Consensus on Numerian's cause of death?

[Tom Servo]

I'll open by saying I'm something of a layman, not having done any real research on the subject since the early 1990's.

 

I'm reading through Peter Heather's Fall of the Roman Empire, and I came across an odd contradiction.  I've read that Numerian died of an eye disease on the Persian front, which might have been poisoning by Aper. The Epitome De Caesaribus backs this up.

 

However, Heather claims Numerian was captured by Shapur, killed, and his skin made into a bag.

 

Later in the century, a second Roman emperor, Numerianus, was also captured, but killed immediately: ‘They flayed him and made his skin into a sack. And they treated it with myrh [to preserve it] and kept it as an object of exceptional splendour.’14 Whether this was also Valerian’s fate, or whether he was kept on the floor or the wall, the sources don’t say.  [p. 141]

 

 

Heather's source is Dodgeon's Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, and Dodgeon appears to be quoting Malalas:

 

 

 

And the bishop [st. Babylas] stopped him, saying to him, 'You are polluted from sacrifice to idols; and I do not assent to your seeing the mysteries of the living God.' The emperor Numerianus was angry with him and immediately executed him. He went out from Antioch and campaigned against the Persians. In the ensuing battle, the Persians launched an attack on him [p. 304] and destroyed the greater part of his forces, and he fled to the city of Carrhae. The Persians put it under siege and took him prisoner, and immediately they executed him. They flayed his skin and made it into a bag. They treated it with myrrh and preserved it for their particular glory.

 

I know there are real concerns about Malalas' work. Is there any credibility to his account?

 

[Onasander]

I just read the account you linked.

 

It's obvious he took a second hand approach to structuring his work. He used Theophrastus' character traits to a degree in expressing each emperors physical, emotional, and social alliegance from the start.... but it's the bare bone minimum.

 

He barely covers each reign.

 

Then he says this: In his reign, he ornamented the so-called Museium in Antioch as well as the in it the sigma shaped Nymphaeum, writing it in lettering(?) Oceanus. The emperor also ordered that the food-supplies of Antioch should be from the treasury as a gift by his orders so they could teach.

 

I know the Library in Alexandria was known as the museum. He is obviously backing one philosophical school in bias over the other. The question we should ask is why.

 

I know much later on, the university of Antioch would pull inland with the Assyrian Church of the East, towards Nisiblis.... it's still sorta around, but was converted into a church seminary of sorts, but was very powerful during it's Antiochian era. The fact this text mentions the emperor funding it with imperial oversight sits squarely within imperial tradition.

 

I'm afraid this text looks legitimate. Not saying accurate, just.... He used his sources systematically, and appear to of been using church traditions.... such as The Lives of the Saints as he would of known them, and gives evidence to community rivalries. He also gives the impression to me the Stoic Institution of Mimes was still in existence.... at least written, if not actually acted like in Publius Syrus' day. He had to of taken the descriptions from somewhere. I come off with the impression books, if not actors, were exesstant playing the roles of such character traits of such emperors to give everyone a pist-humorous impression of what they were like in a era that portrait painting distribution was very small scale. It reads off like a blue print.

 

Notice he fills in details current historians are at a lost as to what Emperor Probus did during his abortive invasion of Persia? Everything I read shows their a bunch of confused, lost ducklings stumped on this part. I see nothing that indicates he is untrustworthy here.

 

Now, to your specific claim/question.... Knowing he appears to of made use of church as well as civil history, was philosophically educated but at odds with the Antiochian Philosophy School in the city, we have to ask ourselves, do we have information he lacked in being able to pinpoint the truth of this story better than he could discern with his sources?

 

Yes, it appears.

 

I simply assumed a Bishop murdered by a Emperor would be made a saint, and googled his name. I got this from Wikipedia:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylas_of_Antioch

He was the successor of Zebinus as Bishop of Antioch in the reign of the Emperor Gordianus (238-244), being the twelfth bishop of the see. During the Decian persecution (250) he made an unwavering confession of faith and was thrown into prison where he died from his sufferings. He was, therefore, venerated as a martyr.[3]

 

John Chrysostom's homily upon Saint Babylas and the Acts of the Martyrs report the following story, that Babylas once refused the visiting pagan emperor, on account of his sinful ways, permission to enter the church and had ordered him to take his place among the penitents. John does not give the name of the emperor; the Acts mention Numerian. It is more likely the contemporary Philip the Arab of whom Eusebius (Historia ecclesiastica, VI, 34) reports that a bishop would not let him enter the gathering of Christians at the Easter vigil.[3] Later legend elaborates on this, stating that Babylas demanded that he do penance for his part in the murder of the young Gordian III before he would allow Philip to celebrate Easter.

