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Following the Roman conquest of North Africa, many figures of North African origin, from families of the Romanized Amazigh elite, assumed responsibilities in the imperial administration. There even were several Emperors of North African origin. In this article, we will discover the last and least well-known of these African Emperors: Aemilianus, who came from the island of Djerba, and reigned for three months in 253.
Context
In the course of the 3rd Century, the Roman Empire was shaken by the longest crisis in its history. In a few decades, at least thirty claimants to the Imperial throne succeeded each other; most of them reigned only a few years or months before being killed by their successor. One of them was a soldier from Djerba.
Origins
Marcus Aemilius Aemilianus was born in 207, on the island of Djerba. He was of Moorish origin, and his family had obtained Roman citizenship by the end of the 1st Century BCE. His wife, Cornelia Supera, was also African. They probably got married while Aemilianus was still living in Africa.
As a young man, Aemilianus joined the Roman army, allowing him to leave his native Africa. During the reign of Emperor Trebonianus Gallus (251-253), he was sent to the Balkans, to command an army stationed on the Danube. His main mission was defending the Roman borders against attacks by the Goths. As the Emperor was very unpopular in the army, Aemilianus already nourished the ambition to overthrow him.
In 253, the Goths, led by their chief Cniva, invaded the Roman territory. Aemilianus, as the commander of the Roman troops in the region, attacked them by surprise and won a great victory, killing most enemies. He was then proclaimed Emperor by his victorious troops, in July 253.
Reign of Aemilianus
After his proclamation as Emperor, Aemilianus and his troops marched on Rome, to meet the legitimate Emperor Trebonianus Gallus. Their two armies fought each other around 100 kilometer away from Rome. Aemilianus was victorious. Trebonianus Gallus and his son Volusianus fled, but they were killed shortly afterwards by their own guards.
Aemilianus continued his march on Rome. After the Senate acknowledged him as Emperor, he wrote a letter in which he entrusted the administration of the Empire to the Senate and promised to continue fighting the enemies of Rome, especially the Goths and the Persians. His Imperial propaganda was centered on his military skills: he aimed to show himself as the man who defeated the Goths against all odds, and the only one who was capable of restoring stability in the Empire.
However, the reign of Aemilianus would be short. Another military officer, Valerian, the governor of the Rhine provinces, led an army against him. Some sources say that Trebonianus Gallus himself appealed to Valerian for help before he died, while according to other sources, he started his campaign after Aemilianus’ victory, to contest his throne. Aemilianus’ troops, fearing a civil war, mutinied and killed Aemilianus in September 253.
Later on
Valerian, Aemilianus’ successor, was captured in 260, in a battle against the Persians, and ended his life as a prisoner in Persia. He had never been to Rome during his whole reign. The imprisonment of their Emperor was a deep humiliation for the Romans.
