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Galerius
Caesar then Augustus of the East

Coin of Galerius
Reign March 1 or May 21, 293[1] – May 1, 305 (as Caesar, under Diocletian)[2]
May 1, 305 – late April or early May 311 (as Augustus alongside Constantius (until July 25, 306) then Severus (until spring 307) then Constantine (from ca. September 307; unrecognized by Galerius' coinage from ca. September 307 to November 308) then Licinius (from November 11, 308))[3]
Full name Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus[4]
Born ca. 260[5]
Birthplace Felix Romuliana (Gamzigrad, Serbia)[6]
Died Late April or early May 311[7]
Place of death near Serdica
Buried Felix Romuliana (Gamzigrad, Serbia)[8]
Predecessor Maximian and Diocletian[9]
Successor Maximinus, Constantine, and Licinius[10]
Consort to Valeria[11]
Mother Romula (alleged)[12]

Galerius Maximianus (ca. 260–late April or early May 311), formally Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus was Roman Emperor from 305 to 311.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Galerius was born on a small farm estate, on a place where he later built his palace, Felix Romuliana, near Zaječar in Serbia. His father was a Thracian and his mother Romula was a Dacian woman, who left Dacia because of the Carpians attacks[13]. He originally followed his father's occupation, that of a herdsman, where he got his surname of Armentarius (Latin: armentum, herd). He served with distinction as a soldier under Emperors Aurelian and Probus, and in 293 at the establishment of the Tetrarchy, was designated Caesar along with Constantius Chlorus, receiving in marriage Diocletian's daughter Valeria (later known as Galeria Valeria), and at the same time being entrusted with the care of the Illyrian provinces.

[edit] War with Persia

See also: Roman relations with the Parthians and Sassanids and Roman-Persian Wars

[edit] Invasion, counterinvasion

In 294, Narseh, a son of Shapur who had been passed over for the Sassanid succession, came into power in Persia. Narseh probably moved to eliminate Bahram III, a young man installed by a noble named Vahunam in the wake of Bahram II's death in 293.[14] In early 294, Narseh sent Diocletian the customary package of gifts, but within Persia he was destroying every trace of his immediate predecessors, erasing their names from public monuments. He sought to identify himself with the warlike reigns of Ardashir (r. 226–41) and Shapur (r. 241–72), the same Shapur who had sacked Roman Antioch, skinned the Emperor Valerian (r. 253–260) to decorate his war temple.[15]

In 295 or 296, Narseh declared war on Rome. He appears to have first invaded western Armenia, retaking the lands delivered to Tiridates in the peace of 287. He would occupy the lands there until the following year.[16] Narseh then moved south into Roman Mesopotamia, where he inflicted a severe defeat on Galerius, then commander of the Eastern forces, in the region between Carrhae (Harran, Turkey) and Callinicum (Ar-Raqqah, Syria).[17] Diocletian may or may not have been present at the battle,[18] but would present himself soon afterwards at Antioch, where the official version of events was made clear: Galerius was to take all the blame for the affair. In Antioch, Diocletian forced Galerius to walk a mile in advance of his imperial cart while still clad in the purple robes of an emperor.[19] The message conveyed was clear: the loss at Carrhae was not due to the failings of the empire's soldiers, but due to the failings of their commander, and Galerius' failures would not be accepted.[20]

Detail of Galerius attacking Narseh on the Arch of Galerius at Thessaloniki, Greece, the city where Galerius carried out most of his administrative actions.
Detail of Galerius attacking Narseh on the Arch of Galerius at Thessaloniki, Greece, the city where Galerius carried out most of his administrative actions.[21]

Galerius had been reinforced, probably in the spring of 298, by a new contingent collected from the empire's Danubian holdings.[22] Narseh did not advance from Armenia and Mesopotamia, leaving Galerius to lead the offensive in 298 with an attack on northern Mesopotamia via Armenia.[20] Diocletian may or may not have been present to assist the campaign.[23] Narseh retreated to Armenia to fight Galerius' force, to Narseh's disadvantage: the rugged Armenian terrain was favorable to Roman infantry, but unfavorable to Sassanid cavalry. Local aid gave Galerius the advantage of surprise over the Persian forces, and, in two successive battles, Galerius secured victories over Narseh.[24]