 

----

 

We can see there was confusion over just which emperor did what.

 

I take this from another article:

Death in captivity

Eutropius, writing between 364-378, stated that Valerianus "was overthrown by Sapor king of Persia, and being soon after made prisoner, grew old in ignominious slavery among the Parthians.".[8] An early Christian source, Lactantius, thought to be virulently anti-Persian, thanks to the occasional persecution of Christians by some Sasanian monarchs,[9] maintained that for some time prior to his death Valerian was subjected to the greatest insults by his captors, such as being used as a human footstool by Shapur when mounting his horse. According to this version of events, after a long period of such treatment Valerian offered Shapur a huge ransom for his release. In reply, according to one version, Shapur was said to have forced Valerian to swallow molten gold (the other version of his death is almost the same but it says that Valerian was killed by being flayed alive) and then had the unfortunate Valerian skinned and his skin stuffed with straw and preserved as a trophy in the main Persian temple. It was further alleged that it was only after a later Persian defeat against Rome that his skin was given a cremation and burial.[10] The captivity and death of Valerian has been frequently debated by historians without any definitive conclusion.[9]

 

 

The Humiliation of Emperor Valerian by Shapur I, pen and ink, Hans Holbein the Younger, ca. 1521

One modern scholar[9] claims that, contrary to the account of Lactantius, Shapur I sent Valerian and some of his army to the city of Bishapur or Gundishapur where they lived in relatively good condition. Shapur used the remaining soldiers in engineering and development plans. Band-e Kaisar (Caesar's dam) is one of the remnants of Roman engineering located near the ancient city of Susa.[11] In all the stone carvings on Naghshe-Rostam, in Iran, Valerian is represented holding hands with Shapur I, a sign of submission.

 

It has been alleged that the account of Lactantius is colored by his desire to establish that persecutors of the Christians died fitting deaths;[12] the story was repeated then and later by authors in the Roman Near East fiercely hostile to Persia.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerian_%28emperor%29

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The article points out he did persecute Christians (see link) even in his own imperial household, and this was stopped afterwards (Compare Japanese persecutions of Christians leading up to WW2, and half the Japanese household being Quakers). It's quite possible he did indeed kill someone of high standing, perhaps even this saint, or another. It's quite possible that the emperor and his men did work projects prior to his execution. Did he drink molten gold, or have his shin flayed, or both? I dunno. I haven't come across a Persian work claiming something similar.

 

So to answer your question if there is a consensus, the answer is definitely NO. However, do I think this historian is reliable? He seems to of been methodological, and worked well within the sources that he transmitted. Therefore he is valuable. But because his account contradicts other accounts, it causes doubts for the whole spectrum of histories in this era, which makes perfect sense given 1) The Christians were persecuted, so their primary sources likely became secondary oral sources once the original works were burnt, 2) Julian the Apostate screwed around with the Antiochian Cathedral, and the Church dedicated to this saint had to be rebuilt across the River. That sort of interference is going to mess with classical record keeping. Not every liturgy is going to be memorized, feast and fast days will get jumbled pre-monastic period, and a lot of community animosity would get intermixed.

 

I think someone likely was flayed. I give my community's remembrance of the death of Chief Logan as a example:

 

Our story went, out of revenge for him killing so many curing the war, we cut out a section of his small intestine, nailed it to a tree, and whipped him as he ran around it, till it fell out and he died.

 

When a Chief Logan impersonator came here from the modern successor to the Mingo tribe, many of us respectfully came to the meeting to hear him speak. To our shock, he thought Logan wandered off into the East (drunk and depressed). He attributed the death to another Indian. Upon research, I found him to be correct in many details. What happened is during the centuries, the emotional response to history was remembered, but the number of personalities at play in history continuous decreased, until only Chief Logan was remembered. If you can't remember the name of any Indian other than Logan, Logan becomes every Indian. The emotion was correct (even if politically incorrect, see Lord Dunmore's War), but factually incorrect.

 

We would in this case be dealing with a division between Fact and Emotion. I believe in Sociology, it was the philosopher Comte who first tackled the difference between desires and opinions. I would note that for a historian, we must realize no fact is independent in and of itself, existing in a cognitive void.... When we apprehend, a "thing" unfolds into other facts, a schema develops, or it's adopted a priori into a schema.... effectively it's ideological, and ideology is desire driven. I would caution against a full acceptance of Comte's position, but to encourage a overview.

