Europe 423: Usurpation of Joannes

Following the Roman defeat at Tarraco (422), the Western Roman emperor Honorius fell out with his sister Galla Placidia, prompting her to flee with her children to Constantinople in early 423. As a result, when Honorius died in August, he had no available heirs, leaving the Western government to turn to the Eastern emperor Theodosius II to decide the succession. This interregnum lasted until November, when, with the West apparently no longer willing to wait for Theodosius, the civil servant Joannes was proclaimed emperor at Rome with the tacit support of the generalissimo Castinus.

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Notes

Akatziri and the “Scythian Kingdom” (Kuban Huns)

Little is known about the region north and east of the Black Sea in the first half of the fifth century, except that in c. 400 a “Scythian King” (almost always assumed to be a Hun) lived in the Kuban region and by the 440s a Hunnic people known as the Akatziri lived east of the Dniester. Although fragmented, the Akatziri were powerful enough that, when the Eastern Romans aligned with all but one of their kingdoms in 447, it took over a year for Attila’s armies to crush them and install his son as their king. After this, Attila contemplated invading Persia, implying that suppressing the Akatziri had bought the periphery of his empire close to the Caucasus. All this suggests that the Akatziri may have extended into the North Caucasus and that the “Scythian King” may have been part of the Akatziri, although this is of course conjecture.

Main Events

423 Exile of Galla Placidia▲

By late 422 the relationship between Galla Placidia and her brother, the Western emperor Honorius, was deteriorating, possibly partly fueled by accusations that Placidia had helped engineer the Roman defeat at Tarraco earlier that year. Street fighting soon broke out between her supporters—many of them Goths that had made up Placidia’s bodyguard ever since her days as Athaulf’s queen—and his, leading to her exile from Ravenna to Rome. This proved to not be far enough and in early 423 she fled with her children, Honoria and Valentinian, to seek refuge at the court of her nephew Theodosius II in Constantinople. in wikipedia

15 Aug 423 Death of Honorius▲

In August 423 the Western Roman emperor Honorius died, at age 38, of edema (dropsy). Having no children and with his sister Galla Placidia in exile in Constantinople with her unrecognized son Valentinian, he left the Western Empire without an heir. As a result, the Eastern emperor Theodosius II became sole official ruler of the Roman Empire and was left with the task of deciding the Western succession. To secure against any usurpation in the West while these deliberations were underway, Theodosius immediately dispatched a military force to Salona, in the Western diocese of Illyricum. in wikipedia

20 Nov 423 Usurpation of Joannes▲

In November 423, three months after the death of the Western Roman emperor Honorius and with the Eastern emperor Theodosius II still undecided as to the succession, the primicerius notarium (chief civil servant) Joannes was proclaimed emperor at Rome. Joannes was tacitly supported by the magister militum Castinus—who was probably involved in the initial coup—as well as the officer Flavius Aetius and Aetius’ father Gaudentius. The new emperor immediately sent an embassy to Constantinople to obtain the recognition of Theodosius, but the Eastern emperor had the ambassadors arrested upon their arrival. Meanwhile, Joannes’ position was further undermined when Bonifatius, governor of Africa, rejected his authority and sided with the Eastern Empire. in wikipedia