Gallienus
Gallienus was the emperor whose father was captured alive by a Persian king, and he held the middle of the empire together while both ends broke off. He ruled with his father Valerian from 253, taking the west while the older man took the east. In 260 Valerian met Shapur I near Edessa, was taken prisoner, and died in captivity - the only Roman emperor ever captured by a foreign enemy, and a humiliation the Persians carved into cliff faces. Within months the empire came apart at both ends. Postumus set up a Gallic empire covering Gaul, Britain and Spain that lasted fourteen years. In the east Odaenathus of Palmyra fought the Persians on Rome's behalf and his widow Zenobia later ruled from Egypt to Anatolia. Gallienus was left with Italy, the Danube and Africa, plague, a currency whose silver content fell to almost nothing, and usurpers in most years of his reign. His response was to rebuild the army rather than the empire's dignity. He created mobile cavalry reserves stationed behind the frontier instead of on it, and he barred senators from legionary command, handing the army to professional equestrian officers. Both changes were resented and both outlasted him: the emperors who reunified the empire commanded the army he had designed. He was also the last emperor for a generation with time for anything else. He patronised Plotinus, whose Neoplatonism reshaped late antique thought, and issued an edict restoring confiscated property to the Christian churches, ending his father's persecution. His own generals murdered him outside Milan in 268 while he was besieging yet another usurper. The senators who wrote the histories never forgave the reforms, and his reputation has never quite recovered from them.
- Lived: 218 CE – 268 CE
- Nationality: Roman
- Roles: head_of_state, royalty
