An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors
Iulianus (ca. 286-293 A.D.)
Thomas M. Banchich
Michael DiMaio, Jr.
Salve Regina University
The Epitome de Caesaribus reports that about the time of the elevations of Maximian to the rank of Augustus on March 1, 286, and of Constantius Chlorus and Galerius to that of Caesar on March 1, 293: "Carausius in Gaul, Achilles in Egypt, and Julianus in Italy were made imperatores and, by a diverse death, perished. Of these Julianus, when an attack had breached his walls, threw himself into a fire" (39.3-4, ed. Pichlmayr: Hoc tempore Charausio in Galliis, Achilleus apud Aegyptum, Iulianus in Italia imperatores effecti diverso exitu periere. E quibus Iulianus acto per costas pugione in ignem se abiecit).[] The PLRE identifies this Julianus with the Julianus mentioned in Aurelius Victor's Liber de Caesaribus 39.22 as connected somehow with disturbances in Africa linked to the Berber confederacy of the Quinquegentiani. However, this identification has little to support it and has been justly questioned.[] Likewise, the Epitome seems to distinguish Julianus 2 from Sabinus Julianus.[]
[]PLRE I, pp. 573-574, s.v. Maximianus 8; pp. 227-228, s.v. Constantius 12; pp. 573-574, s.v. Maximianus 8; pp. 180-181, s.v. Carausius; and p. 468, s.v. Iulianus 2. PLRE I does not list Achilles. F. Pichlmayer edits the Epitome, together with Aurelius Victor's Liber de Caesaribus, the Origo gentis Romae, and the Liber de viris illustribus urbis Romae (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1970).
[]See, for example, P. Dufraigne, in his Budé text of Victor (Paris: Société d'édition "Les Belles lettres, 1975), p. 184. H. W. Bird, Aurelius Victor: De Caesaribus (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1994), p. 43, provides an English translation of Victor with commentary. Bird's English translation of the Epitome de Caesaribus is forthcoming, also in Liverpool's Translated Texts for Historians series.
[]Cf. Epitome de Caesaribus 38.6 and 39.3-4. For Sabinus, see PLRE I, p. 474, s.v. M. Aur. Sabinus Iulianus 24.
Bird, H.W.(ed.), Liber de Caesaribus of Sextus Aurelius Victor, (Liverpool, 1994), 167ff, n. 17.
Jones, A.H.M., J.R. Martindale, and J. Morris. "Iulianus 2." The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Cambridge, 1971, 1.468.
Kienast, Dietmar. Römische Kaisertabelle: Grundzüge einer römischen Kaiserchronologie, (Darmstadt, 1990) 273.
Stein, A. "Iulianus (21b)." RE 10.1: col. 24.
Copyright (C) 1997, Thomas M. Banchich and Michael DiMaio, Jr. This file may be copied on the condition that the entire contents, including the header and this copyright notice, remain intact.
Comments to: Thomas M. Banchich and Michael DiMaio, Jr..
Updated: 29 September 1997
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