119 - Restitutor Orbis

Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome, episode 119, Restitutor Orbis. After a grueling march across the empire, and an even more grueling summer campaign in the desert, Aurelian finally defeated Palmyra and captured Queen Zenobia in late 272 AD. Under different circumstances, a victory of this magnitude might have earned the emperor a rest from his labors, but no such luck. No sooner had Palmyra fallen than messengers arrived with the news that the Carpi, a Germanic tribe situated north of the Danube, had taken advantage of the emperor's eastern campaign and were now flooding down into Moesia and Thrace. Leaving behind a garrison under the command of a lieutenant named Marcellinus, the indefatigable Aurelian gathered up his equally indefatigable army and marched back to the Danube. An emperor's work is never done.

Once Aurelian had left Palmyra though, some of the leaders of the defeated city began to regret their surrender. Apparently, the ambitions of these leading citizens was only stifled when the emperor was right there on top of them. Now that he wasn't around, it was time to go back to dreaming about an independent Palmyrene kingdom again. These leading men quickly joined in a conspiracy that centered around Zenobia's youngest son, still basically an infant, but the best they could do on short notice. The men of Palmyra were bold enough in their plans that they actually approached Marcellinus, the Roman garrison commander, offering him great rewards if he and his men joined their cause. The savvy Marcellinus told the Palmyrenes that this was a very tempting offer and that he would surely take some time to think the matter through fully. The Palmyrenes left thinking that a nudge in the right direction is all it would take to flip Marcellinus. Marcellinus left thinking that he better send a message to Aurelian right away so that the emperor could come back and crush these ungrateful wretches.

Aurelian was engaged along the Danube in an operation that required the presence of the imperial army, but not much more than that, when he received the note from Marcellinus about the conspiracy. The garrison commander assured Aurelian that he had bought the emperor some time by pretending to consider joining the revolt, but that his little game would not play forever. Aurelian sighed, packed up his army, and marched back to Palmyra, in a foul mood.

Under the impression that the emperor was far away and fully engaged with a Germanic invasion, the Palmyrenes showed themselves to be simultaneously overconfident and ill-prepared. While they lackadaisically got ready for war, they made contact with allies in Alexandria and induced a faction there to revolt in advance of the new Palmyrene offensive, which they all thought they had plenty of time to prepare for. It came as a mortal shock to everyone then, perhaps even Marcellinus himself, when Aurelian and his army appeared on the horizon right at the beginning of spring 273. A half-hearted effort was made to defend Palmyra, but nothing was in place and no one was ready. Aurelian took the city without a fight and once again marched in as its conqueror.

As in his previous conquest, Aurelian showed himself unwilling to engage in a bloody free-for-all, and after executing everyone associated with the revolt, he let the rest of the citizens live. But he didn't leave them much to live with. This time, the emperor's clemency extended to living things only, and he ordered his men to level the city. A few of the more important religious buildings were left untouched and still sit in the Syrian desert to this day, but the rest of the city was destroyed. Aurelian had no intention of making this trip to the desert a third time. To further guarantee this, the emperor rerouted all east-west trade routes so that they bypassed the city, leaving Palmyra economically and existentially strangled. Its citizens drifted off as refugees to start new lives in new towns, and the great oasis city in the desert was no more.

Aurelian then turned on Alexandria and quickly brought an end to the revolt there that had neither the men nor the resources to actually work without Palmyrian assistance. As with Palmyra, Aurelian did not take kindly to the Alexandrians revolting again so soon after being bought back into the Roman fold. He led his men off the leash and allowed them to plunder the city with savage abandon. It was during this punitive sacking that the royal quarter, which either contained or had contained the library of Alexandria, was burned to the ground, leading some to lay the destruction of that great storehouse of knowledge at Aurelian's feet. But the jury is still out on when the library was actually destroyed, and probably will remain so until we invent ourselves a time machine.

With clemency having brought most of the east back into the fold, and cold-hearted brutality bringing the rest into line, Aurelian's career east of the Hellespont was over. By the end of 273, he was back in Rome, attending to long-put-off civil matters, but more importantly, working up a plan to reconquer the Gallic provinces, a reconquest he could now finally turn his full attention to. The leaders of the Gallic Empire had been granted a stay of execution by Aurelian's preoccupation with the east, but with the emperor back in Italy, they knew it would not be long before he turned his fearsome attention on their little slice of the empire. That he did not celebrate a triumph for his victory over Palmyra was all the men of the Gallic Empire needed to know about Aurelian's intentions. Why throw two small triumphs, when you can throw one great big one, to celebrate full reunification?