During the second encounter, Roman forces seized Narseh's camp, his treasury, his harem, and his wife along with it.[25] Narseh's wife would live out the remainder of the war in Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, serving to the Persians as a constant reminder of Roman victory.[20] Galerius advanced into Media and Adiabene, winning continuous victories, most prominently near Erzurum,[26] and securing Nisibis (Nusaybin, Turkey) before October 1, 298. He moved down the Tigris, taking Ctesiphon, and gazing onwards to the ruins of Babylon before returning to Roman territory via the Euphrates.[27]

[edit] Peace negotiations

Narseh had previously sent an ambassador to Galerius to plead for the return of his wives and children, but Galerius had dismissed this ambassador, reminding him of how Shapur had treated Valerian.[22] The Romans, in any case, treated Narseh's captured family with tact, perhaps seeking to evoke comparisons to Alexander and his beneficent conduct towards the family of Darius III.[20] Peace negotiations began in the spring of 299, with both Diocletian and Galerius presiding. Their magister memoriae (secretary) Sicorius Probus was sent to Narseh to present terms.[22]

The conditions of the peace were heavy:[20] Persia would give up territory to Rome, making the Tigris the boundary between the two empires. Further terms specified that Armenia was returned to Roman domination, with the fort of Ziatha as its border; Caucasian Iberia would pay allegiance to Rome under a Roman appointee; Nisibis, now under Roman rule, would become the sole conduit for trade between Persia and Rome; and Rome would exercise control over the five satrapies between the Tigris and Armenia: Ingilene, Sophanene (Sophene), Arzanene (Aghdznik), Corduene, and Zabdicene (near modern Hakkâri, Turkey). These regions included the passage of the Tigris through the Anti-Taurus range; the Bitlis pass, the quickest southerly route into Persian Armenia; and access to the Tur Abdin plateau. With these territories, Rome would have an advance station north of Ctesiphon, and would be able to slow any future advance of Persian forces through the region.[28] Under the terms of the peace Tiridates would regain both his throne and the entirety of his ancestral claim, and Rome would secure a wide zone of cultural influence in the region.[22] The fact that the empire was able to sustain such constant warfare on so many fronts has been taken as a sign of the essential efficacy of the Diocletianic system and the goodwill of the army towards the tetrarchic enterprise.[29]

Detail of the Arch of Galerius in Thessaloniki.
Detail of the Arch of Galerius in Thessaloniki.

[edit] Retirement of Diocletian and after

In 305, on the retirement of Diocletian and Maximian, he at once assumed the title of Augustus, with Constantius his former colleague, and having procured the promotion to the rank of Caesar of Flavius Valerius Severus, a faithful servant, and (Maximinus II Daia), his nephew, he hoped on the death of Constantius to become sole master of the Roman world. Having Constantius' son Constantine as guest at Galerius' court in the east helped to secure his position.

His schemes, however, were defeated by the sudden elevation of Constantine at Eboracum (York) upon the death of his father, and by the action of Maximian and his son Maxentius, who were declared co-Augusti in Italy.

Arch of Galerius in Thessaloniki (eastern face).
Arch of Galerius in Thessaloniki (eastern face).

After an unsuccessful invasion of Italy in 307, he elevated his friend Licinius to the rank of Augustus, and moderating his ambition, he retired to the city Felix Romuliana (near present day Gamzigrada, Serbia-Montenegro) built by him to honor his mother Romula, and devoted the few remaining years of his life "to the enjoyment of pleasure and to the execution of some works of public utility."

According to Lactantius, Galerius had affirmed his Dacian identity, and he had avowed himself the enemy of the Roman name; and he proposed that the empire should be called, not the Roman, but the Dacian empire — exhibiting an anti-Roman attitude as soon as he had attained the highest power, treating the Roman citizens with ruthless cruelty, like the conquerors treated the conquered, all in the name of the same treatment that the victorious Trajan had applied to the conquered Dacians (forefathers of Galerius), two centuries before.

[edit] Persecution of Christians

Main article: Diocletian Persecution

Christians had lived in peace during most of the rule of Diocletian. The persecutions that began with an edict of February 24, 303, were credited by Christians to Galerius' work, as he was a fierce advocate of the old ways and old gods. Christian houses of assembly were destroyed, for fear of sedition in secret gatherings.

Diocletian was not anti-Christian during the first part of his reign, and historians have claimed that Galerius decided to prod him into persecuting them by secretly burning the Imperial Palace and blaming it on Christian saboteurs. Regardless of who was at fault for the fire, Diocletian's rage was aroused and he began one of the last and greatest Christian persecutions in the history of the Roman Empire.

