PHILIP THE ARAB (M. Julius Philippus). - Roman emperor, b. around 204 at Shahba in Trachonitis, d. at Verona in Oct. 249. Son of Julius Marinus, an Arab sheikh, he married Otacilia Severa, by whom he had a son also named P. Little is known of his life before his rise to power. He appears for the first time as an officer of the Roman army in the war waged by Gordian III against the Persians, in 242-43. On the death of Timesitheus, Gordian's father-in-law, he was elected praetorian prefect. Taking advantage of the power that the office gave him, he set about stirring up discontent against the Emperor among the soldiers and, having placed himself at the head of a conspiracy, in March 244 he killed Gordian, whom he succeeded.
Having obtained the approval of the Roman Senate, which he made believe that Gordian had died of illness, he hastened to conclude peace with the Persians. He left his brother Priscus in the East and came to Rome, where he knew how to overcome the hostilities that had been aroused against him. He spent the first two years of his reign fighting against the Carpi, who were harassing the Roman colonists of the lower Danube, winning a splendid triumph from it in 247. Meanwhile in the eastern provinces of the Empire revolts broke out led by pretenders to the throne; the most dangerous was that of Moesia, where the governor was F.'s own father-in-law. To suppress it he sent the general Decius, who, on reaching the spot, was acclaimed emperor by the soldiers. F. marched against him, but at Verona he was defeated and killed, while his son was slaughtered at Rome by the praetorians. Although he came to power through intrigue and assassination, F. nevertheless showed himself energetic and generous; he issued laws to raise public morality. According to a tradition recorded by Eusebius (Hist. eccl., VI, 34), St. Jerome (De viris illustr., 54), St. John Chrysostom (De s. Bubyla, 6), F. would have been the first Christian emperor. Eusebius relates that during the journey to Rome, when F. was at Antioch on the eve of Easter, the bishop forced him to ask forgiveness for his misdeeds and to remain with the penitents. Certainly F. showed himself very benevolent toward the Christians; he permitted Pope Fabian to bring back to Rome the bodies of his predecessor Pontian and that of Hippolytus, who had died in Sardinia (Lib. Pont., I, p. 125); he was in epistolary correspondence with Origen (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VI, 36). Nevertheless it must be said that his Christianity, if he truly embraced it, remained to a latent and intimate state and never arrived at an explicit and external profession. During the millennial celebrations of the founding of Rome, in fact, in 247, celebrated with religious and popular festivities, Philip certainly showed himself to be a pagan. In the last months of his reign a fierce revolt against the Christians broke out in Alexandria: the pagans, incited by a fanatical poetaster, plundered and burned their houses; there were also martyrs: some of the faithful were in fact scourged and stoned, a certain Serapion had his limbs broken and was then thrown down from his own house, and the virgin Apollonia, after having her jaws broken, was burned alive (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VI, 41).
Bibliography3 works
Agostino Amore