Chapter LIV: Section 7 (11)

Valentinian had undertaken the defence of Gaul in person, and
generally resided at Treves, then the capital of that vast
prefecture; but at the time he was thus occupied, invasions
not less formidable had devastated the other provinces of the
West. …

See BRITAIN. A. D. 367-370.

At this period Valens reigned over the Greeks, whose language
he did not understand (A. D. 364-378). His eastern frontier
was menaced by the Persians, his northern by the Goths. …
Armenia and Iberia became subject to Persia; but as the people
of both these countries were Christian, they remained faithful
to the interests of Rome, though conquered by her enemy. … The
dominion of the Goths extended along the shores of the Danube
and the Black Sea, and thirty years had elapsed since they had
made any incursion into the Roman territory. But during that
period they had gone on increasing in greatness and in power.
… Spite of the formidable neighbourhood of the Goths and the
Persians—spite of the cowardice and the incapacity of
Valens—the East had remained at peace, protected by the mere
name of Valentinian, whose military talents, promptitude, and
severity were known to all the barbarian tribes. But the
career of this remarkable man, so dreaded by his enemies and
by his subjects, had now reached its term." He died in a fit
of rage, from the bursting of a blood-vessel in his chest,
November 17, A. D. 375. "His two sons,—Gratian, who was
scarcely come to manhood, and Valentinian, still a
child,—shared the West between them. …
{2725}
Never, however, was the empire in greater need of an able and
vigorous head. The entire nation of the Huns, abandoning to
the Sienpi its ancient pastures bordering on China, had
traversed the whole north of Asia by a march of 1,300
leagues." The Goths, overwhelmed and flying before them,
begged permission to cross the Danube and take refuge in Mœsia
and Thrace. They were permitted to do so; but such extortions
and outrages were practiced on them, at the same time, that
they were exasperated to a passionate hatred. This bore fruit
in a general rising in 377. Two years of war ensued, marked by
two great battles, that of Ad Salices, or The Willows, which
neither side could fully claim, and that of Adrianople, August
9, 378, in which Valens perished, and more than 60,000 of his
soldiers fell.

See GOTHS: A. D. 376, and 378.

"The forces of the East were nearly annihilated at the
terrible battle of Adrianople. … The Goths … advanced,
ravaging all around them, to the foot of the walls of
Constantinople; and, after some unimportant skirmishes,
returned westward through Macedonia, Epirus, and Dalmatia.
From the Danube to the Adriatic, their passage was marked by
conflagration and blood. … No general in the East attempted to
take advantage of the anarchy in favour of his own ambition;
no army offered the purple to its chief; all dreaded the
responsibility of command at so tremendous a crisis. All eyes
were turned on the court of Treves, the only point whence help
was hoped for. But Gratian, eldest son of Valentinian, and
emperor of the West, was only 19. He … marched upon Illyricum
with his army, when he learned the event of the battle of
Adrianople, and the death of Valens, who had been so eager to
secure the undivided honours of victory, that he would not
wait for his arrival. Incapable of confronting such a tempest,
he retreated to Sirmium. The news of an invasion of the
Allemans into Gaul recalled him to the defence of his own
territory. Danger started up on every hand at once. The empire
stood in need of a new chief, and one of approved valour.
Gratian had the singular generosity to choose from among his
enemies, and from a sense of merit alone. Theodosius, the
Spaniard, his father's general, who had successively
vanquished the Scots and afterwards the Moors, and who had
been unjustly condemned to the scaffold at the beginning of
Gratian's reign, had left a son 33 years of age, who bore his
name. The younger Theodosius had distinguished himself in the
command he held in Mœsia, but was living in retirement and
disgrace on his estates in Spain, when, with, the confidence
of a noble mind, Gratian chose him out, presented him to the
army on the 19th of January, 379, and declared him his
colleague, and emperor of the East."

_J. C. L. de Sismondi,
The Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 5 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:
_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
introduction, and book 1, chapter 1._

ROME: A. D. 378.
Gratian's overthrow of the Alemanni in Gaul.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 378.

ROME: A. D. 379-395.
Theodosius and the Goths.
His Trinitarian Edict.
Revolt of Maximus.
Death of Gratian.
Overthrow of Maximus by Theodosius.
Usurpation of Eugenius, and his fall.
Death of Theodosius.