It was at the insistence of Galerius that the last edicts of persecution against the Christians were published, beginning on February 24, 303, and this policy of repression was maintained by him until the appearance of the general edict of toleration, issued from Nicomedia in April 311, apparently during his last bout of illness, in his own name and in those of Licinius and Constantine (see Edict of Toleration by Galerius). Lactantius gives the text of the edict in his moralized chronicle of the bad ends to which all the persecutors came, De Mortibus Persecutorum ("On the Deaths of the Persecutors", chapters 34, 35). This marked the end of official persecution of Christians.

[edit] Death

Galerius died on 5 May 311 from a horribly gruesome disease described by Eusebius, possibly some form of bowel cancer or gangrene.

Galerius is remembered in Romanian religious-folk songs as Ler Imparat (Emperor Ler). [citation needed]

Gamzigrad-Romuliana, Palace of Galerius near Zaječar in Serbia was inscribed into the World Heritage List in June 2007.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, pp. 8–9; Barnes, New Empire, pp. 4, 38; Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, p. 288; Southern, Severus to Constantine, p. 146; Williams, Diocletian, pp. 64–65. The earlier dates for Galerius' appointment have been argued for based on the suggestion that the appointments of Constantius and Galerius were timed coincide (Barnes 1981, 8–9; Southern 1999, 146). Barnes (1982, 62) argues against a dating of May 21, 293 in Nicomedia originating in Seston, Dioclétien, 88ff., stating that the evidence adduced (the Paschal Chronicle 521 = Chronica Minora 1.229 and Lactantius, DMP 19.2) is invalid and confused. Lactantius is commenting on Diocletian and the place where Diocletian was acclaimed, and that the "Maximianus" in the text is therefore a later gloss; the Paschal Chronicle is not authoritative for this period for events outside Egypt, and may simply be commenting on the day when the laureled image of the new emperors arrived in Alexandria. Potter (2004, 650) agrees that locating the acclamation to Nicomedia is false, but believes that Seston's other evidence makes a strong case for a temporal lag between the two Caesars' acclamations.
  2. ^ Barnes, New Empire, p. 4.
  3. ^ Barnes, New Empire, pp. 4–6.
  4. ^ Barnes, New Empire, p. 4.
  5. ^ Barnes, New Empire, pp. 37, 46.
  6. ^ Barnes, New Empire, p. 37.
  7. ^ Lactantius, DMP 35.4. The exact date is lost in a lacuna (Barnes 1982, 6).
  8. ^ Barnes, New Empire, p. 37.
  9. ^ Barnes, New Empire, p. 4.
  10. ^ Barnes, New Empire, p. 7.
  11. ^ Barnes, New Empire, p. 38.
  12. ^ Barnes, New Empire, pp. 37–38.
  13. ^ Galerius- Un păstor pe tronul cezarilor
  14. ^ Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, p. 292; Williams, Diocletian, p. 69.
  15. ^ Williams, Diocletian, p. 69–70.
  16. ^ Ammianus Marcellinus 23.5.11; Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, p. 17; Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, p. 292; Southern, Severus to Constantine, p. 149. The late historian Ammianus Marcellinus is the only source detailing the initial invasion of Armenia (Potter 2004, 651–52). Southern (1999, 149) dates the invasion to 295; Barnes (1982, 17, 293) mentions an earlier, unsuccessful invasion by Narseh based on the fact that the title Persici Maximi was given to all four emperors; Odahl (2004, 59) concurs with Barnes and suggests that Saracen princes in the Syrian desert collaborated with Narseh's invasion.
  17. ^ Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, p. 17.
  18. ^ Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, p. 652.
  19. ^ Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, p. 17; Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, pp. 292–93.
  20. ^ a b c d e Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, p. 293.
  21. ^ Southern, Severus to Constantine, p. 151.
  22. ^ a b c d Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, p. 18.
  23. ^ Lactantius (DMP 9.6) derides Diocletian for his absence from the front; Southern (1999, 151, 335–36), on the basis of a dating of the African campaigns one year earlier than that given by Barnes, places him at Galerius' southern flank. Southern sees the Persian campaign progressing along the lines of Marcus Aurelius' (r. 161–80) earlier, unsuccessful Parthian campaign, which also had an emperor manning the southern flank.
  24. ^ Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, p. 18; Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, p. 293.
  25. ^ Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, p. 18; Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, p. 293.
  26. ^ Southern, Severus to Constantine, p. 151.
  27. ^ Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, p. 18. No source ever specifically claims that Ctesiphon was sacked, but it is assumed to have been so, primarily due to the seizure of Narseh's wife and harem (Southern 1999, 150).
  28. ^ The acceptance of these terms by the Persians also meant that Syriac culture would earn long-term influence in the region on both sides of the Tigris. With the heavily Christian Syriac peoples so near their border, Armenia would also become susceptible to Christian influence in later years, leading to its eventual conversion under Tiridates. Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, p. 293.
  29. ^ Southern, Severus to Constantine, p. 150.

