Editing Aurelian (section)

== Early life==
Many details about Aurelian's early life come from the ''[[Historia Augusta]]'' and are considered unreliable. Comparative research with other sources from his era has rendered some details more secure than others. Aurelian was born on 9 September, a date recorded in the ''[[Chronograph of 354]]''.{{sfn|Watson|1999|p=1}} The 6th-century chronicler [[John Malalas]] wrote that he died at the age of 61, implying a birth in 214.<ref>[[John Malalas]], [https://es.calameo.com/read/000675905f2f4bf509d49 Book 12, chapter 30.]</ref> However, Malalas' chronicle is often described as "frequently unreliable",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Croke |first=Brian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RtMuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA76 |title=Studies in John Malalas |date=1990 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-34462-4 |pages=76}}</ref> and so any date thence inferred must—absent corroborating evidence from more credible sources—remain tentative.

The ''Historia Augusta'' describes him both as a Pannonian from [[Sirmium]] and as a native of [[Dacia Ripensis]] "which he founded so that he would have been a Moesian". [[Aurelius Victor|Pseudo-Victor]] and [[John Xiphilinus (historian)|John Xiphilinus]] place his birthplace in an area between Dacia Ripensis and Macedonia (overlapping with [[Dacia Mediterranea]]). Modern research considers Dacia Ripensis as the more likely region. When he was born this region was part of [[Moesia Superior]]. Aurelian was an [[Illyrians|Illyrian]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Zachary |title=The Fall of Rome and the Rise of Constantinople |date=2015 |publisher=Cavendish Square |page=28 |isbn=978-1-5026-0574-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CJFmDwAAQBAJ&dq=Aurelian+Illyrian&pg=PA28}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Morris |first1=Kenneth |title=The Crest-Wave of Evolution A Course of Lectures in History, Given in the Raja-Yoga College, 1918-1919 |date=2009 |publisher=Floating Press |page=764 |isbn=978-1-77541-083-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=guS_kIAIWfEC&dq=Aurelian+Illyrian&pg=PA764}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Fine |first1=John V. A |title=When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans A Study of Identity in Pre-Nationalist Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods |date=2010 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |page=258 |isbn=978-0-472-02560-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wEF5oN5erE0C&dq=Diocletian+illyrian&pg=PA258}}</ref> like several other emperors of the late 3rd century ([[Illyrian emperors]]) all of whom shared a common military background.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wijnendaele |first1=Jeroen W. P. |last2=Hanaghan |first2=Michael P. |title=Constantius heros (ILCV 66) – An elegiac testimony on the decline of the Late Roman West |page=273 |journal=Chiron |date=2021 |volume=51 |doi=10.1515/9783110742770-008 |isbn=9783110742770 |s2cid=244540886 |url=https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110742770-008}}</ref> [[Aurelius Victor|Pseudo-Victor]] describes his father as a ''[[Colonus (person)|colonus]]'' (tenant farmer) who worked the lands of a senator named Aurelius. Aurelian's father was probably a veteran of the Roman army. He married the daughter of Aurelius from whom Aurelian received his name via his mother. The ''Historia Augusta'' describes her as "priestess of [[Sol (Roman mythology)|Sol]]", whose worship Aurelian promoted as Emperor ([[Sol Invictus]]).{{sfn|Syvänne|2020|pp=29-30}} These two propositions, together with the tradition that the clan Aurelius had been entrusted with the maintenance of that deity's cult in Rome, inspired the notion that this could explain the devotion to the sun-god that Aurelian was to manifest as emperor. However, it seems that this extrapolation of unverifiable facts is now generally accepted as being no more than just that.{{sfn|Saunders|1992|p=107}}