User:Krugmar/Sandbox17
Flavius Silina | |
|---|---|
 Ivory diptych of Silina (right), with his wife Laelia Julus and son Scaevola | |
| Born | c. 481 Thaena, Tifranal |
| Died | 14 May 536 (aged c. 55) Lherm, Arlyon |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance | Southern Tiberan Empire Northern Tiberan Empire |
| Years of service | 500 - 536 |
| Rank | Comes et magister utriusque militiae |
| Battles | tbd |
Flavius Silina was a Tiberan general and statesman during the final decades of the Northern Tiberan Empire. Of Tiberanised Selian origin, he rose to high military command in the Southern Tiberan Empire under Emperor Merula. He was sent north with an army to depose Maris Balbus, who had been declared emperor by Amaliric, the !Germanic Magister Militum, in favour of Messala, Merula's wife's nephew and a member of the Vatinian dynasty.
For two decades Silina served as the Northern magister militum, marrying into the Rhesian dynasty by wedding Merula's niece Laelia Julus, with whom he had five children. He was able to secure his position by establishing his own private army composed of Selians, !Germans, and !Slavs who were personally loyal to him. He undertook numerous campaigns against rebellious foederati, many of whom Amaliric had settled with generous lands within the empire, and successfully restored the frontiers to where they had been under Emperor Rhesius. He achieved his greatest victory in 536, defeating a coalition of !Slavic kingdoms at the Battle of Courlon, though he died shortly afterwards from a sudden illness.
Silina did not differ substantially from his predecessors Amaliric and Arvina in either domestic or foreign policy, utilising client barbarian kingdoms and settled foederati to bolster the empire's defences and solidify his own rule. In 421, confident of his own position and with the support of Merula, he deposed Messala in favour of his wife's brother Laelius. His ambitious project in 430 to reconquer the Eastern Tiberan Empire, undertaken with the new southern emperor Mocilla, never came to fruition, but the preparations made for it convinced the Caliphate to temporarily send tribute and resume grain shipments from Kherita. He conspired with the southern magister militum, Agelastus, to depose Mocilla in favour of Messala, and sign the Pact of Hasparren, which assigned half the tax revenue of !Tifranal's provinces to the north. When Agelastus failed to uphold the pact he convinced Messala to have him murdered, who in turn was deposed by the new magister militum Cethegus in favour of Merenda.
As a result of the stability and strength he gave to the ailing northern empire, Silina has been called by later and modern historians as "Last of the Tiberans". He has enjoyed a largely positive legacy, though criticism has been levied at his expansion of the powers of the office of magister militum, which the empire would suffer from under his more inept successors, and his private army which played kingmaker after his death. Most historians agree that his sudden death, and the ensuing anarchy, led to the rapid decline and collapse of the northern empire.