[edit] References

  • Banchich, Thomas M. "Iulianus (ca. 286–293 A.D.)." De Imperatoribus Romanis (1997). Accessed March 8, 2008.
  • Barnes, Timothy D. "Lactantius and Constantine." The Journal of Roman Studies 63 (1973): 29–46.
  • Barnes, Timothy D. Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981. ISBN 978-0674165311
  • Barnes, Timothy D. The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. ISBN 0783722214
  • Bleckmann, Bruno. "Diocletianus." In Brill's New Pauly, Volume 4, edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmut Schneider, 429–38. Leiden: Brill, 2002. ISBN 9004122591
  • Bowman, Alan K., Peter Garnsey, and Averil Cameron. The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume XII: The Crisis of Empire. Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-30199-8
  • Brown, Peter. The Rise of Western Christendom. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-631-22138-7
  • Burgess, R.W. "The Date of the Persecution of Christians in the Army". Journal of Theological Studies 47:1 (1996): 157–158.
  • Corcoran, Simon. The Empire of the Tetrarchs: Imperial Pronouncements and Government, AD 284–324. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. ISBN 019815304X
  • Corcoran, "Before Constantine", Simon. "Before Constantine." In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine, edited by Noel Lenski, 35–58. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Hardcover ISBN 0-521-81838-9 Paperback ISBN 0-521-52157-2
  • DiMaio, Jr., Michael. "Constantius I Chlorus (305–306 A.D.)." De Imperatoribus Romanis (1996a). Accessed March 8, 2008.
  • DiMaio, Jr., Michael. "Galerius (305–311 A.D.)." De Imperatoribus Romanis (1996b). Accessed March 8, 2008.
  • DiMaio, Jr., Michael. "Maximianus Herculius (286–305 A.D)." De Imperatoribus Romanis (1997). Accessed March 8, 2008.
  • Elliott, T. G. The Christianity of Constantine the Great. Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 1996. ISBN 0-940866-59-5
  • Harries, Jill. Law and Empire in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Hardcover ISBN 0-521-41087-8 Paperback ISBN 0-521-42273-6
  • Helgeland, John. "Christians and the Roman Army A.D. 173-337." Church History 43:2 (1974): 149–163, 200.
  • Jones, A.H.M. The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1986.
  • Lenski, Noel. "The Reign of Constantine." In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine, edited by Noel Lenski, 59–90. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006b. Hardcover ISBN 0-521-81838-9 Paperback ISBN 0-521-52157-2
  • Mackay, Christopher S. "Lactantius and the Succession to Diocletian." Classical Philology 94:2 (1999): 198–209.
  • Mathisen, Ralph W. "Diocletian (284–305 A.D.)." De Imperatoribus Romanis (1997). Accessed February 16, 2008.
  • Odahl, Charles Matson. Constantine and the Christian Empire. New York: Routledge, 2004. Hardcover ISBN 0-415-17485-6 Paperback ISBN 0-415-38655-1
  • Pohlsander, Hans. The Emperor Constantine. London & New York: Routledge, 2004a. Hardcover ISBN 0-415-31937-4 Paperback ISBN 0-415-31938-2
  • Pohlsander, Hans. "Constantine I (306 - 337 A.D.)." De Imperatoribus Romanis (2004b). Accessed December 16, 2007.
  • Potter, David S. The Roman Empire at Bay: AD 180–395. New York: Routledge, 2005. Hardcover ISBN 0-415-10057-7 Paperback ISBN 0-415-10058-5
  • Rees, Roger. Diocletian and the Tetrarchy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-7486-1661-6
  • Southern, Pat. The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine. New York: Routledge, 2001. ISBN 0-415-23944-3
  • Rostovtzeff, Michael. The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966. ISBN 978-0198142317
  • Treadgold, Warren. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8047-2630-2
  • Williams, Stephen. Diocletian and the Roman Recovery. New York: Routledge, 1997. ISBN 0-415-91827-8

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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Preceded by
Diocletian, Maximian		 Roman Emperor
305 (Caesar from 293)–311
with Constantius Chlorus,
Constantine I,
Licinius, and Maximinus		 Succeeded by
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and Maximinus
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