ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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This is a list of usurpers of the Roman Empire, that is a list of emperors considered "illegal", because self-proclaimed, placed at the head of revolts, or, especially in the Upper Empire, in the era of the maximum power of the army, elected to the imperial title by its troops.

The illegitimacy lies in the fact that such emperors, while effectively controlling for a certain period a portion of the territory of the empire, usually circumscribed, were placed outside the normal succession, which could happen in various ways, but, at least in the periods in which the state was appointed peace and the political and social order, always in the within of a consolidated usus (the dinastic succession of father in son - also The usurper therefore clearly constituted himself as a subverter who put himself against the central power, not always necessarily with the concern of dethroning the emperor in office in Rome and subduing him.

This characterization however becomes much more nurtured in periods of serious political crisis, where the same "legitimate" succession is not always clear; this is true especially during the crisis of the third century, in the most difficult period of which, the empire found itself even divided into three parts, with parallel successions of emperors. Usually for this period the sovereigns are considered legitimate, often uncontrolled among themselves in a light or non-linear way, which had control of Rome and most of the territories of the empire (in about fifteen years, 260-274, in which the empire was divided into three parts because of secessions, this is equivalent to the central and wider portion of the empire, without that is the West and the East).

They are therefore considered legitimate, from 235 to 284: Massimino il Trace, Gordiano I, Gordiano II, Balbino, Pupieno, Gordiano III, Filippo l'Arabo, Decio, Treboniano Gallo, Emiliano, Valeriano, Gallieno, Claudio II il Gotico, Quintillo, Aureliano, Tacito, Floriano, Probo, Caro, Numeriano.
The remaining emperors testified for this era, many of which are known only from numismatic sources, who reigned in the Imperium Galliarum, in the Kingdom of Palmyra, or, at different times, in various areas mostly confined to the empire, are considered usurpers.

List of usurpers

The century
Lucio Arrunzio Camillo Scriboniano (42), against Claudio
Lucio Antonio Saturnino (89), against Domiziano

II century
Against Marco Aurelio
Avidio Cassio (175), in Syria, killed by its soldiers
Against Septimius Severus (193-211)
Nigro Fish (193-194)
Clodio Albino (196-197)

III century
Against Heliogabal