 

 

During that time Comte published his first essays in the various publications headed by Saint-Simon, L'Industrie, Le Politique, and L'Organisateur (Charles Dunoyer and Charles Comte's Le Censeur Européen), although he would not publish under his own name until 1819's "La séparation générale entre les opinions et les désirs" ("The general separation of opinions and desires").

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Comte

[caldrail]

Sorry it took so long for me to get onto this, but the answer is rather simple.

 

His son NUMERIANUS, too, whom he had taken with him to Persia, a young man of very great ability, while, from being affected with a disease in his eyes, he was carried in a litter, was cut off by a plot of which Aper, his father-in-law, was the promoter; and his death, though attempted craftily to be concealed until Aper could seize the throne, was made known by the odour of his dead body; for the soldiers, who attended him, being struck by the smell, and opening the curtains of his litter, discovered his death some days after it had taken place.
Historiae Romanae Breviarium (Eutropius)
Although the disease in the eyes is mentioned, there is no actual conclusion that the disease killed him - it reads more like a man who was quietly bumped off while he was weak.

He had two sons, Numerianus a very promising youth, from whom the state might have expected all possible happiness and good, had he not been murdered by Aper; and Carinus, a person abandoned to all kinds of vice, who was killed by Diocletian
New History )Zosimus)
And so it appears that it happened that way.

 

Beware of jumping to conclusions when reading Roman sources I would suggest, but this was an intersting point. Peter Heather has chosen what appears to him to be the most logical and supportable conclusion in this case.

[guy]

However, Heather claims Numerian was captured by Shapur, killed, and his skin made into a bag.

 

 

Later in the century, a second Roman emperor, Numerianus, was also captured, but killed immediately: ‘They flayed him and made his skin into a sack. And they treated it with myrh [to preserve it] and kept it as an object of exceptional splendour.’14 Whether this was also Valerian’s fate, or whether he was kept on the floor or the wall, the sources don’t say.  [p. 141]

 

Heather's source is Dodgeon's Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, and Dodgeon appears to be quoting Malalas:

 

Interestingly enough, I was reading about Numerian this week as I was studying some of the numismatic material from this period.

 

 

http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/numerian/t.html

 

Thank you for bringing the anecdote and the source to my attention.

 

I was not familiar with Malalas, but I offer these caveats:

 

There exists little reliable history about the third century and so we can never be sure about these or other anecdotes.

 

Malalas wrote more than two centuries later (during the reign of Justinian) about the events involving Numerian.

 

Malalas seems to have a Christian agenda. This possibly distorts any history about a pre-Christian emperor written by a Christian writer.

 

Thank you, again, for bringing this source and anecdote to my attention.

 

 

guy also known as gaius

[Onasander]

Christian agenda? He reports just fine on the other Pagan Emperors, you'll wanna reconsider that statement. He has a grudge. It's the why of that that matters here. The church was destroyed and rebuilt, and he offers up a tradition not found in current lives of saints. Yet he makes systematic use of several kinds of sources, not all Christian. We run the risk of unfairly closing him off as a source due to unfounded biases.

 

If I was to offer a parallel from the modern world, it would be like automatically disregarding a Sunni Historian if your a Shia, or vice versa. Yes, biases exist, or at least likely to exist, but we can't beforehand categorically press them out of the range of acceptability without looking and weighing what they actually contribute. Malalas had books on Antioch in a era when it was under foreign occupation. This obviously matters ALOT.

 

I found a rather sparce, methodological yet wonderful history in Malalas. It gives you a real feel for what sources actually existed at the time. Given the City of Antioch was occupied then by the Persians, his worth in regards to the history of Antioch is obviously very important.

 

Besides, the pagan and christians regularly rubbed shoulders at this time in the philosophy schools. I doubt any educated man could be pagan or Christian and long avoid friendly interaction if living in the same city. Not all philosophy schools were closed, some continued on just fine in their new home. It's quite easy to uproot and move your school. Classical philosophers, especially Athenians, put too much emphasis on local and not bona fide transmission. It's why we can say Sulla or Mithradities destroyed the academy, even though in modern terms it's continuation went on unimpeded via dominant philosophers still present carrying on the tradition. Paganism died off eventually, but not yet. And certainly not the Roman identity. Or History Craft. We gotta hold in mind the possibility that the well educated then were every bit as complex and intellectual as people now.... Not the same sciences or ideas, but still civilized and deep. I doubt he was black and white as Pagan-Christian conflicts today are painted.

