Postumus (221-1 August 269) was Emperor of the Gallic Empire from 260 to 269, succeeding Marcus Aurelius Marius. Following the Roman emperor Aurelian's capture by the Persians in 260, Postumus' legions proclaimed him emperor. Gallienus became emperor in Rome, however, causing Postumus to establish a separate Gallo-Roman empire in Western Europe.
Biography[]
Marcus Cassianus Latinius Postumus was born in Gallia to a family of Batavian origin. He served in the Roman Army and rose to be imperial legate of Germania Inferior, but, after the Roman emperor Valerian's capture by the Persians in 260, he found himself proclaimed emperor by his troops. He crushed the Germanic Juthungi and distributed the spoils of war to his men, securing their loyalty. Postumus then drove Gallienus' loyalists (led by his son Postumus) from Gaul and blamed their deaths on a Gallic revolt, and he was recognized as emperor in Gaul, Germania, and Raetia; by 261, Britannia, Gallia Narbonensis, and Hispania also acknowledged him as emperor. Postumus established Gallic equivalents of the Roman Senate and the Praetorian Guard, and he Gallicized the entire administration, with the chief members of his organization being northern Gauls. He went on to push the invading Franks out of Gaul, but, in 265, Gallienus launched a campaign to reconquer Gaul. Gallienus reconquered Raetia, but he was assassinated in 268 and succeeded by Claudius Gothicus. Postumus assumed his fifth consulship in 269, but, that same year, his general Laelianus rebelled against him in Germania. Postumus crushed his uprising at Mogontiacum (Mainz), but his troops mutinied against him and murdered him when he tried to prevent them from sacking the city.