Virtus Probi: Payments for the Battle Cavalry during the Rule of Probus (AD 277-278)

Abstract

The experience of the 'Gallic empire' did not end in 274 with the deposition of the last of its emperors. After the re-conquest of the Gallias, Aurelian knew perfectly well that the region had to be defended with great care in the future. Tacitus and Florianus, Aurelian's successors, were too busy in the East in 275 to worry about the West. However, the first task of the emperor Probus was precisely to consolidate the Gallias and to fight against the Franks and the Alamans in the Rhine region in 277-278. The extraordinary 5th monetary series of Bastien in Lyon therefore confirms that Probus took the defence of Gaul very seriously, and that a very careful iconography was adopted to commemorate the personal actions of the emperor beyond the Rhine. As opposed to the Equites coins, which were dependent on an important but secondary commander (a magister militum), the battle cavalries depended directly on the emperor. The central emperors starting -with Gallienus had a battle cavalry in the north of Italy, but the Gallic emperors also had these forces. With the aim of not losing the Gallic region at the same time as he controlled Italy, Aurelian stationed a battle cavalry at Lyon in t.he year 274. The 5th series of Bastien is a good source of evidence of the existence of such a force at Lyon and of its effective use by a central emperor in the year 277-278. Other monetary series such as that of Carus in the year 282 seem to prove that other emperors alien to Gaul used it, with the same enthusiasm, when it was necessary.