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No sooner was Valerian taken prisoner than every province of the Roman empire, feeling the sword powerless in the weak hands of Gallienus, declared its own general emperor; and when Macrianus, who had been left in command in Syria, gathered together the scattered forces of the Eastern army, and made himself emperor of the East, the Egyptians owned him as their sovereign.
As Macrianus found his age too great for the activity required of a rebel emperor, he made his two sons, Macrianus, junior, and Quietus, his colleagues; and we find their names on the coins of Alexandria, dated the first and second years of their reign.
At any rate, it appears that Odenathus, after a short contest with Macrianus and his son, Quietus, turned his arms once more, about A.D. 263, against the Persians, crossed the Euphrates into Mesopotamia, took Carrhæ and Nisibis, defeated Sapor and some of his sons in a battle, and drove the entire Persian host in confusion to the gates of Ctesiphon.
Among the princes of the Alemanni, Macrianus, who, with a Roman name, had assumed the arts of a soldier and a statesman, deserved his hatred and esteem.
Macrianus, the prætorian prefect, shortly assumed the title of emperor and marched against Gallienus, the son and colleague of Valerian, who had been left to direct affairs in the West. But another rival started up in the East.
Much as I honor Aurelian for his many virtues, I feel not sure that in the right hands he might not be roused to as dark deeds as any before him darker they would be inasmuch as his nature for sternness and severity has not, I think, been equalled. If the mild and just Valerian could be so wrought upon by the malignant Macrianus, what security have we in the case of Aurelian?
The particulars of this great event are darkly and imperfectly represented; yet, by the glimmering light which is afforded us, we may discover a long series of imprudence, of error, and of deserved misfortunes on the side of the Roman emperor. He reposed an implicit confidence in Macrianus, his Prætorian præfect.
Our writers, from Tacitus to the base tools for such they must have been who lent themselves to the purposes of the bigot Macrianus, and who filled the city with their accounts of the Christians, have all agreed in representing your faith as a dark and mischievous superstition.
Valerian intrusted the whole conduct of the war to Macrianus, his prætorian prefect, whose talents he admired, and of whose fidelity he did not entertain a suspicion. Macrianus, however, aspired to the empire, and intentionally brought Valerian into difficulties in the hope of disgracing or removing him. His tactics were successful.
Macrianus, the Praetorian prefect, shortly assumed the title of emperor, and marched against Gallienus, the son and colleague of Valerian, who had been left to direct affairs in the West. But another rival started up in the East. The blow struck at Edessa laid the whole of Roman Asia open to attack, and the Persian monarch was not slow to seize the occasion.
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