The principal literary sources for the reigns of Aurelian and Probus are: Eusebius of Caesarea with Jerome (4–5th century), Lactantius (early 4th century), Orosius (375/80–417/8), Zosimus (early 6th century), Zonaras (beginning of 12th century), Cedrenus (11–12th cent), Historia Augusta (turn of 4th century and/or late 4th century, also known as Scriptores Historiae Augusta), Sextus Aurelius Victor (c. AD 360), Epitome de Caesaribus formerly attributed (wrongly) to Aurelius Victor (turn of 5th century) and hence the so-called Pseudo-Victor, Eutropius’ Breviarium (c.369), Rufus Festus’ Breviarium (c.370), fragments of Herennius Dexippus (a period source from the 3rd century), fragments of Anonymous Continuator of Dio Cassius now attributed to Petrus Patricius/Peter the Patrician (6th century), Malalas (6th century), George Syncellus (early 9th century), Jordanes (6th century), fragments of John of Antioch (6–7th century), and other less important sources.1
There are indeed many sources, but none of these includes any detailed narratives of the reigns of Aurelian or Probus, the heroes of this narrative history. Furthermore, we no longer possess any of the original period sources in their entirety. The most detailed sources are the very unreliable Historia Augusta and the slightly more reliable Zosimus. It is largely thanks to this that the numismatics has assumed a very important role in the analysis of their reigns, and it is the numismatic evidence that dates for example the course of the war between Aurelian and Zenobia.
In this study the sources are analyzed from the point of view of military history and military probability so that I have sought to analyze each of the sources on its own terms. In other words, I have not dismissed evidence preserved in the generally unreliable source on the basis that it is preserved in this source unless there are very strong reasons to do so. This has been done case-by-case so that each piece of evidence has been analyzed separately, not like it used to be done by the methodologically ultra-conservative Classicists roughly from the 1970s until the 2010s, who have been in the habit of dismissing the entire source as worthless with the result that they have replaced close-to-the-period evidence with their own ‘must-have-beens’. This concerns in particular the use of the Historia Augusta (Augustan History/Scriptores Historiae Augusta), which some historians dismiss as worthless and therefore not worth even commenting on. I agree with those who are prepared to use it (e.g. Christol, Cizek, Yann Le Bohec, White, Geiger, Paul N. Pearson) and I am also inclined to accept the older and now the newer opinion that the Historia Augusta was indeed written by six separate authors, as it claims to have been.
The authors that concern us are as follows:
| Author: | Books: |
| Trebellius Pollio: | Valeriani Duo; Gallieni Duo; Tyranni Triginta; Divus Claudius |
| Flavius Vopiscus: | Divus Aurelianus; Tacitus; Probus; Firmus, Saturninus, Proculus and Bonosus; Carus et Carinus et Numerianus |
For the sake of clarity however, I have used the traditional HA to mean all of the authors of the Historia Augusta collectively even if I also use the supposed name of the author in an effort to avoid unnecessary repetition. In addition to this I also abbreviate the names of the books.
The following analysis of the reigns takes the account of Zosimus as its core text so that it includes several quotes from it. These quotes are then compared with the other evidence that we have to arrive at a likely reconstruction of the events.
The following analysis combines the information provided by the sources and military treatises with military probability to provide an account of the likely course of action. The reason for this combination of different analytical tools and sources is the scantiness of evidence provided by the narrative sources. Therefore, if one wants to shed additional light onto the events it is necessary to analyze this evidence from the point of view of period military practices and from the point of view of military probability. It is therefore very important to place the events on the map as this provides additional insights into the thinking processes behind the decisions taken by the military commanders in each situation, and this is one of the principal methodological tools behind the concept of military probability, alongside the military doctrine of the period. It should still be kept in mind that all of these analyzes of the military situations are by nature speculative and should be seen as such. It is because of this that I will always state in the narrative when the reconstruction is based on such educated guesses and it is because of this that I include the reasons for the conclusions and long quotes from the sources with my analysis also in the text instead of presenting the events as a single narrative.