Marcus (usurper)
Marcus ( † 406 ) was a late ancient Roman usurper in Britain, was charged by the troops there in the year 406 the Emperor.
About his person almost nothing is known. Olympiodorus of Thebes, on whose work other ancient historians largely based their representation of usurpation, reports that Marcus had been a soldier and was proclaimed by disaffected troops in Britain to the Emperor. Shortly afterwards, however, he was killed and raised in its place Gratian emperor. This was also killed after four months. Only the new emperor Constantine could hold and moved to Gaul, where he established a private sphere with his troops.
The few remaining information from the lost historical work of Olympiodorus do not allow to establish the reign of the usurper Marcus accurate. It is only known that these and subsequent usurpations occurred before the Consulate of the Emperor Honorius in 407. At least but some conclusions about the motives of the British troops are possible. Britain itself had been since the end of the 3rd century prone to usurpations been (see Carausius, in the 4th century Magnus Maximus then ). Probably saw neglected in this western outskirts of the Roman Empire from politics in distant Rome. The surveys of Marcus, Gratian and Constantine have been, however, also determined by the situation in Gaul. There, the year 406/ 07 barbarian tribes had crossed the Rhine, which had led to the collapse of border defense (see Rhine crossing of 406 and migrations ). This development had probably been already foreseeable, some modern researchers relocate the crossing of the Rhine but even to the year 405/ 06, which would appear more plausible the effect on the politically connected to the Gallic mainland Britain.
But even without this special occasion, it is quite possible that were well known in Britain, the population shifts in the Rhine area and the troops would intervene to protect Gaul, as an expression of the historian Zosimus suggests. Neither Marcus nor Gratian met the expectations of its soldiers. It was not until the usurper Constantine drew the right conclusions and went to the mainland, where he, however, the last remnants of the Britannic Field Army mitführte, so the island was militarily completely exposed. This initiated the subsequent development that led to the loss of the island for Rome and the conquest by the Anglo-Saxons had the consequence.