When last we left the Gallic Empire in 270, Posthumus was dead, and a man by the name of Victorinus had risen to take his place as Emperor of the West. Victorinus successfully saw the Gallic Empire transition from the personal domain of Posthumus into a freestanding political entity, albeit one that had shed the Iberian Peninsula in the process. Victorinus vigorously pursued the Rhine defenses, just as Posthumus had, and spent the majority of his time in office battling back the Franks on the lower half of the river. But though he had the loyalty of the army and the government, Victorinus' conduct in private earned him personal enemies, and it was these personal enemies who eventually took him down. The conventional story is that Victorinus made advances on the wife of one of his officers, and that as soon as he had the opportunity, the officer in question assassinated the lecherous emperor. The story may or may not be true, as jilted underlings is a standard trope of ancient literature, but whatever the reason, Victorinus was killed in 271, leaving the Gallic Empire leaderless once again.

Rising up to fill the void was a man named Asuvius Tetricus, who was likely a provincial governor at the time. Possibly with the backing of Victorinus' mother Victoria, whose bank accounts had bought the throne for her son, Tetricus was quickly installed and the Gallic Empire was put back on firm footing. I say possibly with the backing of Victorinus' mother, because there is reason to doubt her existence at all. God, I love the third century.

Tetricus was not a weak ruler or a weak man, but the future course of his career has tended to leave him with a reputation as something of a coward. For three years, though, he held the remaining provinces of the Gallic Empire together and enjoyed the support of the Rhine legions, whom he led to victory against the Franks on more than one occasion. But by the opening of 274, Tetricus found himself facing a serious problem. Aurelian was back in Rome plotting his downfall, and his friends and advisors were beginning to think seriously about the future. With a fatalist mood beginning to take hold, the governor of Belgica, a man named Faustinus, revolted and seized Tetricus' capital of Trier while the Gallic emperor was in the south attempting to regain the territory that had been previously lost during the reign of Claudius Gothicus. Tetricus led his army back up north and Faustinus quickly gave up his bid for power. Knowing full well the fate of Posthumus, Tetricus allowed his men to sack Trier, even though it was the emperor's own capital. In both psychological and material value, the sacking of the Gallic capital was bad news for the Gallic Empire.

Aurelian could not have cared less about Tetricus' problems. Fully united or internally fractured, the Gallic Empire was going down. As soon as the campaign season of 274 opened for business, Aurelian was on the move north. Operating out of the beachhead in the Rhone Valley established during the reign of Claudius, Aurelian quickly secured the surrender of any town, city, or individual he met, while Tetricus and the Rhine army attempted to find a suitable position from which to face Aurelian when the final showdown came. The suitable position they decided on were the plains outside of Chalons in what is now northeastern France, and in due course Aurelian and his army progressed up to meet them.

It is difficult to say for sure what happened next. There are some reports, and some evidence to back the claim, that a full-on battle was fought between the imperial army and the Rhine legions, and that after a bloody, vicious day, Aurelian captured Tetricus, which decisively turned the tide in Rome's favor. But the more familiar legend has it that Tetricus and Aurelian worked out a deal prior to the battle. Knowing he could not withstand Aurelian's invasion, Tetricus would line up his men for battle and then, right before the fighting began, he promised to surrender himself to Aurelian. In exchange for this bloodless victory, Tetricus and his son would be allowed to live. A third tradition maintains that both the prearranged surrender and the bloody battle took place, but the only way this last version makes sense is if you believe the Rhine legions decided to carry on the fight without a leader, which seems impractical to the point of unbelievability. Or you could believe that Aurelian forced the Rhine legions to fight him as punishment for their transgressions or something. But the loss of perfectly useful manpower this revenge battle would have entailed seems like it would have been too much for Aurelian to justify. So I reckon either there was no deal, and Tetricus led his men into battle and lost, or there was a deal and no battle followed. Pick your poison. Either way, Tetricus fell into Aurelian's hands, and the Gallic Empire, independent for fourteen years now, was dissolved.

Following his standard M.O., Aurelian tempered his iron will with a generous spirit when dealing with the defeated Gallic provinces. He wanted reintegration to proceed as quickly and seamlessly as possible, so he undertook no post-war purges, and for the most part, left magistrates appointed by the Gallic emperors in place. Resumes posted on grave markers attest to the ease with which service in the Gallic Empire was recognized as a valid step up the career ladder in the now-reunified empire. The only major change Aurelian made was to relocate the main Gallic mint from the far-off and repeatedly seditious city of Trier to the city of Lyon in southern Gaul, where it could be better controlled. This move was also undertaken as a part of Aurelian's wider fiscal reforms, which he could now implement fully across the empire.

