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Tyrants of Rome

By John Caskey

Aurelian

The action in the game Tyrants of Rome begins at a turbulent time in Roman history and represents a crucial crossroad in the history of western civilization as a whole. Upon the assassination of Emperor Alexander Severus the empire passed into the hands of Valerian with his son Gallienus as junior emperor (sometimes referred to the Caesar while the "senior" emperor was the Augustus). The Persians took the change of leadership as an opportunity to seize Roman territory in the east. Valerian promptly embarked on a military campaign to rectify the situation. Unfortunately he was captured and Gallienus soon found himself sole emperor, a job for which, some would say, he, was by very his nature, was ill-suited to acquit himself in well.

This was the beginning of what modern historians refer to as "The Crisis of the Third Century." For the next hundred years plus, the empire would be rocked by barbarian invasions. As a result, various usurpers to the throne would arise attempting to consolidate parts of the empire under their personal control. Some provinces would even go so far as to attempt to secede from the empire. These "mini-empires" were mostly short lived but the chaos of the period led to lasting changes in the organization of Roman state.

The crisis ended with the rise to power of the Emperor Diocletian and, no doubt, his memory of the events of recent years prompted him to divide command of the empire into a "Tetrachry" of junior and senior emperors. He implements this system during his reign, chooses the Eastern half of the divided empire for himself and gives the Western half to Maximian. Both then picked junior rulers as Caesars to the complete their Augustus and the four ruled the empire together with the apparent assurance of a peaceful succession until Diocletian and Maximian retired in 305 AD. For better or worse, the western Caesar, Constantine started a civil war a year later and reunited the empire, but the momentum and reality of history had already shift and by 395 AD the division of the empire into eastern and western halves was permanent.

The era of the Gallienus and his successors itself is known primarily from a single chapter (book) of one source the Historia Augusta, written (allegedly) at the beginning of the 4th Century AD by a team of six scholars known collectively as the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. The work begins with the rule of the Emperor Hadrian and concludes with a chapter on the lives of Emperors Carus, Carinus and Numerian. However, the period which is of most interest to players of Tyrants of Rome, is the chapter which describes the men, women, and children who aspired to wear the purple robes reserved for the emperor during the reign of Gallienus and Valerian. It’s very clear that the author has an axe to grind regarding Gallienus as illustrated by his introductions below:

"After having written many books in the style of neither an historian nor a scholar but only that of a layman, we have now reached the series of years in which the thirty pretenders arose -- the years when the Empire was ruled by Gallienus and Valerian, when Valerian was busied with the great demands of the Persian War and Gallienus, as will be shown in the proper place, was held in contempt not only by men but by women as well. But since so obscure were these men, who flocked in from divers parts of the world to seize the imperial power, that not much concerning them can be either related by scholars or demanded of them, and since all those historians who have written in Greek or in Latin have passed over some of them without dwelling even on their names, and, finally, since certain details related about them by many have varied so widely, I have therefore gathered them all into a single book, and that a short one, especially as it is evident that much concerning them has already been told in the Lives of Valerian and Gallienus and need not be repeated here."

Domitianus

In the section regarding Gallienus, the author(s) tells of his intention to write a "book" (which we would call a chapter today) about the TWENTY usurpers during that emperors reign. He later ends up writing a book entitled Tryrani Triginta (Thirty Pretenders or Tyrants). It is likely that the number of tyrants was later intentionally inflated to parallel the famous Thirty Tyrants of Athens who were installed as rulers of the city by Sparta after Athens was defeated in the Peloponnesian War. The author actually lists 32 names, the last two are admitted by him of not belong to the period of Gallienus. The list includes two women and six children who never actually assumed imperial power along with seven men of whom no other historical record or coinage indicates that they claimed 'the purple.' Three others are listed (Saturninus, Trebellianus and Celsus) who are likely to be entirely fictional -inventions of the author. Another three on the list existed, but not during the reign of Gallienus. Nevertheless, NINE tyrants don’t make a very good story (or a very good case for the ineptitude of Gallienus) and they don’t make a very good game either. Modern (well if you call late 1960s modern) research has shown the book was most likely authored almost 100 years later and that it’s true purpose may have been to help legitimize the Constantinian dynasty.

Although not all of the thirty tyrants appear in the game, the following summary of their names and exploits in illustrative of the period. Well, illustrative, at least, of the period as portrayed by the writer(s) of Historia Augusta. I have include brief quotes from the author(s) about certain of the characters and grouped them into factions to help the reader easily make sense of the complex political situation which Gallienus found thrust upon him, for good or ill. Consider the following .

The scene is set: Valerian has been captured in battle by the Persians, Odaenathus has seized power in the East, and Gallienus is "rejoicing in the news of his father's captivity." The armies begin to range about, and the generals and governors in all the provinces begin to murmur…

Next Installment: Tyrants of Rome: A partial Dramatis Personae for the period.