Tenagino Probus

Tenagino Probus was a Roman soldier and procuratorial official whose career reached its peak at the end of the sixth decade of the third century AD (c. 255–260).

Probus was likely among the relatively small group of professional soldiers who benefited from the opening up of provincial governorships and senior military commands, which were previously reserved for senators.

Among Greek and Byzantine sources, Zosimus' Nova Historia records in fair detail Probus' military exploits during the period when he was Praefectus Aegypti, without actually identifying him by name.

Until at least 260 AD, and possibly even later, Numidia had been a pro-praetorial province, i.e. it had been governed on behalf of the Emperor by a senatorial Legatus Augusti (an official who had previously held office in Rome or elsewhere as a praetor[c]).

The SHA suggests that, like his predecessor during the regime of Maximinus Thrax, Probus may have been called upon to intervene in Africa Proconsularis to put down an insurrection in Carthago.

Ever since Augustus' conquest of Egypt in the first century BC, the emperors of Rome had regarded their absolute control of this territory and its grain harvests as a sine qua non for the maintenance of their authority.

The Marmaritae were, evidently, a nomadic people who roamed the semi-desert territory known as the Marmarica, which lay west of the Siwa Oasis in western Egypt and to the south of Cyrenaica.

The epigraph refers to the Marmaritae's "audacity"[h] and suggests that Probus dealt with the incursion with effective dispatch – although, as was always the case, the victory was officially attributed to the reigning Emperor (i.e. Claudius).

Shortly after Probus' success in Cyrenaica, Claudius gave him a further commission to undertake a naval campaign against Gothic pirates who had been raiding the islands of the eastern Mediterranean and the southern coast of Asia Minor.

[21] However, recent archaeological discoveries in the Turkish province of Antalya suggest that, even as Claudius was concluding his war against the Scythian migrants in the Balkans, he had dispatched an expeditionary force under Lucius Aurelius Marcianus to repel attacks by Gothic pirates along the southern coasts of Asia Minor.

Probus then seems to have followed Timagenes upriver to the fortress of Babylon (located at the head of the Nile delta, now a suburb of modern Cairo), thus cutting off the enemy's escape route to Syria.

However, using his knowledge of the surrounding country, Timagenes seized the summit of a nearby mountain with 2,000 men and, launching a surprise attack on Probus' army, defeated it utterly.

Papyrological and numismatic evidence suggests that Zabdas began his assault on Egypt in the autumn of 270 AD and by the end of the year had brought it firmly under the control of his queen Zenobia.