Heraclianus

Marcus(?) Aurelius Heraclianus (d. 268) was a Roman military commander.

Origins

His praenomen is not cited in the sources, but his nomen (i.e. 'Aurelius') suggests that it would be M. - i.e. 'Marcus'. The Aurelius gentilicum was often adopted by families admitted to Roman citizenship by The Emperor Caracalla under the provisions of his law known as the Constitutio Antoniniana of 213 - i.e. probably the time around which Heraclianus was born. The nomenclature therefore supports the notion that Heraclianus's father or grandfather would have been a non-citizen of provincial or even servile origin.

The place where Heraclianus was born is uncertain. An inscription dedicated to him by a younger fellow-soldier, Trajanus Mucianus at Mucianus's hometown of Augusta Trajana (Stara Zagora, Bulgaria) lends colour to the supposition that he was a Moesian or, at least, that he hailed from one of the Danubian provinces, though this is not a conclusive evidence [ G. Mihailov, "Inscriptiones Graecae in Bulgaria Repertae" 3.2.1568 ("Heraclianus")] . Heraclianus's later association with Claudius Gothicus and Aurelian in the "coup" against Gallienus (see below) also suggests that he was of Thraco-Roman origins, as the two chief conspirators would, no doubt, have preferred to work with a fellow countryman. A second dedication from Stara Zagora to Heraclianus's brother, Marcus Aurelius Apollinarius [G. Mihailov, "Inscriptiones Graecae in Bulgaria Repertae" 3.2.1569 (Apollinarius)] , who was an equestrian governor of Thrace, also reinforces the notion that the family was of Thraco-Roman origins.

Career

Heraclianus rose to prominence during the troubled reign of the Emperor Gallienus becoming Praetorian Prefect [Both Zonaras and Zozimus give him this title. It is omitted in the "Vita Gallieni" in the Augustan History. See Zosimus i. 40; Zonaras xxii. 25; and Vita Gall. 14. The Greek version of the title appears in Mucianus's inscription - see fn. 1 above.] – an office of state that combined the command of the Emperor’s Praetorian Guardand principle ministry - comparison is often made with the post of "Vizier" under the [Ottoman sultanate] which also combined supreme military and civil responsibilities. (However, in his study of the Praetorian Prefecture Howe suggests that in the troubled reign of Gallienus the military aspects of this office came to the fore and those appointed to it were career soldiers rather than jurists or statesmen as in the late second century AD [cite book |last=Howe |first=Laurence Lee |title=The Pretorian Prefect from Commodus to Diocletian (AD 180-305)|year= 1942|publisher= University of Chicago Press Press|location=Chicago, Illinois] ). H probably became Praetorian Prefect in 267 following the promotion of L. Petronius Taurus Volusianus to the Urban Prefecture in that year.

Heraclianus was thus likely to have been a highly competent soldier who performed well in Gallienus’s many wars against barbarian invaders and would-be usurpers and earned advancement in a hard school [John of Antioch states that Heraclianus was Master of the Dalmatian Horse at the time of Gallienus's assassination. The other sources are to be preferred regarding his status then, but he might well have held this post earlier in his career. If so it would strengthen the presumption that he was of Balkan origin.] .

The "Vita Gallieni" ["Vita Gall." 13.4 ] states that he was the leader ("Dux") of a force sent by Gallienus to the East to reassert Imperial authority in the region after the death (assassination?)of Odenathus of Palmyra in 267, but was defeated and his army destroyed. This is the only ancient reference to such an attempt being made in Gallienus's reign and the usual "caveat"s regarding the reliability of the "Historia Augusta" as a historical record must apply [The "Vita Gall." says that he was sent to deal with the Persians rather than Palmyra, but by SHA standards this is only a mild confusion] . However, Alfoldi [cite book |last=Alfoldi |first=A.|title=The Crisis of the Empire |location= The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. XII, Chapter VI, p.177 |Year= 1965 |Publisher+ CUP)] believes that Gallienus did attempt to assert himself in Asia if not in Syria and Mesopotamia at that time ("vis-a-vis" Palmyra not Persia), but the effort was negated by the barbarian invasions of the eastern Balkans of the final year of Gallienus's reign [Like Arabia and Egypt, Asia was not formally within those regions of the eastern Roman Empire over which Gallienus officially acknowledged the authority of Odenathus. However, Odenathus was assassinated in the Asian province of Cappadocia on his way to deal with a barbarian invasion that Gallienus had failed to respond to. Zenobia might well have considered that her murdered husband's initative gave her regime "de facto" authority in the province - a claim Claudius might have felt bound to resist.] However, Alfoldi does not believe that Rome and Palmyra actually engaged in hostilities as the SHA suggests. Bray is inclined to dismiss any notion of an expedition in 267-8 [See footnote 13 below.] .

