Roman civil war of 350–353
350–353 civil war
The Roman civil war of 350–353 AD was a war fought between the Roman emperor Constantius II and the usurper Magnentius.
Background
With the death of Constantine I in 337 AD, the empire was divided between his three sons from his marriage to Fausta. Constantine II received Gaul, Spain and Britain. Constantius II was given Asia Minor, Egypt and Syria. Finally, Constans I obtained Italy, North Africa and Illyricum. Constantine II resented his brothers for not respecting his seniority as the eldest, and therefore the senior Augustus. Unhappy over the distribution of the provinces, he invaded Italy in 340 AD, only to be killed in an ambush by Constans' troops. Constans now assumed control of all the western provinces of the empire.
Constans grew unpopular with the army, leading to a military conspiracy which overthrew and killed him in 350 AD. The soldiers elevated a barbarian officer called Magnentius as the new western emperor, bringing him into conflict with Constantius, the sole remaining son of Constantine I.
Civil war
Constantius marched westward to avenge the murder of his brother. Magnentius decided to invade Illyricum, and initially his army performed very well.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Roman civil war of 350–353” is 350–353 civil war. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Roman and civil, not as a finished interpretation.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3778588. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Roman civil war of 350–353” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.