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Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus (occasionally anglicised as Ammian) (born , died 400) was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). His work, known as the ''Res Gestae'', chronicled in Latin the history of Rome from the accession of the Emperor Nerva in 96 to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378, although only the sections covering the period 353 to 378 survive. Biography Ammianus was born in the East Mediterranean, possibly in Syria or Phoenicia, around 330. His native language is unknown but he likely knew Greek as well as Latin. The surviving books of his history cover the years 353 to 378. Ammianus served as an officer in the army of the emperors Constantius II and Julian. He served in Gaul (Julian) and in the east (twice for Constantius, once under Julian). He professes to have been "a former soldier and a Greek" (''miles quondam et graecus''), and his enrollment among the el ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Syria
Roman Syria was an early Roman province annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of King of Armenia Tigranes the Great. Following the partition of the Herodian Kingdom of Judea into tetrarchies in 6 AD, it was gradually absorbed into Roman provinces, with Roman Syria annexing Iturea and Trachonitis. Provincia Syria Syria was annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC, when Pompey the Great had the Seleucid king Antiochus XIII Asiaticus executed and deposed his successor Philip II Philoromaeus. Pompey appointed Marcus Aemilius Scaurus to the post of Proconsul of Syria. Following the fall of the Roman Republic and its transformation into the Roman Empire, Syria became a Roman imperial province, governed by a Legate. During the early empire, the Roman army in Syria accounted for three legions with auxiliaries who defended the border with Parthia. In 6 AD Emperor Augustus deposed the ethnarch Herod Archelaus and un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constantius II
Constantius II (Latin: ''Flavius Julius Constantius''; grc-gre, Κωνστάντιος; 7 August 317 – 3 November 361) was Roman emperor from 337 to 361. His reign saw constant warfare on the borders against the Sasanian Empire and Germanic peoples, while internally the Roman Empire went through repeated civil wars, court intrigues, and usurpations. His religious policies inflamed domestic conflicts that would continue after his death. Constantius was a son of Constantine the Great, who elevated him to the imperial rank of '' Caesar'' on 8 November 324 and after whose death Constantius became ''Augustus'' together with his brothers, Constantine II and Constans on 9 September 337. He promptly oversaw the massacre of his father-in-law, an uncle, and several cousins, consolidating his hold on power. The brothers divided the empire among themselves, with Constantius receiving Greece, Thrace, the Asian provinces, and Egypt in the east. For the following decade a costly and i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Limitanei
The ''līmitāneī'' (Latin, also called ''rīpēnsēs''), meaning respectively "the soldiers in frontier districts" (from the Latin phrase līmēs, meaning a military district of a frontier province) or "the soldiers on the riverbank" (from the Rhine and Danube), were an important part of the late Roman and early Byzantine army after the reorganizations of the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. The limitanei, unlike the comitātēnsēs, palātīnī, and scholæ, garrisoned fortifications along the borders of the Roman Empire and were not normally expected to fight far from their fortifications. The līmitāneī were lower-status and lower-paid than the comitātēnsēs and palātīnī,Treadgold 1995, pp. 149–157. and the distinction in role and status between scolae, palatini, comitatenses, and limitanei had largely replaced the older one between praetorians, legionaries, and auxiliaries. The limitanei and palatini both included legionary units alongside auxiliary units ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shapur II
Shapur II ( pal, 𐭱𐭧𐭯𐭥𐭧𐭥𐭩 ; New Persian: , ''Šāpur'', 309 – 379), also known as Shapur the Great, was the tenth Sasanian King of Kings (Shahanshah) of Iran. The longest-reigning monarch in Iranian history, he reigned for the entirety of his 70-year life, from 309 to 379. He was the son of Hormizd II (r. 302–309). His reign saw the military resurgence of the country, and the expansion of its territory, which marked the start of the first Sasanian golden era. He is thus along with Shapur I, Kavad I and Khosrow I, regarded as one of the most illustrious Sasanian kings. His three direct successors, on the other hand, were less successful. At the age of 16, he launched enormously successful military campaigns against Arab insurrections and tribes who knew him as 'Dhū'l-Aktāf'' ("he who pierces shoulders"). Shapur II pursued a harsh religious policy. Under his reign, the collection of the Avesta, the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, was completed, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaul
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during Republican era, Cisalpina was annexed in 42 BC to Roman Italy), and Germany west of the Rhine. It covered an area of . According to Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica, Belgica, and Aquitania. Archaeologically, the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture, which extended across all of Gaul, as well as east to Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia, and southwestern Germania during the 5th to 1st centuries BC. During the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule: Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 204 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons, who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 103 BC. Julius Caesar finally subdued the remaining parts of Gau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silvanus (magister Peditum)
