Cesarz Probus 276-282 n.e.

Abstract

The author of the present work had three basic task in his mind: Firstly, it was necessary to pay some more attention to this slightly neglected emperor. The monographic literature was written long ago while exiguous contributions are fragmentary and, moreover, rare. This ruler is only mentioned in the handbooks and syntheses of the history of ancient Rome in the form of a short note as one of the numerous emperors in the history of the Empire in the critical 3 rd century. It sometimes happens that Probus is treated as an „entry”, as one name from among the “Ileum emperors”, a group of emperors - Claudius II (268-279), Aurelian (270-275) and Probus - who came from Ileum and who, generally, are perceived as first of all as competent military commanders and ambitious renovators of the power of Rome. Secondly, the present work should be treated as a pretext. It enabled the author to possibility of expressing an opinion on value of the sources which shape our knowledge about Probus, and not only about him! The sequence of the source basis concerning the rule of Roman emperors at the time of the crisis of the Empire in the 3rd century after Christ is as follows: Scriptores Historiae Augustae; other auxiliary narrative texts, rare and fragmentary epigraphic and paper-graphic relations, numismatic sources ( sometimes quite extensive from the typological perspective). Probus’s monograph can thus constitute an exemplification of the typical problems with source materials concerning the epoch discussed. A way of solving them could be a proposal of a model of a procedure in elaborating similar imperial biographies. Thirdly, it is obvious that the subsequent monograph ofthis emperor should also introduce some new elements to the knowledge about his times. The scarce historiographical sources do not allow for a drastic verification of the sequence of events under the Probus’s rule. All attempts in this respect were thus an unnecessary overinterpretation. The numismatic testimonies reveal a number new elements which so far went unnoticed by the literature of the subject. The work consists of three parts preceded by an Introduction. It ends with a summary, numismatic tables, bibliography and tables with reproductions of coins. In Part I the author presents the state of research on Probus, the source basis on the emperor as well as methodological assumptions and the construction of the work. In Part II concerning the course of events the emperor’s biography has been discussed. In Part III the author considers the relevance of the coin resources in the era of Probus. Taking into consideration the abundance of the types of Probus’s coins most of the work’s space has been devoted to the ideological preferences of the ruler. The author of the present monograph already for some time has been propagating, in various publications, the thesis of the need to create the methodological basis of research on the iconography of Roman coins, and especially those issued in the third century A.D. Assuming that in minting of that time there frequently occur, subsequently and regularly, copies of the earlier slogans one could pessimistically and falsely conclude that those sources are quite useless in the reconstruction of the image of the epoch. In order to select intentional and individualised coin contents for particular rules the author suggests a few criteria of selection of the contemporary, and thus also Probus’s, emissions of coins. These are:l) the first emission(s) criterion, z) continuation criterion, 3) rejection criterion, 4) metal criterion, 5) innovation criterion, 6) mint criterion, 7) competition criterion. By a lucky coincidence the most of the criteria suggested can be incorporated in the typology of Probus’s coins.