Quietus
Titus Fulvius Iunius Quietus (died 261) was a Roman usurper against Roman Emperor Gallienus.
Quietus was the son of Fulvius Macrianus and a noblewoman, possibly named Iunia. According to Historia Augusta, he was a military tribune under Valerian, but this information is challenged by historians.
He gained the imperial office with his brother Macrianus Minor, after the death of Emperor Valerian in the Sassanid campaign of 260. With the army deep in the enemy territory, the soldiers elected the two emperors. The support of his father, controller of the imperial treasure, and the influence of Balista, Praetorian prefect of the late Emperor Valerian, proved instrumental in his promotion.
Quietus and Macrianus, elected consuls, had to face the lawful Emperor Gallienus, at the time in the West. Quietus and Ballista stayed in the eastern provinces, while his brother and father marched their army to Europe to seize control of the Roman Empire. After the defeat and deaths of his brother and father in Thrace in 261, Quietus lost the control of the provinces in favour of Septimus Odaenathus of Palmyra, a loyal client king of the Romans who had helped push the Persians out of the eastern provinces and recovered Roman Mesopotamia in 260. Forced to flee to the city of Emesa, he was besieged there by Odaenathus, during the course of which he was killed by its inhabitants, possibly instigated by Ballista.
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“For who would bare the whips and scorns of time,
Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)