Thirty Tyrants (Roman)

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The Thirty Tyrants (Latin: Tyranni Triginta) were a series of thirty rulers that appear in the the Historia Augusta as having ostensibly been pretenders to the throne of the Roman Empire during the reign of the emperor Gallienus.

Given the notorious unreliability of the Historia Augusta, the veracity of this list is debatable; there is a scholarly consensus that the author deliberately inflated the number of pretenders in order to parallel the Thirty Tyrants of Athens.

The source actually gives 32 names but as the author, writing under the name of one Trebellius Pollio, places the last two under the reign of Maximinus Thrax and Claudius II respectively, this leaves thirty pretenders supposedely under the reign of Gallienus.

The following list gives the Thirty Tyrants as depicted by the Historia Augusta, along with notes contrasting the Historia Augusta's claims with their actual historical position:

Chapter in Historia Augusta	Name	Notes about historicity
2	Cyriades	never claimed Imperial dignity
3	Postumus	accurate placement
4	Postumus Junior	youth
5	Laelianus	accurate placement
6	Victorinus	contemporary not with Gallienus but Claudius II and Aurelian
7	Victorinus Junior	youth, contemporary not with Gallienus but Claudius II and Aurelian
8	Marius	accurate placement
9	Ingenuus	accurate placement
10	Regalianus	accurate placement
11	Aureolus	accurate placement
12	Macrianus	accurate placement
13	Macrianus Junior	accurate placement
14	Quietus	accurate placement
15	Odaenathus	never claimed Imperial dignity
16	Herodes	youth, never claimed Imperial dignity
17	Maeonius	never claimed Imperial dignity
18	Balista	never claimed Imperial dignity
19	Valens	probably never claimed Imperial dignity
20	Valens Superior	contemporary of Decius, not Valerianus
21	Piso	probably never claimed Imperial dignity
22	Aemilianus	probably never claimed Imperial dignity
23	Saturninus	probably fictitious
24	Tetricus Senior	contemporary not with Gallienus but Claudius II and Aurelian
25	Tetricus Junior	youth, contemporary not with Gallienus but Claudius II and Aurelian
26	Trebellianus	probably fictitious
27	Herennianus	youth, never claimed Imperial dignity, possibly fictious
28	Timolaus	youth, never claimed Imperial dignity, possibly fictious
29	Celsus	probably fictitious
30	Zenobia	female, never claimed Imperial dignity,
31	Victoria (or Vitruvia)	female, never claimed Imperial dignity,
32	Titus	admittedly not contemporary with Gallienus but Maximinus Thrax
33	Censorinus.	admittedly not contemporary with Gallienus but Claudius II

Notwithstanding the author's pretensions regarding the time during which these persons aspired to the throne, this list includes:

two women and six youths who never claimed imperial dignity
seven men who either certainly or probably never claimed imperial dignity
three probably and two possibly fictitious persons
two pretenders admittedly not contemporary with Gallienus
three pretenders not contemporary with Gallienus

Leaving nine pretenders roughly contemporary with Gallienus. According to David Magie (the editor of the Loeb Classical Library edition of the Historia Augusta), at least some of these men issued coins.