Cannabaudes

Cannabaudes or Cannabas († 271) was a third-century leader of the gothic tribe of the Tervings, who died in a battle against the Roman emperor Aurelian.

Life

In the third century many Germanic peoples invaded the Roman Empire and plundered the border regions. Among these, the Goths were the biggest people crossing the Roman borders and devastating the Balkan peninsula and also the coasts of the Black Sea and even the Aegean Sea. Especially while emperor Aurelian, the magister equitum of emperor Claudius Gothicus, who had died of the plague, was fighting the dead emperor’s brother and rightful heir Quintillus and later the Vandals and Juthungi in Italy, Tervings under their leader Cannabaudes devastated the provinces of the lower Danube and sacked some cities.

On his march to the East to reintegrate the Palmyrene Empire to the Roman Empire, Aurelian drove them out of his empire and, unlike others before him, followed them over the Danube. It came to a battle, and Cannabaudes died along with 5,000 of his men.