In the Late Roman Empire, in the mid-4th century AD, there was an imperial delegate with such a despotic, cruel, and repressive character that not only earned him the fitting nickname by which he has passed into history but also, sent to Britain to eliminate opponents, carried out that mission with such brutality that destabilized authority in the province, according to some historians, facilitating the invasion and plundering by the Picts and Scots, precipitating the end of Roman domination. We’re talking about Paulus Catena.

You don’t need to know much Latin to deduce that Catena means “chain” or “shackle” – although by extension, in a freer adaptation, it could be translated as “the one who makes captives” – nor do you need to be too imaginative if you seek the reason behind that cognomen, as it clearly denotes the zeal with which he carried out his work. As recounted in his work Res gestae (generally retitled “History”), the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who was his contemporary, says it was given to him because “he was a great worker in entangling matters” and because “he had an indissoluble anger generating calumnies”.

Ammianus Marcellinus is the only source that refers to the origin of the nickname, and it’s worth noting that he doesn’t paint a particularly positive picture of Paulus Catena. Of course, other authors don’t provide a good image of him either; particularly critical was also Marcellinus’ rhetoric teacher, a Greek sophist named Libanius, who in his Orations wrote that in Europe and Asia he deserved to die thousands of times, so that those who knew this man felt aggrieved for not being able to execute him again and again.

Division of the Roman Empire after the death of Constantine: Constantine II (orange), Constantius (green), Dalmatius (yellow) and Constantius II (blue). The early death of Dalmatius caused Constantius and Constantius to divide his territory
Division of the Roman Empire after the death of Constantine: Constantine II (orange), Constantius (green), Dalmatius (yellow) and Constantius II (blue). The early death of Dalmatius caused Constantius and Constantius to divide his territory. Credit: Panairjdde / Wikimedia Commons

Libanius, by the way, maintained an intense correspondence with Julian the Apostate, with whom he had a good friendship because both were pagans, and, as we know, that philosopher emperor rejected Christianity to briefly restore the traditional Roman religion tinged with Neoplatonic Hellenism. In fact, there are preserved letters from Julian in which he also speaks of Paulus Catena, criticizing him for his intrigues and stating that he was detested even when he flourished. It is understood, therefore, that his ascent to the throne meant the downfall of Catena.

That will be seen later. For now, we should recount how the character’s beginnings were, which is not easy due to the scarcity of sources. It is not even certain where he came from, although Philostorgius (an Arian historian) says in his lost Ecclesiastical History that he was Spanish, something that Ammianus Marcellinus corroborates (who in another passage leans towards Dacia, although the authors of Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, a kind of biographical dictionary of the late Roman world published in 1971, believe it would be a textual corruption).

If we accept Hispania as Catena’s birthplace, the fact is that at some point – we ignore his date of birth – he left that province to go to Rome and enter as a table steward in the service of Emperor Constantius II. He was the successor of Constantine the Great, the eldest of the three sons he had with his second wife, Fausta (the others were Constantine II and Constans, who also reigned, plus two girls, Constantina and Helena; the latter married Julian the Apostate).

Bust of Emperor Constantius II
Bust of Emperor Constantius II. Credit: Jebulon / Wikimedia Commons

Constantius II began his rule in AD 337, sharing power with his two brothers, he in the East and they in the West. Three years later, the other two engaged in a war in which Constantine II died, and, after a decade, the victor was assassinated by a usurper, Magnentius, who took control of Gaul, Britain, and Hispania, as well as placing trusted men in Italy and Africa, applying a policy of religious tolerance. But obviously, Constantius was not willing to have him as co-regent and initiated a military campaign against him.

To do this, he recognized Vetranio, commander of the legions of Pannonia, as augustus, and together they faced Magnentius and his Caesar Magnus Decentius (probably his brother), defeating them in two battles: the Battle of Mursa Major (in present-day Croatia) in AD 351 and the Battle of Mons Seleucus (in southeastern France) in AD 353. After the disaster suffered in the second, Magnentius committed suicide and Vetranio returned his dignity to the emperor, who replaced him with a Caesar in the person of his cousin Constans, and Constantius II remained as the sole ruler of the Roman Empire.

That AD 353 was the year when Paulus Catena entered the scene. He was no longer a mere palace employee but had risen, although it is not known exactly what position he held: Ammianus Marcellinus calls him a notarius, that is, a notary, the one in charge of drafting and authenticating the documents issued by the imperial chancellery; according to the Theodosian Code, there was a hierarchy headed by the Primicerius Notariorum, followed by the Secundicerius Notariorum, and then the tribuni et notarii and the domestici et notarii (there were also the Notarii Praetoriam who, as their name indicates, served the praetorian prefect).

