Saloninus - Death

Death

Gallienus, who was fully engaged elsewhere – probably campaigning on the middle Danube – could do nothing to save his son. (By this time Saloninus's grandfather, the senior Emperor Valerian was probably already a captive of the Persian King Shapur I). Saloninus's troops, in their desperation, finally proclaimed him emperor, perhaps hoping that this would induce Postumus's army to desert him and join them in a bid for Empire – i.e. against Valerian and Gallienus. If this was indeed their hope, they were to be disappointed in the event for Postumus's army pressed on with the siege and, about one month later, the citizens of Colonia Agrippina handed Saloninus and his guardian over to their enemy. Postumus was then unable to prevent his army from murdering them. (Despite his public protestations of regret, it seems in fact unlikely that Postumus made a serious effort to resist this course of events).

Whether or not Gallienus ever concurred with Valerian's dynastic experiment is not known. Certainly the murder of Saloninus, so soon after the suspicious death of Valerian II, seems to have cured Gallienus of any ambition in this regard. (We may assume that Valerian's mother, Salonina, would have been most unhappy: the death of her elder son, Valerian II, in Illyria under the tutelage of Ingenuus must have seemed to her to have confirmed her worst fears of this sort of arrangement). It had certainly proved to be folly to set up inexperienced boys as hostages to fortune and hope that their relationship to the imperial family would quell provincial resentment at the perceived inability of the central government to secure the frontiers from barbarian attack. Throughout the period of his sole reign, Gallienus made no effort to elevate his third son, Egnatius Marinianus, to the purple or associate him in any way with his government of the Empire – although he did allow him to be elected to the largely ceremonial office of Consul in 268.