Baduarius () was an East Roman aristocrat, the son-in-law of

Byzantine emperor The foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, which Fall of Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as legitimate rulers and exercised s ...

Justin II Justin II (; ; died 5 October 578) was Eastern Roman emperor from 565 until 578. He was the nephew of Justinian I and the husband of Sophia, the niece of Justinian's wife Theodora. Justin II inherited a greatly enlarged but overextended empir ...

(r. 565–578 AD). Theophanes the Confessor erroneously calls him a brother of the Emperor..

Biography

Possibly the son or grandson of a similarly named general active in Scythia Minor in 528, Baduarius is recorded by the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

epic poet Flavius Cresconius Corippus as having succeeded Justin in his post as '' curopalates'' immediately after the latter's rise to the Byzantine throne on November 14, 565. At the time, he was already a holder of the rank of ''

patrikios The patricians (from ) were originally a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. The distinction was highly significant in the Roman Kingdom and the early Republic, but its relevance waned after the Conflict of the Orders (494 BC to 287 B ...

''. In circa 566/567, Baduarius was ordered to raise an army in the lower

Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...

(

Moesia Moesia (; Latin: ''Moesia''; ) was an ancient region and later Roman province situated in the Balkans south of the Danube River. As a Roman domain Moesia was administered at first by the governor of Noricum as 'Civitates of Moesia and Triballi ...

and Scythia Minor) in order to assist the

Gepids The Gepids (; ) were an East Germanic tribes, East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary, and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava, and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the religion and language of the G ...

against the

Lombards The Lombards () or Longobards () were a Germanic peoples, Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the ''History of the Lombards'' (written betwee ...

. The Byzantines won the first battle, but then the Gepid king Cunimund refused to hand back

Sirmium Sirmium was a city in the Roman province of Pannonia, located on the Sava river, on the site of modern Sremska Mitrovica in the Vojvodina autonomous province of Serbia. First mentioned in the 4th century BC and originally inhabited by Illyrians ...

as he had promised. Left unaided against the Lombards and Avars, Cunimund was defeated and killed. The post of Baduarius in this campaign is obscure: he may have been a ''

magister militum (Latin for "master of soldiers"; : ) was a top-level military command used in the late Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander, the e ...

per Illyricum'', a ''magister militum'' without an assigned area, or the '' quaestor exercitus''. A ''

comes stabuli ''Comes'' (plural ''comites''), translated as count, was a Roman title, generally linked to a comitatus or comital office. The word ''comes'' originally meant "companion" or "follower", deriving from "''com-''" ("with") and "''ire''" ("go"). Th ...

'' ("count of the imperial stables") in 573, he was sent to

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

soon after to resist the Lombard conquest of the peninsula. The Lombards, however, defeated him in battle in 576, and he died soon after.

Family

Baduarius had married Justin's daughter

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

, with whom he may have had a daughter, Firmina, attested in a single inscription dated to 564. The phrasing is obscure: it contains a Greek word that could be seen as "γενημένη" or "γενόμενη" of Arabia. The term "γενημένη" means "born of" and would make the phrase read "Firmina, daughter of Arabia", whilst "γενόμενη" means "who became". Cyril Mango reads the phrase as "Firmina who became the nursemaid of Arabia"..

References

Citations

Sources

* * {{refend, 2 570s deaths 6th-century Byzantine people Justinian dynasty Kouropalatai Patricii Year of birth unknown