The war between Constantius and Magnentius
The war between Constantius and Magnentius. Credit: Panairjdde / Wikimedia Commons

In practice, the notary performed secretarial duties and, in fact, is described as such by the aforementioned Philostorgius. In any case, he must have gained considerable trust with Constantius II because he used him as a go-to man, sending him as a delegate of his authority wherever he needed him to exercise it forcefully. And Catena took that indication literally because his name became synonymous with harsh repression whenever he arrived at a place on a mission entrusted by the emperor.

The first was Britain, where the last supporters of Magnentius had taken refuge. Catena did not settle for pursuing them but expanded his scope of action to all those who had harbored them or had been ambiguous in rejecting them. One after another, heads began to roll and dungeons filled, so much so that the political structure of the province weakened. As we saw, that could have incited the Picts and Scots, the Celtic peoples who inhabited what is now the north and center of Scotland, some of whom came from Ireland, to dare to intensify their incursions against the Britano-Romans.

That excessive inquisition ended up irritating everyone, so the vicar Flavius Martin (the vicar was the high-ranking official of the imperial civil administration in charge of supervising the functioning of a diocese, with governor competencies) requested to relax the interrogations and exonerate the detainees against whom there was no evidence. Since the plea fell on deaf ears, the vicar threatened to resign, and Catena accused him of treason, even though Martin had always been loyal to Constantius II. The argument between them was public and escalated to the point of tragedy.

Britain, between the 4th and 5th centuries A.D., at the end of the Roman domination
Britain, between the 4th and 5th centuries A.D., at the end of the Roman domination. Credit: Notuncurious / Wikimedia Commons

Indeed, at one point, Martin felt insulted and drawing his sword, he lunged at Catena. We don’t know how everything happened, but Ammianus Marcellinus recounts that he was not successful in that attack; perhaps the guards shielded the delegate with their shields or maybe the vicar himself restrained at the last moment. The fact is that, whether out of embarrassment for his impulsive action or under coercion, Flavius Martin took his own life, and Catena thus claimed his first notable victim among all those he accumulated in Britain.

The next on the list was even more important because, according to Libanius, the following year he was involved in the downfall of Constantius Gallus, against whom, Filostorgio adds, Catena had often shown particular hostility. There are no details about how he intervened in that episode, if he did; we can simply explain how it happened: it all began because Gallus, who was married to the emperor’s elder sister, Constantina, ruled the eastern provinces clumsily, causing disturbances at a time when Constantius II needed peace while fighting the Alemanni.

Once subdued, he moved to Mediolanum (Milan) and demanded the presence of Gallus, who had earned the animosity of all the high officials of Syria and Palestine due to his violent and vengeful character, which led him to assassinate anyone suspected of opposition – including the prefect sent by the emperor – and made the emperor fear that he might rebel against him, apart from his clumsy management to put an end to speculation with grain prices, which provoked the opposite effect and led to popular revolt.

Probable bust of Constantius Gallus
Probable bust of Constantius Gallus. Credit: Sailko / Wikimedia Commons

Gallus had the misfortune that, during the journey to Mediolanum, his wife died, breaking any bond he had with Constantius II. On top of that, in Constantinople, he made the mistake of crowning the winners of the chariot races, an exclusive competition of the Augustus. Constantius then ordered his arrest and, after interrogating him, execution. At the last moment, he wanted to grant him pardon, but the powerful eunuch Eusebius, then praepositus cubiculi (a kind of great chamberlain of the palace), ordered his beheading beforehand.

As we said, we ignore what role Catena played in all this. However, in AD 355, he regained prominence in Gaul, where he went to deal with the followers of the magister militum Cladius Silvanus, whom Constantius II had ordered to be killed for being involved in a plot. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, it was actually a trap set up by Eusebius and the praetorian prefect Lampadius (with the collaboration of Gallus’s magister equitum, Ursicinus, who aspired to replace him) manipulating a letter.

Some historians consider that Silvanus’ subsequent reaction, proclaiming himself emperor in Colonia Agrippina (Cologne), would be nothing more than a later invention to justify the imperial initiative. The fact is that he had his followers, and Paulus Catena was appointed to get rid of them, which he did with his usual forcefulness, torturing and executing several of them. Perhaps that’s why there are no data on the next two years of his biography; perhaps he took a break or, as one hypothesis suggests, he was spying in Julian’s court, whom Constantius II had appointed Caesar of the western part.

Domains of Constantius Gallus
Domains of Constantius Gallus. Credit: Panairjdde / Wikimedia Commons

It is Julian himself who, in a letter to the Senate, reports Catena’s presence in his court as an agent of Constantius. Libanius also does so, thanking him for urging the Caesar to write to him (let’s remember that they were good friends and had in common the profession of paganism). And despite his appointment, Julian harbored resentment against the emperor for killing his brother Gallus. However, his time had not yet come, and in AD 359, Catena was mobilized again to extinguish a fire: the alleged conspiracy that arose in the diocese of the East.