Edited February 9, 2015 by Onasander

[caldrail]

There was another Numerianus too. Not really to do with this thread, but an interesting tale. It seems this Numerianus was a schoolteacher in Gaul who decided one day that his life was too dull. So he set off for Rome, pretending to be a senator, picking up a small army on the way, and basically began 'liberating' booty claiming to acting for the emperor Severus, who it turns out was completely fooled and very happy with his newly discovered loyal underling. Having surrended 70 million sesterces, Numerianus retired to a quiet and comfortable rereat, happy ever after. Awww... Sweet... Unless of course you were among those whose money was grabbed by force I guess.

Edited February 9, 2015 by caldrail

[Tom Servo]

 

There exists little reliable history about the third century and so we can never be sure about these or other anecdotes.

 

Malalas wrote more than two centuries later (during the reign of Justinian) about the events involving Numerian.

 

 

That's what I gathered about him.  If his account were the correct one, then Numerian wasn't poisoned by Aper (or at least Aper wasn't accused).  If so, the mainstream story that Diocles killed Aper in retribution after taking the purple would false as well.  It's a seemingly small discrepancy that actually affects quite a bit.

 

I'm wondering why Heather would use a source that conflicts with mainstream interpretation, and without any comment on the choice.

[Onasander]

I just did a Google search, it's really hard to die of an eye disease.

 

The eye is largely isolated from the rest of the body, and can easily be removed.

 

You can have eye herpes, but I see this in cats (Humans have it too, different variety).... blindness might kill a cat out of starvation, but not the herpes itself. It just makes them red eyed, leaky, and helps develop cataracts.

 

You can also get dirt in the eye, but again, really hard to die from it. People do often lose their eyesight. It's by the US military mandates clear ballistic goggles, to keep the dirt out.

 

This isn't making sense to me. I won't say no one ever died from a eye disease, but we're talking about a well nourished individual, in an era that well understood worst comes to worst, you can just pop an eye out.

 

Secondly, the litter he is being carried in, be it by hand or in wagon, makes little sense that no one would notice for days, even if absolute privacy was demanded. Water, food, and bowel movements. You can go a day at most before someone notices you haven't demanded water, or requested your chamber pot to be changed out.

 

Secondly, it's a hot climate, the rate of decomposition would be faster. And the flies would very quickly tip it off before the small ever reached anyone's nose. Have you noticed roadkill gets maggots in it rather fast?

 

I'm tired of coming across people claiming historians are unreliable due to academic laziness. He wrote a massive work, I was just reading his Egyptian history earlier. The greatest shame and burden historians of the 21st carry is the legacy of the historians of the 20th century. They were lazy and demented, and never read beyond their small area of expertise, inevitably wounding themselves. We need to learn, or at least relearn the approach to reading between the lines of texts by historians from different eras. His history in general looks very similar in structure and method to other later histories. It's disturbing to cut him off as reliable just because some historian sucked and/or was ideologically biased.

[Tom Servo]

The greatest shame and burden historians of the 21st carry is the legacy of the historians of the 20th century. They were lazy and demented, and never read beyond their small area of expertise, inevitably wounding themselves. We need to learn, or at least relearn the approach to reading between the lines of texts by historians from different eras. His history in general looks very similar in structure and method to other later histories. It's disturbing to cut him off as reliable just because some historian sucked and/or was ideologically biased.

 

So, it's possible Heather was right and accounts of his poisoning are wrong?  If so, it would seem that the "official" story could be a fabrication of Diocletian's supporters to support his killing of a potential rival.

 

The answers I've gotten so far in this thread have been fascinating.  Thanks!

[guy]

Just a thought:

 

Could Malalas, writing more than two centuries after the fact, confused Numerian with Valerian?

 

I believe here's what he wrote about Valerian:

 

 

The emperor Valerian then setting out from Rome for war came to Mizoulanon [apparently Milan, since that is where Theodosius I dies in 395] where he was informed about the east and wanted to return and come to the east which he was not unable to do, but he was slaughtered en route there at Mizoulanon at the age of 61.

No mention of Valerian's capture and later display? As mentioned by Heather, it was reported that Valerian was captured by Shapur, the Persian King. It is alleged that he was later skinned, his skin was stuffed, and he was used as a trophy.

 

Writing two centuries later (without the benefit of Google), Malalas could easily have gotten his emperors confused.

 

 

guy also known as gaius

Edited February 10, 2015 by guy

[Onasander]

Is it possible? Yes.