We have already seen that Aurelian took the matter of coin valuation very, very seriously, and you'll recall that the mint riots in Rome were caused by resistance to the reforms Aurelian was planning to make to the system. Without any sophisticated knowledge of how economics worked, Aurelian did not tackle the big problem of inflation, which was just beginning to make itself known, but he had a deep understanding of the problem of coin devaluation, and particularly of the effects it had on the army. Keeping the troops paid and paid on time was the key to everything, and if the imperial mint kept spitting out worthless hunks of metal, then the empire was going to have a very big problem on its hands very soon.

The problems Aurelian sought was twofold. First, official imperial policy was ordering debasement, and second, there was very little oversight over the local mints. A related problem was where the mints were geographically located. With just a few main coining centers, problems at one location caused issues across multiple provinces and potentially affected hundreds of thousands of soldiers. So, following Gallienus' lead, Aurelian further multiplied the number of mints across the empire, basically giving each major garrison its own mint. At the same time, he centralized the coining bureaucracy and put the entire operation under the auspices of an imperial agent, answerable directly to the emperor. The days of local operators producing coins of dubious value were now at an end. With these changes in place, Aurelian could then do something like order the silver content of a standard denarius to be raised to 5%, and feel confident that his orders would be carried out.

Aurelian's stabilization of the currency system turned back the tide of the worst effects of debasement. But as I just hinted, it did nothing to help with the problem of inflation, a problem which was likely exacerbated by the proliferation of new coining centers. Inflation would be left to his successors to deal with. And boy, will they have fun with that one. But how much can you ask of one man?

Aurelian's legacy was secure. He had reunited the empire, and that was how his contemporaries planned to remember him. With the Palmyrene and Gallic empires defeated and Rome's dominance reasserted over all her previous domains, well, except for poor Audacia, Aurelian returned to Roman triumph, and, well, threw himself a triumph. Zenobia and Tetrarchus were the star attractions, and the two defeated monarchs were led through the streets in chains. But they were not the only stars. Exotic prisoners from the East were also on full display, as was the abundant wealth and treasure stolen from the defeated Palmyrenes. These were heady days for the jubilant Romans. For the past few decades, their empire without end had looked a lot like it was going to end. But now, Aurelian marched through the streets of the Eternal City as one of the greatest heroes in Roman history. This Illyrian general had given them back their empire.

In gratitude, the Senate vowed him the grandiose but not at all undeserved title, Restitutor Orbis, the Restorer of the World. This new title was often combined with the further adjective Invictus, which turned Aurelian into the unconquered Restorer of the World. Again, grandiose, but again, not at all undeserved. Aurelian was well aware that his now four years in office had been nothing less than a string of complete and unqualified successes. Apart from the one minor setback against the Juthungi outside Placentia at the outset of his reign, Aurelian was undefeated in the field, and had accomplished all that he had set out to do.

While no doubt recognizing that his own native talents were to be credited, success of this kind in the ancient world usually called for recognition of something more. The classical world, as you may know, was awash in patron deities, who were believed to ensure good ends for their mortal clients. We need look no further than the divine aid Apollo granted Augustus throughout the first emperor's providential career to understand the archetype we're talking about. There was no question that Aurelian was being protected by a powerful deity. The only question is which, of the literally hundreds to choose from, did Aurelian attribute his victories?

The answer, helpfully, speaks to the larger religious transformation going on in the Mediterranean world during the shift into Late Antiquity. After following convention and identifying himself with Jupiter early in his reign, at some point, most likely during the campaign against the Palmyrenes, Aurelian began to believe that he was in fact the tool of something much bigger, Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun, an overarching solar deity who came to serve as an important link in the ancient world's transition from polytheism to monotheism. Now, an overarching solar deity has already made an appearance in the history of Rome during the confused and doomed reign of Elagabalus. Like Elagabalus, Aurelian came to believe that Sol really was the one true god, and that all other gods were inferior. But unlike Elagabalus, Aurelian did not attempt to suppress traditional pagan religion with his kooky new theological conceptions.