Silvanus (died 7 September 355) was a Roman general of Frankish descent, usurper in Gaul against Emperor Constantius II for 28 days in AD 355. Origin and career Silvanus was born in Gaul, the son of Bonitus, a Laetic Frankish general who had supported Constantine I in the civil war against Licinius. Like so many other Franks of his times, and like his father before him, he was a loyal and thoroughly romanized "barbarian" in the military service of the Empire. By AD 351, he held the rank of tribune and was one of the senior officers who defected to Emperor Constantius II at the Battle of Mursa Major, after initially supporting the usurper Magnentius. An able soldier, Silvanus was eventually promoted to the rank of ''magister peditum per Gallias'', a crucial post, then in AD 352–353, Constantius personally entrusted him with the difficult task of driving the Alamanni tribesmen raiding and looting in Gaul back beyond the Rhine, and restoring the fast eroding Roman authority in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magister Militum
(Latin for "master of soldiers", plural ) was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander, the emperor remaining the supreme commander) of the empire. In Greek sources, the term is translated either as '' strategos'' or as ''stratelates''. Establishment and development of the command The title of ''magister militum'' was created in the 4th century, when the emperor Constantine the Great deprived the praetorian prefects of their military functions. Initially two posts were created, one as head of the infantry, as the ''magister peditum'' ("master of foot"), and one for the more prestigious cavalry, the '' magister equitum'' ("master of horse"). The latter title had existed since republican times, as the second-in-command to a Roman ''dictator''. Under Constantine's successors, the title was also established at a territori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesopotamia (Roman Province)
Mesopotamia was the name of a Roman province, initially a short-lived creation of the Roman emperor Trajan in 116–117 and then re-established by Emperor Septimius Severus in c. 198. Control of the province was subsequently fought over between the Roman and the Sassanid empires until the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. Trajan's province In 113, the Roman emperor Trajan (r. 98–117) launched a war against Rome's long-time eastern rival, the Parthian Empire. In 114, he conquered Armenia, which was made into a province, and by the end of 115, he had conquered northern Mesopotamia. This too was organized as a province in early 116, when coins were minted to celebrate the fact. Later in the same year, Trajan marched into central and southern Mesopotamia (enlarging and completing the province of Mesopotamia) and across the river Tigris to Adiabene, which he annexed into another Roman province, Assyria. But he did not stop there. In the last months of 116, he captured the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nisibis
Nusaybin (; '; ar, نُصَيْبِيْن, translit=Nuṣaybīn; syr, ܢܨܝܒܝܢ, translit=Nṣībīn), historically known as Nisibis () or Nesbin, is a city in Mardin Province, Turkey. The population of the city is 83,832 as of 2009 and is predominantly Kurdish. Nusaybin is separated from the larger Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli by the Syria–Turkey border. The city is at the foot of the Mount Izla escarpment at the southern edge of the Tur Abdin hills, standing on the banks of the Jaghjagh River (), the ancient Mygdonius ( grc, Μυγδόνιος). The city existed in the Assyrian Empire and is recorded in Akkadian inscriptions as ''Naṣibīna''. Having been part of the Achaemenid Empire, in the Hellenistic period the settlement was re-founded as a ''polis'' named "Antioch on the Mygdonius" by the Seleucid dynasty after the conquests of Alexander the Great. A part of first the Roman Republic and then the Roman Empire, the city (; ) was mainly Syriac-speaking, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ursicinus (magister Equitum)
Ursicinus was a Roman senior military officer, holding the rank of ''Magister Equitum per Orientem'' (Master of Horse of the East) and even ''Magister Peditum Praesentalis'' in the later Roman Empire ''c.'' 349–359. He was a citizen of Antioch and was well connected in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. Career From AD 349 to 359 he served as Magister Equitum in the East. In AD 351 or 352 he was entrusted with the suppression of the Jewish revolt against Constantius Gallus led by Patricius and Isaac of Diocesarea. Tiberias and Diospolis, two of the cities conquered by the rebels, were almost completely destroyed, while Diocaesarea was razed to the ground. Ursicinus also was ordered to kill several thousand rebels, even young ones.Jerome, ''Chronica'', 15-21; Theophanes, AM 5843. Service with Ammianus Marcellinus In 353, historian Ammianus Marcellinus was attached to the command of Ursicinus at his headquarters in Nisibis, where he remained until recalled in 354 by Ga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diocese Of The East
The Diocese of the East ( la, Dioecesis Orientis; el, ) was a diocese of the later Roman Empire, incorporating the provinces of the western Middle East, between the Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia. During late Antiquity, it was one of the major commercial, agricultural, religious and intellectual areas of the empire, and its strategic location facing the Sassanid Empire and the unruly desert tribes gave it exceptional military importance. History The capital of the diocese was at Antioch, and its governor had the special title of '' comes Orientis'' ("Count of the East", of the rank ''vir spectabilis'' and later '' vir gloriosus'') instead of the ordinary "'' vicarius''". The diocese was established after the reforms of Diocletian (r. 284–305), and was subordinate to the praetorian prefecture of the East. The diocese included originally all Middle Eastern provinces of the Empire: Isauria, Cilicia, Cyprus, Euphratensis, Mesopotamia, Osroene, Syria Coele, Phoenice, Pal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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