AURELIAN (LUCIUS DOMITIUS AURELIANUS) (Roman emperor, A.D. 2 70-2 7 5) was born of humble parents at Sirmium in Pannonia between A.D. 212 and 214. He had a distinguished military career, and on the death of the emperor Claudius II. Gothicus (2 7o), Aurelian was proclaimed his successor, with the universal approval of the soldiers. His first task was to continue the war which had been begun by Claudius against the Goths. He drove them out of Moesia across the Danube, where he left them in possession of Dacia, which he did not think himself able to retain; the name was transferred to Moesia, which was then called Dacia Aureliani. The chronology, however, of Aurelian's reign is very confused, and the abandonment of Dacia is placed by some authorities towards its close. He next entered upon campaigns against the Juthungi, Alamanni, and other Germanic tribes, over whom, after a severe defeat which was said to have imperilled the very existence of the empire, he at length obtained a complete victory. Having thus secured the Rhine and Danube frontiers, he turned his energies towards the east, and in 271 set out on his expedition against Zenobia, queen of Palmyra (q.v.). At the same time he crushed two pretenders to the throne—Firmus and Tetricus. Firmus, a wealthy merchant of Seleucia, had pro claimed himself emperor of Egypt. Aurelian, who was at the time in Mesopotamia, hastened thither, and ordered him to be seized and put to death. Tetricus, who had been proclaimed emperor in the west after the death of Gallienus, and left undis turbed by Claudius II., still ruled over Gaul, Spain and Bri tain. A decisive battle was fought near the modern Chalons, in which Tetricus was defeated. The restoration of the unity of the empire was thus complete. In 274 a brilliant triumph, adorned by the persons of Zenobia and Tetricus, was celebrated at Rome.
Towards the end of 274, he started on an expedition against the Persians, halting in Thrace by the way. While on the march between Heracleia and Byzantium, at the beginning of the follow-. ing year, he was assassinated through the treachery of his secre tary, Eros, who, in order to escape the discovery of his own irregularities, incited certain officers against the emperor by showing them a forged list, on which their names appeared as marked out for death.
Aurelian well deserved the title of restorer of the empire. He was a great soldier and a rigid but just disciplinarian, and in more favourable circumstances he would have been a great adminis trator. He was the first Roman emperor to wear the diadem, and assumed the title of Lord and God on medals. The restoration and enlargement of the walls of Rome, begun by him, was not com pleted till the reign of Probus.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The chief authority for the events of Aurelian's Bibliography.--The chief authority for the events of Aurelian's reign is his life by Vopiscus, one of the writers of the "Augustan History"; it is founded on Greek memoirs and certain journals de posited in the Ulpian library at Rome. See L. Homo, Le Regne de l'empereur Aurelien (1904), and Groag's art. in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyklopddie, v. 1347 foil.