Dulcitius
Encyclopedia
Dulcitius was a Dux Britanniarum
Dux Britanniarum
Dux Britanniarum was a military post in Roman Britain, probably created by Diocletian or Constantine I during the late third or early fourth century....

, a military leader in Roman Britain
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...

 in the later fourth century AD. He is praised by Ammianus for his military abilities.

He was brought to Britain by Count Theodosius
Count Theodosius
Flavius Theodosius or Theodosius the Elder was a senior military officer serving in the Western Roman Empire. He achieved the rank of Comes Britanniarum and as such, he is usually referred to as Comes Theodosius...

 in 369 AD, probably to replace Fullofaudes
Fullofaudes
Fullofaudes was a Dux Britanniarum, a military leader in Roman Britain in the later fourth century.He was either killed or besieged by the barbarian invaders during the Great Conspiracy and replaced by Dulcitius when Count Theodosius came in Britain in 369 to restore order.He was probably defeated...

 who had been killed during the Great Conspiracy
Great Conspiracy
The Great Conspiracy is a term given to a year-long war that occurred in Roman Britain near the end of the Roman occupation of the island. The historian Ammianus Marcellinus described it as a barbarica conspiratio that capitalized on a depleted military force in the province brought about by...

.

The rebel Valentinus
Valentinus (rebel)
Valentinus was a Roman figure of the later fourth century AD.In 369 AD he committed an unrecorded but very serious crime. His brother in law, Maximinus was close to the emperor Valentinian I and was able to have Valentinus' sentence commuted from execution to exile and he was sent to Roman...

 and his associates were handed over for execution to Dulcitius.

He is also the subject of a closet drama
Closet drama
A closet drama is a play that is not intended to be performed onstage, but read by a solitary reader or, sometimes, out loud in a small group. A related form, the "closet screenplay," developed during the 20th century.-Form:...

 from the late 10th or early 11th century. The play was written by the nun Hrosvit
Hrosvit
Hrotsvitha , also known as Hroswitha, Hrotsvit, Hrosvit, and Roswitha, was a 10th-century German secular canoness of the Benedictine Order, as well as a dramatist and poet who lived and worked in Gandersheim, in modern-day Lower Saxony...

, the first known woman playwright, as a comedy in the style of Terence
Terence
Publius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic, of North African descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on,...

. Despite its light tone the play depicts violent imprisonment and martyrdom (specifically that of three sisters at Dulcitius's hand) that is presumably less grave only because of the reward awaiting its Christian sufferers.
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