Hannibalianus

Flavius Hannibalianus (also Hanniballianus; died September 337) was a member of the Constantinian dynasty, which ruled over the Roman Empire in the 4th century AD.

Hannibalianus
Follis of "King" Hannibalianus
Died337
SpouseConstantina
DynastyConstantinian
FatherFlavius Dalmatius

Hannibalianus was the son of Flavius Dalmatius, and thus nephew of Constantine the Great.[1][2] Hannibalianus and his brother Dalmatius were educated at Tolosa by rhetor Exuperius (who is probably not to be identified with St. Exuperius).

In 320s, Constantine called Flavius Dalmatius and his sons to Constantinople. Hannibalianus married Constantine's elder daughter, Constantina, in 335,[1] and was made nobilissimus.[3] He and Constantina may have had a daughter named Constantia, who would later marry Memmius Vitrasius Orfitus and become mother of Rusticiana, wife of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus.[4]

In occasion of the campaign of Constantine against the Sassanids (337), Hannibalianus was made Rex Regum et Ponticarum Gentium, "King of the Kings and of the Pontic People".[1][2] Probably it was Constantine's intention to put Hannibalianus on the Pontic throne, after the defeat of the Persians.

The Persian campaign did not take place, because Constantine died in May 337. Hannibalianus died, as did his brother, in the purge of the imperial family that followed.[5]

  1. ^ a b c Ammianus Marcellinus, xiv i.2.
  2. ^ a b Aurelius Victor, 41.20
  3. ^ Zosimus, ii.39.2.
  4. ^ Alan Cameron (1996). "Orfitus and Constantius: a note on Roman gold-glasses," in Journal of Roman archaeology, p. 301.
  5. ^ Zosimus, ii.40.3; Flavius Claudius Iulianus, Epistula ad Athenienses, 270 C.