Castinus
Flavius Castinus held the position of
Roman Emperor Honorius at the time of the Emperor's death, and most likely for some time before. He also served as consul
for the year 424.
Career
In 422 he fought an unsuccessful campaign in
Baetica, managing to put them under a blockade and coming close to forcing them to surrender. Unfortunately at this point the Gothic auxiliaries betrayed him in some unspecified manner, which led to his defeat at the Battle of Tarraco; Castinus was forced to fall back to Tarraco (Tarragona).[1]
The sudden death of the nonentity Emperor Honorius 15 August 423, which followed the death of the more active
Eastern Emperor Theodosius II hesitated to nominate a new emperor of the West; Stewart Oost points out that with Honorius' death, "technically and legally he became sole ruler of the whole Roman Empire". Oost also argues that Theodosius reached an agreement with Castinus, where Castinus would act as his vice-regent in the West and in return Theodosius appointed Castinus and the Easterner Victor consuls for 424.[3] If such an agreement was made, Castinus broke it when he joined in declaring Joannes, the senior civil servant, as the new Western Emperor in late 423.[2]
Joannes was an insecure emperor. The Emperor Theodosius invested his young cousin
Count Boniface of Africa."[5]
References
- ^ Stewart Oost, Galla Placidia Augusta (Chicago: University Press, 1968), pp. 172f.
- ^ a b Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court AD 364 - 425 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 379
- ^ Oost, Galla Placidia Augusta, pp. 178f. Oost follows Ernst Stein's identification of the consul of 424 with the Patrician; see p. 179 n. 35 for the bibliography of the discussion.
- ^ Matthews, Western Aristocracies, p. 380; Oost, Galla Placidia Augusta, pp. 183 - 189
- ^ a b Oost, Galla Placidia Augusta, p. 190
- ^ Matthews, Western Aristocracies, p.381