 

It could also be Aper just sucked at lying. It's said his father Emperor Carus died by a strike of lightening (????), his Army autonomously decided it really wanted to go West.... Aper got sidelined.... and the stubbornly surviving brother Carinus far away in the west lived, fought, got theDamnatio Memoriae against him, effectively confusing US, and just US (thanks alot buttheads). Only thing remembered about him is another implausible death, but it was quite demeaning.... He was assassinated by a tribunes wife he was having an affair with.

 

Is it possible these guys got mixed up?

 

Numeran ruled until 284

 

Valerian 260

 

Numeran was successful in his Persian campaign. Valerian.... well, not so successful.

 

I'm a little confused actually now. I'll have to look over Malalas again, you seem to be aware of a confusing point I'm not seeing (quite possible).

[Onasander]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapur_I

 

Shapur's death contradicts the grand authority recorded in wikipedia. It says he died of illness, whereas Malalas said slingshot to the head. It appears he took this story from:

 

Domninus the Wise Chronographer

 

So it's a conflict of his sources to ours. Shapur is known via Roman and non Roman writers. Malalas also notes Philostratus and Dominius having different accounts.

 

This is just from the very beginning of the link you provided.

 

The editor of this text assumes he died in Milan, but the name isn't Milan, it's Mizoulanon.

 

Numerian is indeed correctly after his father, but the chronology is off.... Carcalla and Valerian had a few emperors between them, including a Christian one (that christian bias) who is mysteriously not mentioned.

 

His brother did not reign for two years after him.

However, he mentions Cosmos and Damien being Martyred, which is indeed correct in terms of time frame.... Under Diocletian.

 

Looks like the sources he relied on for an official emperor list was wrong, but the sequencing of the dates was correct.

 

So, if this pattern holds, I would hold the names of emperors in question, and would date it off the saints, and reverse engineer that order.

 

Likewise in the case of Shaphur being killed, I dunno. I do know there wasn't a single Persian king in this era, they shared power. This concept of shared power via multiple leaders wasnt unknown in even the roman world, but I doubt the average Roman historian grasped this parallel.

 

I would have to scrutinize the text much more to figure out if this pattern holds, as well as comparing descriptions of other known emperors to Malalas text to narror down with a higher degree of certainty which emperors he was actually talking about. He is clearly making use of a variety of sources here, so it's hard to say which facts fit which individual when a name is off, but we can't toss the facts aside either, as they were colliated from somewhere.... some work that sat in front of him. So we gotta look at context.

 

{It just occurred to me the Chronology Malalas was using went via who was known/accepted as Emperor then. It can explain mistaking Shapur for a brother of his, as well as thinking Numerians brother was emperor for two years.

 

The chronographer he used recognized Numerous died (not correctly), but from the city of Antioch's perspective, the last remaining legitimate Caesar was still in the West... Aper and Diocletian wouldn't be on the radar for some time.... Meanwhile the Chronographer would list the passing of daily life in Antioch. Army marched West, fought and took Rome, and then official dispatches had to work back to Antioch. This could take a while, and it wouldnt necessarily be Diocletian, as we would expect, that the average person thought was in charge. By using thus chronology, Malalas likely just did the math. 2 year gap before everyone decided he was no longer Emperor.}

Edited February 10, 2015 by Onasander

[guy]

I'm enjoying this thread as it is making me examine more closely a source whose validity I never considered.

 

That said, there are several things about the link that are either translated incorrectly or just factually wrong.

 

http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Post/1021862

 

 

guy also known as gaius

Edited February 10, 2015 by guy

[Onasander]

Yeah.... The Greek word dimoiriaiors means the two/twins of something, we can't find the exact meaning, which is odd as half of Byzantium is recorded here.

 

The translator was using Greek.

 

I'm struggling with Malalas Charioteering records, he said Numerius' Brother supported the Greens. I could care less about this, as I just don't care about sports period, but it was a fact that may be referenced under my theory that Malalas was actually writing about Diocletian.

 

Diocletian added two teams to the game, the Purple and the Golds, but according to Google, they died off soon after he died off. I also found Diocletian built a chariot racing hippodrome somewhere (don't know where). This wouldn't discount him being a fanatic Green supporter, as he obviously liked the game before he added teams. I just don't know where this came from, I wouldn't be surprised if it was Malalas even.

 

It would suggest to me he had a history of chariot racing before him. It ironically may have non-antiochian chronology information that would contradict and explain nuances in his other claims. I just know, literally nothing about chariot racing history. I wouldn't know what sources to reach for. But it may be a important key to figuring out who is who.

Edited February 10, 2015 by Onasander

[caldrail]

It was Domitian who added Purple and Gold teams, but these had little public support against the fanatical following of the regular four, Blue, Green, Red, and White.