Birthday Greetings # 43

The third century was a good time for Roman emperors, you could get a dozen for a nickel.  Even with a turnover rate normally associated with fast food there just wasn't enough empire to satisfy them all.  This is why when our birthday boy came to the throne there was the traditional or "classic" Roman empire, there was also the "Gallic" empire consisting essentially of those bits of the empire west of Italy and there was the "Palmyrene" empire consisting of the eastern provinces which were ruled by one Queen Zenobia from the city of Palmyra.  Our boy got the bit in the middle.

So, happy birthday to Lucius Domitius Aurelianus more commonly known to us as Aurelian.  Aurelian had a traditional path to the imperial throne.  He became in turn a soldier, a commander, a trusted adviser and a murderer.  After that emperor was pretty much the only job left.  Still it took Aurelian a couple of goes before he got the tap on the shoulder.  He served the emperor Gallienus in a variety of important roles before helping Claudius remove (kill) Gallienus.  He then served Claudius in a number of even more important roles before Claudius died of what looked suspiciously like natural causes.  Quintillus the brother of the late emperor took over for just as long as it took for the army to indicate their desire for Aurelian instead.  Shortly after the death of Quintillus (I don't really need to mention how he died do I?) Aurelian settled himself in the executive suite and took command of what was left of the empire.

His first order of business was to reduce the number of Roman empires from three to a more acceptable one.  Well no, his first order of business was to defeat the various barbarians who were wandering around his chunk of the empire spitting on pavements and harassing old ladies.  Aurelian fought Goths, Vandals, and a bunch of other subcultures while simultaneously dealing with his senior officer's penchant for self promotion.  Although victorious the confidence of the Roman people had been shaken so to restore it he built a wacking great wall around the city because nothing says "I'm confident" like hiding behind stone.  With domestic matters temporarily settled he marched against the Palmyrene empire.  There wasn't a great deal of fighting (unless you were one of the ones who died in which case there was probably too much) and Zenobia and her son were paraded through the streets of Rome in chains.  One down, one to go.

Over in the Gallic empire they had been grinding through emperors at a pretty spectacular rate even considering the time and place and when Aurelian marched against them the current incumbent indicated that he would be quite happy to hand the entire mess over to Aurelian in return for a pardon and a slightly less dangerous job (almost anything would qualify).  The deal was made and when the two armies faced each other the Gallic emperor promptly deserted.  The subsequent battle didn't last long and neither did the Gallic empire.

With something vaguely approximating peace restored and the number of Roman empires down to a manageable one Aurelian tackled domestic affairs.  Oddly considering the nature of how he came to power he turned out to be a strict disciplinarian and a ruthless opponent of corruption.  He certainly improved both the army and the standard of Roman civil governance.  Unfortunately his behaviour had a couple of unintended consequences.  Firstly the mint workers of Rome rose in what must be the first revolt actuated by a desire to protect corruption.  The mint workers were used to stealing some of the silver used to make the coins and they feared an investigation by their corruption busting new emperor.  Along with some bribeable senators (a definition which applied to most of them by then) they rose and seized a chunk of Rome itself.  Aurelian counterattacked with the Urban Cohorts reinforced by the regular army and a full scale battle was fought within the city itself before Aurelian could claim that he was back in control of his own civil service.  Currency reform, not surprisingly, followed.

What about the other unintended consequence of Aurelian's anticorruption policy?  Oh, it killed him.  His personal secretary had told a lie on some minor issue and he was terrified the emperor would find out.  So he forged a list of names of people to be executed including some of the army's top commanders.  He showed it to these worthies who decided to strike first.  Aurelian was murdered as he marched his army against the Sassanid empire.  The killers didn't even have a replacement emperor ready, it wasn't so much a plot as a somewhat overenthusiastic act of self defence.  Aurelian's wife actually took over running the empire for a few months until they could find somebody to replace him.

Despite all of the events of his reign Aurelian was only emperor for six years.  There were a few other short lived seat warmers after his death (including the last guy we said happy birthday to) but Aurelian's brief reign was an indication that the chaos and disintegration of the third century was coming to an end.  Aurelian had patched the empire back together and chipped off the worst of the rust.  Others would keep the show on the road for two more centuries.