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Joannes
Joannes or John ( la, Iohannes; died 425) was western Roman emperor from 423 to 425. On the death of the Emperor Honorius (15 August 423), Theodosius II, the remaining ruler of the House of Theodosius, hesitated in announcing his uncle's death. In the ''interregnum'', Honorius's patrician at the time of his death, Castinus, elevated Joannes as emperor. History Joannes was a ''primicerius notariorum'' or senior civil servant at the time of his elevation. Procopius praised him as "both gentle and well-endowed with sagacity and thoroughly capable of valorous deeds." Unlike the Theodosian emperors, he tolerated all Christian sects and even the pagans. From the beginning, his control over the empire was insecure. In Gaul, his praetorian prefect was slain at Arles in an uprising of the soldiery there. And Bonifacius, ''comes'' of the Diocese of Africa, held back the grain fleet destined to Rome. "The events of Johannes' reign are as shadowy as its origins," writes John Matthe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galla Placidia
Galla Placidia (388–89/392–93 – 27 November 450), daughter of the Roman emperor Theodosius I, was a mother, tutor, and advisor to emperor Valentinian III, and a major force in Roman politics for most of her life. She was List of Visigothic queens, queen consort to Ataulf, king of the Visigoths from 414 until his death in 415, briefly empress consort to Constantius III in 421, and managed the government administration as a regent during the early reign of Valentinian III, until her death. Family Placidia was the daughter of Theodosius I and his second wife, Galla (wife of Theodosius I), Galla, who was herself daughter of Valentinian I and his second wife, Justina (empress), Justina. Galla Placidia's date of birth is not recorded, but she must have been born either in the period 388-89 or 392–93. Between these dates, her father was in Italy following his campaign against the usurper Magnus Maximus, while her mother remained in Constantinople. A surviving letter from Bisho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aetius (general)
Aetius (also spelled Aëtius; ; 390 – 454) was a Roman general and statesman of the closing period of the Western Roman Empire. He was a military commander and the most influential man in the Empire for two decades (433454). He managed policy in regard to the attacks of barbarian federates settled throughout the West. Notably, he mustered a large Roman and allied (''foederati'') army in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, ending a devastating invasion of Gaul by Attila in 451, though the Hun and his subjugated allies still managed to invade Italy the following year, an incursion best remembered for the ruthless Sack of Aquileia and the intercession of Pope Leo I. Aetius has often been called, "Last of the Romans". Edward Gibbon refers to him as "the man universally celebrated as the terror of Barbarians and the support of the Republic" for his victory at the Catalaunian Plains. J.B Bury notes, "That he was the one prop and stay of the Western Empire during his life time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Roman Empire
The Western Roman Empire comprised the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court; in particular, this term is used in historiography to describe the period from 395 to 476, where there were separate coequal courts dividing the governance of the empire in the Western and the Eastern provinces, with a distinct imperial succession in the separate courts. The terms Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire were coined in modern times to describe political entities that were ''de facto'' independent; contemporary Romans did not consider the Empire to have been split into two empires but viewed it as a single polity governed by two imperial courts as an administrative expediency. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476, and the Western imperial court in Ravenna was formally dissolved by Justinian in 554. The Eastern imperial court survived until 1453. Though the Empire had seen periods with m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honorius (emperor)
Honorius (9 September 384 – 15 August 423) was Roman emperor from 393 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla. After the death of Theodosius, Honorius ruled the western half of the empire while his brother Arcadius ruled the eastern half. In 410, during Honorius's reign over the Western Roman Empire, Rome was sacked for the first time in almost 800 years. Even by the standards of the Western Empire, Honorius's reign was precarious and chaotic. His early reign was supported by his principal general, Stilicho, who was successively Honorius's guardian (during his childhood) and his father-in-law (after the emperor became an adult). Family Honorius was born to Emperor Theodosius I and Empress Aelia Flaccilla on 9 September 384 in Constantinople. He was brother to Arcadius and Pulcheria. In 386, his mother died, and in 387, Theodosius married Galla who had taken a temporary refuge in Thessaloniki with her family, including her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valentinian III
Valentinian III ( la, Placidus Valentinianus; 2 July 41916 March 455) was Roman emperor in the West from 425 to 455. Made emperor in childhood, his reign over the Roman Empire was one of the longest, but was dominated by powerful generals vying for power amid civil wars and the invasions of Late Antiquity's Migration Period, including the campaigns of Attila the Hun. He was the son of Galla Placidia and Constantius III, and as the great-grandson of Valentinian I () he was the last emperor of the Valentinianic dynasty. As a grandson of Theodosius I (), Valentinian was also a member of the Theodosian dynasty, to which his wife, Licinia Eudoxia, also belonged. A year before assuming the rank of ''augustus'', Valentinian was given the imperial rank of ''caesar'' by his half-cousin and co-emperor Theodosius II (). The '' augusta'' Galla Placidia had great influence during her son's rule. During his early reign Aetius, Felix, and the ''comes africae'', Bonifacius all competed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theodosius II
