Naulobatus was the name - or, perhaps, the title - of a chieftain of the various peoples who took part in the major seaborne incursion into the eastern Mediterranean of 267-8 AD now referred to as the Herulian Invasion.
The defeat of the force of which he was obviously a prominent leader if not the supreme commander was the first major success secured by the Romans in their efforts to ward off such assaults by peoples who they knew generically as Scythians - "Skythae" in the Greek-speaking eastern provinces.
The combination of measures of pro-active defence by which this was secured[1] eventually enabled the Empire to regain the initiative vis-à-vis the barbarians beyond its northern frontier which, by and large, it was to retain for over one hundred years after Naulobatus's death.
Syncellus states that he was granted Ornamenta Consularia, i.e. the status of an ex-Consul and the right to wear the distinctive regalia of that class of Roman senator on ceremonial occasions, a high honour usually reserved for allied kings in the east.
[4] The "Anonymous Continuator Dionis" mentions one "Andonnoballus" [5] who is described as a Herulian refugee at the camp of Marcus Aurelius Claudius, Gallienus's murderer and successor as emperor.