Emperor Aurelian

Aurelian reunited the Roman empire in five years after it had split into three. Born around AD 214 in the Balkans to a family of peasants or minor officials, he rose entirely through the army, commanded the cavalry under Claudius Gothicus, and was proclaimed emperor by the troops in AD 270. He inherited the worst position any emperor had faced. Gaul, Britain and Spain formed a separatist empire; Palmyra under Zenobia held Syria, Egypt and much of Asia Minor; the Juthungi and Vandals were across the Danube; and Rome itself was undefended. He beat the invaders in northern Italy, losing at Placentia before winning at Fano and Pavia. He then built the Aurelian Walls around Rome — nineteen kilometres of brick-faced concrete, still largely standing. The city had needed no walls for five hundred years, and building them was an admission that the frontiers no longer held. He abandoned Dacia, withdrawing the population south of the Danube to a shorter defensible line, which was strategically sound and unpopular. He marched east in AD 272, defeated Palmyrene forces at Immae and Emesa, took Palmyra, and captured Zenobia; when the city revolted the following year he destroyed it. He then turned west and defeated Tetricus at Châlons in AD 274, recovering Gaul and Britain. He celebrated a triumph with Zenobia in gold chains and took the title Restitutor Orbis, restorer of the world. He reformed the debased coinage, promoted the cult of Sol Invictus, and was murdered in AD 275 by officers deceived by a secretary who had forged a proscription list to save himself.

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