at some point between 248 and 250, and the newer hypothesis, based on the design of the second coin, that Silbannacus was a briefly reigning legitimate emperor, holding Rome between the death of Aemilian and the arrival of Valerian.”

Shout-out to Sponsian while we’re taking numismatic mystery emperors – too obscure even to make the Wikipedia list of emperors or anything more than this footnote in my dishonorable mentions, although he does have a Wikipedia entry as a possible usurper in the Crisis of the Third Century, apparently from a few coins in his name in a hoard of coins found in Transylvania in the eighteenth century but only verified as authentic in 2022. There seem to be two leading theories for him. The first is that he was a usurper during the reign of Gordian III or Philip the Arab, based on the other coins found with his coins. The other theory is that he was a military commander who proclaimed himself emperor when Dacia was cut off from the rest of the empire around 260 AD.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Not really – Dovahhatty doesn’t even do him at all!

RATING: 1 STAR*
X-TIER (WILD TIER)