Firmus

Firmus († 273? ) Was, according to the Historia Augusta, a wealthy Roman businessman with connections to India. He was a friend of the rebel Zenobia of Palmyra and interrupted by a angestachelte of him revolt in Alexandria the grain shipments to Rome. Emperor Aurelian struck down the revolt and slew Firmus. In fact, Firmus was never more than an active supporter of Zenobia; the coins with his portrait have been found to be forgeries.

In the person of Firmus, there are many ambiguities that are due to the apparent blending of truth and fiction in the Historia Augusta. In the case of Firmus these doubts are all the more appropriate as the recognized historian Ammianus Marcellinus and Zosimus Although riots in Egypt over deliver, but never mention a Firmus. Instead, historians developed two possible theories: An Egyptian papyrus that time mentions a corrector called Claudius Firmus. This name may refer to an order to quell unrest in a Roman province; in this case Firmus not troublemakers, but a restlessness oppressors would have been so.

The second theory is that the person of Firmus described simply did not exist and that the (anonymous) author of the Historia Augusta was inspired by a africa African rebels called Firmus under Valentinian I..