This is also the conclusion of David Potter [ David S. Potter: The Roman Empire at Bay, Routledge, London & New York, 2004.] . However, Prof. Potter does make the interesting suggestion that H might have made an expedition to the East to reassert Roman authority in the Asian provinces not in 267 - when he was almost certainly engaged in the Gothic war - but at the behest of Gallienus's murderer and successor, the Emperor Claudius Gothicus, in 270. This effort might either have been undertaken in response to aggression of Zenobia of Palmyra in Arabia and Egypt in that year (see "fn." 8) or have been the cause of that aggression. (It could also suggest an additional reason why Julius Placidianus failed to come to the rescue of the city of Autun in Gaul when it declared for Claudius - i.e. Claudius would not have wanted to undertake a fight to the death with the Gallic Empire when he was either already engaged in hostilities with Zenobia or it was becoming fairly obvious that he would sooner or later have to deal with the inordinate ambitions of that troublesome woman.)

However, Prof. Potter's thesis is not wholly persuasive. To be sure, it would certainly not have been beyond the cheek of the author of the "Vita Gallieni" to attempt to attribute to his "bete noire", Gallienus, a disaster that actually occurred under Claudius - who was, of course, for the SHA the sainted ancestor claimed by the Imperial House of Constantine. On the other hand, it is odd that Zozimus who was, after all, an easterner, should have had no knowledge of a calamity to Roman arms on the scale suggested. Zozimus is generally much cooler towards Claudius than the SHA (no doubt because, as a pagan, he disapproved of Claudius's self-proclaimed descendant (i.e. Constantine's) conversion of the Roman state to Christianity) and it seems unlikely that he would have hesitated to record anything so substantially to Claudius's discredit had he been aware of it).

Downfall

Whether or not he was in Asia in 267, it is likely that H returned to Europe in time to take part in Gallienus's campaign against the Goths and Heruls in 267-8 AD. He was certainly with Gallienus's Comitatus (Imperial field army) when it moved from the Balkans to Italy against Aureolus when he came out for the Gallic Emperor Postumus in Mediolanium and was a ring-leader of the so-called Equestrian Marshals' Plot [This usage is suggested by Sir Ronald Syme in his study of the "Historia Augusta". Syme was making the point that , if indeed, Gallienus had shown a preference for equestrians as opposed to senators in making his senior military appointments because he considered they would be more loyal to him, in the case of H "et al." he was proven disastrously wrong. On the other hand, H's predecessor as Praetorian Prefect,Volusianus, showed himself a model of loyalty.] which finally accomplished by treachery what so many overt rebels and barbarian invaders had failed to achieve by open opposition - the destruction of Gallienus and the end of his regime. However, he appears to have been discarded by the main plotters – i.e.Claudius Gothicus and Aurelian after the coup succeeded. This would be consistent with the tradition that he committed suicide. (However, if he did remain a major player into Claudius's reign (possibly even Praetorian Prefect) and then failed his new master in some spectacular way in Asia in 270 this would have been a much greater reason for self-destruction in the Roman tradition than desertion by his comrades-in-crime). In othher words, the circumstances of H's end is likely to rremain a mystery.

ources

Heraclianus appears in the "Vita Gallieni" of the Historia Augusta, Zonaras and Zozimus, but it is impossible to develop any sustained narrative of his life from the ancient sources. The references are usefully listed by L.L. Howe in his book on the Third Century Praetorian Prefect] . The best recent summary of the available information on Heraclianus is to be found in John Bray’s biography of Gallienus [cite book |last=Bray |first=John |title=Gallienus - A study in Reformist and Sexual Politics |year= 1997|publisher= Wakefield Press|location=Adelaide ] . See also Potter - "op. cit".

Footnotes