Theodosius II ( grc-gre, Θεοδόσιος, Theodosios; 10 April 401 – 28 July 450) was Roman emperor for most of his life, proclaimed ''Augustus (title), augustus'' as an infant in 402 and ruling as the eastern Empire's sole emperor after the death of his father Arcadius in 408. His reign was marked by the promulgation of the Theodosian law code and the construction of the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople. He also presided over the outbreak of two great Christological controversies, Nestorianism and Eutychianism. Early life Theodosius was born on 10 April 401 as the only son of Emperor Arcadius and his wife Aelia Eudoxia.''PLRE'' 2, p. iarchive:prosopography-later-roman-empire/PLRE-II/page/1100/mode/2up, 1100 On 10 January 402, at the age of 9 months, he was proclaimed co-a''ugustus'' by his father, thus becoming the youngest to bear the imperial title Michael III, up to that point. On 1 May 408, his father died and the seven-year-old boy became emperor of the Eastern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castinus
Flavius Castinus held the position of ''patricius'' in the court of Roman Emperor Honorius at the time of the Emperor's death, and most likely for some time before. He also served as consul for the year 424. Career In 422 he fought an unsuccessful campaign in Hispania to subdue the Vandals. He was sent to support the Suevi or Suebians, enemies of the Vandals, and came with a force of Gothic foederati. However, the campaign was compromised at the very beginning when, according to one source, "his haughty and inept exercise of command" led to a quarrel between him and the military tribune Bonifacius, a protégé of Empress Galla Placidia. Bonifacius abruptly left the expedition, eventually arriving in Africa, where he began to build up a power base. Castinus continued on to Hispania, where at first he had considerable success against the Vandals in Baetica, managing to put them under a blockade and coming close to forcing them to surrender. Unfortunately at this point the Gothic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bonifacius
Bonifatius (or Bonifacius; also known as Count Boniface; died 432) was a Roman general and governor of the diocese of Africa. He campaigned against the Visigoths in Gaul and the Vandals in North Africa. An ally of Galla Placidia, mother and advisor of Valentinian III, Bonifacius engaged in Roman civil wars on her behalf against the generals Felix in 427-429 and Aetius in 432. Although he defeated the latter at the Battle of Rimini, Bonifacius suffered a fatal wound and was succeeded by his son-in-law Sebastianus as '' patricius'' of the Western Roman Empire. Biography Early career Bonifatius first appears as a general of Constantius III in 413, where he defeated the Visigoths of Athaulf at Massilia; he allegedly threw a weapon and wounded the Gothic king himself. Later that decade, Bonifatius was known to be a ''tribunus'' commanding a Gothic regiment of ''foederati'' in North Africa campaigning against the Mauri, and had a friendship with St. Augustine of Hippo with wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Theodosius
The Theodosian dynasty was a Roman imperial family that produced five Roman emperors during Late Antiquity, reigning over the Roman Empire from 379 to 457. The dynasty's patriarch was Theodosius the Elder, whose son Theodosius the Great was made Roman emperor in 379. Theodosius's two sons both became emperors, while his daughter married Constantius III, producing a daughter that became an empress and a son also became emperor. The dynasty of Theodosius married into, and reigned concurrently with, the ruling Valentinianic dynasty (), and was succeeded by the Leonid dynasty () with the accession of Leo the Great. History Its founding father was Flavius Theodosius (often referred to as Count Theodosius), a great general who had saved Britannia from the Great Conspiracy. His son, Flavius Theodosius was made emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in 379, and briefly reunited the Roman Empire 394–395 by defeating the usurper Eugenius. Theodosius I was succeeded by his sons Honoriu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interregnum
An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next (coming from Latin ''inter-'', "between" and ''rēgnum'', "reign" rom ''rex, rēgis'', "king", and the concepts of interregnum and regency therefore overlap. Historically, longer and heavier interregna have been typically accompanied by widespread unrest, civil and succession wars between warlords, and power vacuums filled by foreign invasions or the emergence of a new power. A failed state is usually in interregnum. The term also refers to the periods between the election of a new parliament and the establishment of a new government from that parliament in parliamentary democracies, usually ones that employ some form of proportional representation that allows small parties to elect significant numbers, requiring time for negotiations to form a government. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olympiodorus Of Thebes
Olympiodorus of Thebes ( grc-gre, Ὀλυμπιόδωρος ὁ Θηβαῖος; born c. 380, fl. c. 412–425 AD) was a Roman historian, poet, philosopher and diplomat of the early fifth century. He produced a ''History'' in twenty-two volumes, written in Greek, dedicated to the Emperor Theodosius II, detailing events in the Western Roman Empire between 407 and 425. His friends included philosophers, provincial governors and rhetoricians. He made several journeys in an official capacity, accompanied for twenty years by a parrot. He was a "convinced but discreet" pagan, who flourished in a Christian court, and whose work influenced several subsequent historians, including writers of ecclesiastical history. Life Olympiodorus was born between 365 and 380 in Thebes (modern Luxor, Egypt), in the Roman province of Thebaïd, into a curial family. Thebes at that point was a flourishing centre of literary learning, and a cradle of politicians and public figures. He received a classical e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gens Anicia
The gens Anicia (or the Anicii) was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, mentioned first towards the end of the fourth century BC. The first of the Anicii to achieve prominence under the Republic was Lucius Anicius Gallus, who conducted the war against the Illyrii during the Third Macedonian War, in 168 BC. A noble family bore this name in the imperial era, and may have been descended from the Anicii of the Republic.''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', William Smith, Editor. Origin The Anicii may have been from the Latin town of Praeneste. The earliest of the family to hold any curule magistracy at Rome bore the surname ''Praenestinus''. Praenomina The Anicii are known to have used the praenomina ''Lucius, Quintus, Marcus, Gnaeus, Titus,'' and ''Gaius''. Branches and cognomina The only major branch of the family during the Republic used the cognomen ''Gallus'', which may refer to a cock, or to a Gaul. The surname ''Praenestinus'', found in earlier tim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
