Heraclianus

Heraclianus
Usurper of the Western Roman Empire
Reign	Summer 412- Spring 413
Died	March 7, 413
Place of death	Carthage
Predecessor	Honorius
Successor	Honorius

Heraclianus (Ancient Greek: Ἡρακλειανὸς, Herakleianòs; died at Carthage, March 7, 413) was a provincial governor and a usurper of the Roman Empire (412-413) opposed to Emperor Honorius.

Biography

Opposition to Priscus Attalus

The first known act of Heraclianus was the killing of the powerful Magister militum Stilicho (August 22, 408); for this reason, Emperor Honorius, who wanted to remove his influential general, rewarded Heraclianus with the appointment to the rank of Comes Africae, Governor of the important province of Africa, in late 408.

According to Orosius, Heraclianus was sent to Africa in 409; it is also known that in 408 the Governor of Africa was some John, who was killed by the people of his province. On the other side, Zosimus states that Heraclianus was the successor of Bathanarius, brother-in-law of Stilicho, put to death by Honorius.

Coin minted by Priscus Attalus.

In 409, Priscus Attalus rebelled to Honorius, whose court was set in Ravenna, and took the power in Rome, with the help of the Visigoths of King Alaric I. Heraclianus kept his allegiance to Honorius and enforced a tighter control of the African ports, from where departed most of the grain supply to the city of Rome, causing the starvation of the Roman people.

Attalus did not sent an army in Africa against Heraclianus, as it would have been under Visigothic lead; deceived by false prophecies or modev by his own jealousy of the Visigoths, he sent a representative of his, Constans, all by himself, counting on his authority to depose Heraclianus or convince the provincials to rebel. However, Constans was killed, while Heraclianus could confiscate a great sum that some envoys of Attalus' had received to bribe the local population and send it to Honorius. Alaric wanted to send an army against Heraclianus and to put it under the command of Drumas, a man of his, but Attalus refused and Alaric deposed him (410). Alaric intended to send a small army, composed by only 500 men, and this is an indication that Heraclianus had a very small force on his side; however, it is probable that Heraclianus had the support of the local population, as Emperor Honorius had issued, just in that period, a tolerance edict in favour of the Donatists, a Christian current very popular in Africa.

Usurpation against Honorius

The Byzantine Emperor Honorius, Jean-Paul Laurens, 1880.

In 412 Heraclianus was designed for the consulate of the year 413, but in all probability he was never appointed Consul: confident in his own power and instigated by Sabinus, his son-in-law, he rebelled against Honorius and proclaimed himself Augustus. His first act was to interrupt the grain supply to the city of Rome, as he had successfully done against Priscus Attalus. Next he gathered several ships along with troops to invade Italy. Honorius had Heraclianus and his supporters proclaimed enemies of the State and condemned to death with an edict issued in Ravenna on July 7, 412.

In 413 Heraclianus arrived in Italy with a large army to fight Honorius, but he was defeated and killed. With regards his death, there are two versions: According to some sources, Heraclianus arrived in Italy and moved towards Rome, but he was frightened by the arrival of Comes Marinus. He left his army and fled to Carthage, where he was put to death on March 7. The second version sees Heraclius defeated at Utriculum (maybe Oriculum, in Umbria, halfway between Rome and Ravenna), in a battle with 50,000 deaths, then fleeing to Carthage, where he would be put to death by envoys sent by Honorius in the temple of Memoria. Sabinus, Heraclianus' son-in-law, fled to the eastern court at Constantinople but was later sent back and then exiled.

Heraclianus' name does not appear in the Fasti consulares, the list of all Roman consuls, as Honorius probably revoked his appointment and left Lucius as Consul without colleague. Heraclianus' acts were revoked; his possessions, 2,000 lb of gold and land of the same value, were confiscated and given to Flavius Constantius.

Jerome accused Heraclianus of mistreating those who had fled from Rome to Carthage on the occasion of Attalus' usurpation (Heraclianus imprisoned the noblewomen Anicia Faltonia Proba, Anicia Iuliana and Demetrias, and freed them only after a huge payment), and of being a drunken and corrupt man.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Jerome, Epistulae, 130.7; Dialogus contra Pelagianos, 3.19; Commentaria in Ezechielem, 9.28
• Jordanes, Romana, 325
• Hydatius, Chronicon, 51,56
• Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon, sub anno 413
• Olympiodorus of Thebes, frammento 23
• Orosius, Historiae adversum Paganos, 7.29,42
• Procopius of Caesarea, Guerra vandalica, 1.2.30.36
• Prosper of Aquitaine, sub anno 413
• Sozomen, 9.8.3-7
• Theophanes the Confessor, AM 5904
• Zosimus, Historia Nova, 5.37; 6.7-11
• Chronica Gallica of 452, 75

Secondary sources

• Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin, John Robert Martindale, John Morris, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, "Heraclianus 3", volume 2, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN ISBN 0-521-20159-4, pp. 539–540.
• Canduci, Alexander (2010), Triumph & Tragedy: The Rise and Fall of Rome's Immortal Emperors, Pier 9, ISBN 978-1-74196-598-8 
• Bury, J. B., A History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene, Vol. I (1889)
• Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Volume 2, C. Little and J. Brown, Boston, 1870, p. 402

Preceded by Imp. Caesar Honorius Augustus IX, Imp. Caesar Flavius Theodosius Augustus V

Consul of the Roman Empire 413 Served alongside: Fl. Lucius

Succeeded by Fl. Constantius, Fl. Constans