Peter ( la, Petrus) was a
Roman usurper
Roman usurpers were individuals or groups of individuals who obtained or tried to obtain power by force and without legitimate legal authority. Usurpation was endemic during the Roman imperial era, especially from the crisis of the third cent ...
of the early sixth century AD, recorded in two minor sources: the ''
Consularia Caesaraugustana'' and the ''
Victoris Tunnunnensis Chronicon''. He was a "tyrant" (meaning usurper) against the
Visigothic
The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kno ...
rulers of Spain. When the Visigoths captured the city of
Dertosa
Tortosa (; ) is the capital of the ''comarca'' of Baix Ebre, in Catalonia, Spain.
Tortosa is located at above sea level, by the Ebro river, protected on its northern side by the mountains of the Cardó Massif, of which Buinaca, one of the highe ...
in 506, he was arrested and executed, with his head being sent as a trophy to
Saragossa
Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributar ...
.
[Collins, 35.] Nothing else is known about him, but he seems to be the second Roman governor (after
Burdunellus) to try to claim imperial authority in the
Ebro valley
, name_etymology =
, image = Zaragoza shel.JPG
, image_size =
, image_caption = The Ebro River in Zaragoza
, map = SpainEbroBasin.png
, map_size =
, map_caption = The Ebro ...
of Spain after the fall of the
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 ...
.
Notes
Sources
*
Collins, Roger. ''Visigothic Spain, 409–711''. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. .
*
Thompson, E. A.br>
"The End of Roman Spain: Part III."''Nottingham Mediaeval Studies'', xxii (1978), pp. 3–22. Reprinted as "The Gothic Kingdom and the Dark Age of Spain" in ''Romans and Barbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire''. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. pp. 161–187. .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peter
6th-century Romans
506 deaths
6th century in the Visigothic Kingdom
Year of birth unknown