Farnobius

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Farnobius (died AD 377) was a Gothic chief who was killed in a battle with the Roman army of Frigeridus while trying to cross the mountains from Thrace into Illyricum.

Goths

The Goths were an East Germanic people, two of whose branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire through the long series of Gothic Wars and in the emergence of Medieval Europe. The Goths dominated a vast area, which at its peak under the Germanic king Ermanaric and his sub-king Athanaric possibly extended all the way from the Danube to the Don, and from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum

The praetorian prefecture of Illyricum was one of four praetorian prefectures into which the Late Roman Empire was divided.

Contents

Biography

Farnobius was the optimatus (or chieftain) of one of the Greuthungi tribes, [1] who were pressing on the Danubian frontier during the 370s as a result of westward pressure by the Huns. [2] In 376, with the outbreak of the Gothic War, Farnobius led his people across the Danube from Muntenia, and poured into Moesia Secunda, together with two other Greuthungi tribes, led by Alatheus and Saphrax. [3] Soon however, Farnobius broke away from the coalition, and proceeded to operate independently from the rest of the Greuthungi. [4]

Greuthungi tribe

The Greuthungs, Greuthungi, or Greutungi were a Gothic people of the Pontic-Caspian steppe in the 3rd and the 4th centuries. They had close contacts with the Thervingi, another Gothic people, from west of the Dniester River. They may be the same people as the later Ostrogoths.

Huns Tribe of eastern Europe and central Asia

The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe, between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia at the time; the Huns' arrival is associated with the migration westward of an Indo-Iranian people, the Alans. By 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga, and by 430 the Huns had established a vast, if short-lived, dominion in Europe, conquering the Goths and many other Germanic peoples living outside of Roman borders, and causing many others to flee into Roman territory. The Huns, especially under their King Attila made frequent and devastating raids into the Eastern Roman Empire. In 451, the Huns invaded the Western Roman province of Gaul, where they fought a combined army of Romans and Visigoths at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, and in 452 they invaded Italy. After Attila's death in 453, the Huns ceased to be a major threat to Rome and lost much of their empire following the Battle of Nedao (454?). Descendants of the Huns, or successors with similar names, are recorded by neighbouring populations to the south, east and west as having occupied parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia from about the 4th to 6th centuries. Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century.

Gothic War (376–382) war

Between about 376 and 382 the Gothic War against the Eastern Roman Empire, and in particular the Battle of Adrianople, is commonly seen as a major turning point in the history of the Roman Empire, the first of a series of events over the next century that would see the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, although its ultimate importance to the Empire's eventual fall is still debated.

Farnobius’ tribe were soon joined by a group of Taifals, and they proceeded to ravage lower Moesia. In 377, Farnobius attacked a Roman castra at Beroea which was defended by the magister militum , Frigeridus. [5] Frigeridus was forced to retreat from Thrace to Illyricum, where he managed to obtain reinforcements. [6] He then returned to Thrace, moving through the mountains, where he surprised the troops of Farnobius, who were attempting to cross the same mountains. In the battle that followed, Farnobius was killed, and his troops captured. [7]

Taifals historical ethnical group

The Taifals or Tayfals were a people group of Germanic or Sarmatian origin, first documented north of the lower Danube in the mid third century AD. They experienced an unsettled and fragmented history, for the most part in association with various Gothic peoples, and alternately fighting against or for the Romans. In the late fourth century some Taifali were settled within the Roman Empire, notably in western Gaul in the modern province of Poitou. They subsequently supplied mounted units to the Roman army and continued to be a significant source of cavalry for early Merovingian armies. By the sixth century their region of western Gaul had acquired a distinct identity as Thifalia.

<i>Castra</i> ancient Roman fortification

In the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, the Latin word castrum was a building, or plot of land, used as a fortified military camp.

Stara Zagora Place in Bulgaria

Stara Zagora is the sixth-largest city in Bulgaria, and the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province.

After Farnobius’ defeat and death, his forces were deported to Italia to supplement the population of the peninsula. [8]

See also

Sources

Ancient

Ammianus Marcellinus was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity. His work, known as the Res Gestae, chronicled in Latin the history of Rome from the accession of the Emperor Nerva in 96 to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378, although only the sections covering the period 353–378 survive.

Modern

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References

  1. ↑ Van Nort, pg. 197
  2. ↑ Heather, pg. 46; Wolfram & Dunlap, pg. 92
  3. ↑ Wolfram & Dunlap, pgs. 119-120; Lenski, pg. 331
  4. ↑ Heather, pg. 47
  5. ↑ Lenski, pg. 334; Van Nort, pg. 201
  6. ↑ Van Nort, pg. 201
  7. ↑ Van Nort, pg. 202; Wolfram & Dunlap, pg. 123; Martindale, pg. 324
  8. ↑ Wirth, Gerhard, Rome and its Germanic Partners in the Fourth Century in Kingdoms of the Empire: The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity (ed. Pohl, Walter) (1997), pg. 51
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