The territory in question, created in the time of Diocletian with its capital in Antioch, covered from Libya to Mesopotamia, passing through Egypt, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Isauria, Cilicia, Syria, and Palestine. There Catena arrived accompanied by Domitius Modestus, the newly appointed comes Orientis (count of the East, a dignity that replaced that of vicar in that place). Ammianus Marcellinus says that, in addition, he had the special mission of consulting the scrolls left by people in the sanctuary of the oracle of Bes, in case useful information could be obtained from them. They probably lacked interest, but Catena had a Machiavellian idea.

He falsified several scrolls so that several local notables appeared written involved in a conspiracy against the emperor. In this way, he had irrefutable evidence to arrest and condemn them in the tribunal that he set up ad hoc in Scythopolis. He also used the accusation of fiscal crime as an accusatory resource, as he did with Aristophanes of Corinth, a friend of Libanius who could not get out of prison in three years, at the end of which Libanius requested his freedom to Julian.

The Diocese of the East in the 4th century A.D.
The Diocese of the East in the 4th century A.D. Credit: Cplakidas / Dominio público / Wikimedia Commons

Earlier, in that same AD 359, Catena extended his repressive activity to Alexandria, where a movement arose against George of Cappadocia, a bishop who three years earlier had taken the seat vacated by his predecessor, Athanasius, when he was forced into exile. George of Cappadocia was of Homoiousian creed, a position that assumed many precepts of Arianism but without fully embracing it, as it had been declared heretical. Nevertheless, the persecution he unleashed against dissenters resulted in a revolt from which he narrowly escaped.

The stormy bishop was militarily restored and took ample revenge aided by a Paulus Catena whose power at that point was so considerable that he probably didn’t imagine that his end was near. It took shape in AD 361 when the legions that Julian commanded in Gaul to face an invasion of the Alemanni rebelled against imperial authority because Constantius II ordered a third of his forces to be transferred to use them against the Sassanids, proclaiming their commander as emperor.

After unsuccessfully trying to convince Julian, and with the relief of having inflicted some defeats on the Persian king Shapur II, Constantius gathered his forces and set off westward to confront the usurper. He never got to do it because he was seriously ill and died in Mopsuestia (a city in Cilicia); curiously, on his deathbed, he declared that Julian was his legitimate successor or, at least, so wrote Ammianus Marcellinus, whose testimony is not very reliable because he was also a friend of Julian.

The most famous image of Julian is this statue in which he is shown as a Greek philosopher, but which is now believed to probably represent a priest of Serapis
The most famous image of Julian is this statue in which he is shown as a Greek philosopher, but which is now believed to probably represent a priest of Serapis. Credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen / Dominio público / Wikimedia Commons

The new emperor acted cunningly, honoring the memory of his predecessor and thus consolidating his legitimacy even among the eastern legions loyal to Constantius II. This prevented civil war, but not the foreseeable purge of positions that the establishment of the new government implied. For this purpose, a commission was appointed, mainly composed of military personnel, who in the so-called Trials of Chalcedon proceeded to replace one after another the officials of the previous stage, almost all civilians.

Bishop George of Cappadocia was one of the victims, not only because he lost his position but also because a mob lynched him and threw his corpse into the sea just a couple of months after Constantius’ death. The new emperor took no action in this regard since, as we said, he renounced the Christian faith, recovered traditional pagan polytheism, and proclaimed freedom of worship, earning the nickname the Apostate. Of course, Paulus Catena could not be expected to have a bright future.

His lack of scruples had earned him many enemies, and it was conceivable that they would not be content with his mere dismissal. In early AD 362, Catena was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death by the Chalcedon tribunal, although Filostorgius suggests that Julian pressed for this. The fact is that he perished in the flames, and there were probably not a few who rejoiced; among them, perhaps, Picts and Scots.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on March 12, 2024. Puedes leer la versión en español en Paulo Catena, el agente imperial romano especialista en interrogatorios y en crear pruebas falsas

Sources

Amiano Marcelino, Historia | Libanio, Discursos. Autobiografía | Libanio, Cartas | Juliano, Cartas y fragmentos | A.H.M. Jones, J.R. Martindale & J. Morris, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire | Sergei I. Kovaliov, Historia de Roma | Edward Gibbon, Historia de la decadencia y caída del Imperio Romano | Adrian Goldsworthy, La caída del Imperio Romano. El ocaso de Occidente | Wikipedia

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