Gallic Empire

The Gallic Empire was a breakaway part of the Roman Empire that functioned as a separate state from 260 to 274. It arose during the Crisis of the Third Century, when Postumus, governor of Germania Superior and Inferior, rebelled after the capture of Emperor Valerian by the Sasanians and took control of Gaul and the Rhine provinces. At its height the empire included Gaul, Germania, Britannia and Hispania, with its capital at Colonia Agrippina, modern Cologne, and its own consuls, praetorians and coinage. Postumus defeated the Franks and held the Rhine, but he was assassinated in 269 and his successors lost most of the outlying provinces. The last ruler, Tetricus, faced mutinies and barbarian incursions and surrendered to Emperor Aurelian after the Battle of Chalons in 274. Aurelian reunited the empire, restored the coinage and celebrated a triumph in Rome, and the Gallic experiment left a memory of provincial self-rule during Rome's darkest decades.