Aurelian saw no incompatibility between his own budding monotheism and the wider world of pagan polytheism. He paid studious attention to Jupiter and Mars and Apollo and all the other usual suspects, but with the understanding that these old gods were actually just the forms that the one true god used to manifest itself on the moral plane. To thank his great benefactor, Aurelian established a new temple in Rome dedicated to Sol Invictus, and initiated a new priesthood dedicated to its worship. While he made no attempt to hinder any other religious activities, Aurelian in word and deed made it clear that he considered Sol to be the most important of all the gods, indeed the one true god, and encouraged its worship wherever he went. In this, he was engaged not just in religious zeal, but also in a wider socio-political project he hoped would help reconnect the so recently fractured empire.

From Spain to Syria and from Britain to Africa, the citizens of the empire worshipped a huge variety of gods and goddesses, who often bore little resemblance to one another. Aurelian hoped to provide everyone with a single manifest god to whom they could all equally worship. The natives of Gaul and, say, the natives of Carthage, worshipped their own particular gods in their own particular ways. But if, at some point during each day, they turned their attention to the great overarching Sol Invictus, then the ties that bound the far-flung corners of the empire together would be immeasurably strengthened. That was the idea, anyway, and it was an idea whose time was coming.

Constantine's vision of one empire and one church was in many ways foreshadowed by Aurelian's promulgation of the cult of Sol Invictus, and indeed, this earlier promulgation made the later transition to Christianity that much easier, as Jesus Christ was eventually identified with the sun god. So if you were comfortable with worshipping Sol Invictus, then the shift to worshipping Jesus Christ became almost seamless. The last note I'll make about Aurelian's worship of the sun is that it was largely through his efforts that the Feast of the Unconquered Sun, which usually took place around December 25, firmly took root on the Roman holiday calendar. And you should all remember from the History of Rome Christmas special that this feast was eventually claimed by the Church Fathers as the official birthday of Jesus and is the reason we celebrate Christmas on the day that we do. It's worth noting that the switcheroo from Sol to Jesus didn't strike anyone as being too out of the blue, since, as I just mentioned, Jesus had already been firmly identified with the sun god.

The unconquered restorer of the world, with the backing of the powerful Sol Invictus, next turned his attention on one of the few loose ends that had been left hanging in the past four years' whirlwind of activity. Fourteen years ago, the king of Sassanid Persia had taken the noble emperor Valerian prisoner by means of a dirty trick. Then he had forced Valerian to submit to all manner of humiliation and torture before the good emperor was finally allowed to die. His body, allegedly, still sat stuffed in the Sassanid throne room. If the Persians thought that all of this was going to be forgiven and forgotten, then they had another thing coming. Shortly after his defeat of Palmyra, word came west that the great king Sharpur had finally died. His death was a mixed bag for the Romans. On the one hand, it meant that they would not be able to exact revenge on Sharpur personally. But on the other hand, it meant that the Sassanids were now dealing with a succession crisis and were divided and weak. Now would be the perfect time to kick them all the way down and take revenge for the capture of Valerian. Aurelian was not going to let this opportunity pass. Remaining in Rome for the winter, Aurelian made plans for an invasion of Persia and in the spring of 275 set out east with his army, intent on avenging Rome's honor.

He would never make it past Thrace. By far the most capable emperor since Septimius Severus, and really one of the most capable emperors ever, was cut down in the prime of his life by misguided Sassans who immediately regretted their rash murder. As you can probably imagine, the stern and humorless Aurelian had very little patience for corruption and double dealing, especially within his own staff. One of his personal secretaries had apparently lied his head off to the emperor about some random issue or another and had either already been found out or was about to be found out and terrified that he was going to be executed, he forged a document that purported to be a death list drawn up by the emperor with numerous high-ranking officers marked down for execution. This weaselly advisor then showed it to the high-ranking officers and let them take care of the rest. All these men knew Aurelian to be a strict and remorseless disciplinarian, and in the heat of the moment, they became convinced that if they didn't strike first, that Aurelian was going to kill them all, and unjustly at that. Encamped in Thrace in September or October of 275, the officers surprised Aurelian in his tent and stabbed him to death. Aurelian was sixty years old and had ruled the empire for five magnificent years. The rank and file were horrified to discover that their great general, the greatest that they had ever known, was dead, and the officers themselves were horrified when they discovered shortly thereafter that the whole thing had been a trick. The secretary, I can promise you, did not come to a quick or a painless end.

So just when it looked like everything was going to be okay, the empire was suddenly thrown into its own succession crisis. Only this time, the crisis did not unfold as a battle between men vying to put their own man on the throne, but instead as a battle between men who were trying to voice the question of who would rule now on to someone else. Next week, we will watch the amusing spectacle of the senate and the imperial army, who had fought each other for so long over the right to nominate emperors, each now trying to get the other to pick a new leader for Rome.