Birthday Greetings #42

I envisage that a time will come when I will run out of emperors to say happy birthday to.  Fortunately that day seems to be a long time coming aided by the Romans who spent most of the third century changing emperors the way some people change shirts.  It's safe to say that the emperors of those days didn't need to worry about retirement planning.

Happy birthday therefore to the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Probus.  This isn't the famous Marcus Aurelius who wrote a little book on philosophy and reigned for decades but a much less well known chap who turned up around a hundred years later.  Not much is known about his early life although his father was either a civil servant or a market gardener.  Probus joined the army and must have done reasonably well because he held important commands under the emperor Aurelian and his successor Tacitus.  When Tacitus died (murder was suspected but by this stage it always was) Probus refused to serve under Florian who had proclaimed himself emperor.  Probus held a command in the east and when Florian advanced against him with a larger army he managed to persuade the soldiers (who were suffering from sunburn and were really annoyed) to kill Florian instead.  This left Probus as sole emperor.

With internal harmony (very briefly) restored Probus could attempt to do something about the borders.  When Aurelian (three emperors and two years ago) had been murdered a bunch of Vandals, Franks, Burgundians and others had taken the opportunity to overrun much of Gaul.  Over the next couple of years Probus beat the crap out of all of them and others besides and restored the imperial border on the Rhine.  With peace (again, very briefly) restored Probus took time out from killing foreigners to deal with an insurrection that had occurred in the east.  He also apparently wanted to reconquer Mesopotamia from the Persians.  Probus crushed the revolt, aided by the fact that its instigator had already been murdered, but took a wary look at the Persian empire and decided that discretion was the better part of valour (I told you he was a talented soldier).  A peace treaty with the Persian king was the result.

The peace treaty turned out to be very useful as a couple of other ambitious characters declared themselves joint emperors in Gaul.  Probus marched against them, crushed them and celebrated a triumph in Rome.  Things seemed to be looking good.  Yes the Vandals had invaded again but Probus beat them again, every would be usurper was comfortably dead and even the Persians were making friendly noises.  Things seemed to be looking up for Probus.  Then he was murdered by his own troops.

Apparently when they weren't actually fighting (either barbarians or each other) Probus tried to keep his men busy getting them to plant vines, drain land and generally undertake rural improvements.  It was partially to keep his troops occupied and possibly an attempt to kickstart the economy in regions that had suffered badly from barbarian invasions.  However when you consider that the army deserted his predecessor because of sunburn you can imagine what their reaction was when instructed to plant grape vines.  A group of soldiers proclaimed the Praetorian Prefect Marcus Carus emperor and some soldiers in Probus's army killed him to help their succession plans along.

For the time and place Probus was quite a success as Roman emperor.  His reign of six years was longer than that of his three immediate predecessors combined.  The worst of the chaos of the third century was behind the empire now, indeed Carus, his successor died of causes that were almost certainly natural.