"The first duty that Theodosius had to undertake was to
restore the self-confidence and trust in victory of the Roman
army, terribly shaken as these qualities had been by the
disastrous rout of Hadrianople. This he accomplished by waging
a successful guerilla war with the Gothic marauders. Valens
had played into the hands of the barbarians by risking
everything on one great pitched battle. Theodosius adopted the
very opposite policy. He outmanoeuvred the isolated and
straggling bands of the Goths, defeated them in one skirmish
after another that did not deserve the name of a battle, and
thus restored the courage and confidence of the Imperial
troops. By the end of 379 he seems to have succeeded in
clearing the territory south of the Balkan range of the
harassing swarms of the barbarians. In February, 380, he fell
sick at Thessalonica (which was his chief basis of operations
throughout this period), and this sickness, from which he did
not fully recover for some months, was productive of two
important results, (1) his baptism as a Trinitarian Christian,
(2) a renewal of the war against fresh swarms of barbarians.
(1) Theodosius appears up to this point of his career not to
have definitively ranged himself on either side of the great
Arian controversy, though he had a hereditary inclination
towards the Creed of Nicaea. Like his father, however, he had
postponed baptism in accordance with the prevalent usage of
his day: but now upon a bed of sickness which seemed likely to
be one of death, he delayed no longer, but received the rite
at the hands of Ascholius, the Catholic Bishop of
Thessalonica. Before he was able to resume his post at the
head of the legions, he published his celebrated Edict: 'To
the people of Constantinople.—We desire that all the nations
who are governed by the rule of our Clemency shall practise
that religion which the Apostle Peter himself delivered to the
Romans, and which it is manifest that the pontiff Damasus, and
Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of Apostolic sanctity, do
now follow: that according to the discipline of the Apostles
and the teaching of the Evangelists they believe in the one
Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in equal Majesty, and
in the holy Trinity. We order all who follow this law to
assume the name of Catholic Christians, decreeing that all
others, being mad and foolish persons, shall bear the infamy
of their heretical dogmas, and that their Conventicles shall
not receive the name of Churches: to be punished first by
Divine vengeance, and afterwards by that exertion of our power
to chastise which we have received from the decree of heaven.'
Thus then at length the Caesar of the East was ranged on the
side of Trinitarian orthodoxy. Constantine in the latter part
of his reign, Constantius, Valens, had all been Arians or
semi-Arians, some of them bitter in their heterodoxy. Julian
had been a worshipper of the gods of Olympus. Thus for nearly
two generations the influence of the Court of Constantinople
had been thrown into the scale against the teaching of
Athanasius, which was generally accepted throughout the
Western realm. Now by the accession of Theodosius to the
Trinitarian side, religious unity was restored to the Empire:
but at the same time a chasm, an impassable chasm, was opened
between the Empire itself and its new Teutonic guests, nearly
all of whom held fast to the Arian teaching of their great
Apostle Ulfilas. (2) The other consequence of the sickness of
Theodosius was, as I have said, a fresh incursion of barbarian
hordes, swarming across the Danube and climbing all the high
passes of the Balkans.
{2726}
The work of clearing the country of these marauders had to be
all done over again. … At length, in the closing months of
380, the provinces south of the Balkans (Macedonia and Thrace)
were once more cleared of their barbarian intruders. Peace, in
which Gratian concurred, was concluded with the Goths who
still doubtless abounded in Moesia. …

See GOTHS: A. D. 379-382.

The insurrection at Antioch [A. D. 387] displayed the
character of Theodosius in a favourable light, as a strong but
merciful and magnanimous ruler of men. Very different was the
effect on his fame of the insurrection which broke out three
years later (390) in the Macedonian city of Thessalonica. …

See THESSALONICA: A. D. 390.

In the year 383 a military revolt broke out in Britain against
the young Emperor Gratian. … The army revolted and proclaimed
Magnus Clemens Maximus, Emperor. He was, like Theodosius, a
native of Spain, and though harsh and perhaps rapacious, a man
of ability and experience, not unworthy of the purple if he
had come to it by lawful means. Gratian on his side had
evidently given some real cause for dissatisfaction to his
subjects. … Hence it was that when Maximus with the army of
Britain landed in Gaul, he shook down the fabric of his power
without difficulty. Gratian, finding himself deserted by his
troops, escaped from the battle-field, but was overtaken and
killed at Lyons. For more than four years, Maximus, satisfied
with ruling over the three great Western provinces which had
fallen to the share of Gratian, maintained at any rate the
appearance of harmony with his two colleagues. … At length, in
the autumn of 387, Maximus deemed that the time had come for
grasping the whole Empire of the West. Lulling to sleep the
suspicions of Valentinian and his mother by embassies and
protestations of friendship, he crossed the Alps with an army
and marched towards Aquileia, where the young Emperor was then
dwelling in order to be as near as possible to the dominions
of his friendly colleague and protector. Valentinian did not
await the approach of his rival, but going down to the port of
Grado, took ship and sailed for Thessalonica, his mother and
sisters accompanying him. The Emperor and the Senate of
Constantinople met the Imperial fugitives at Thessalonica, and
discussed the present position of affairs. … What the
entreaties of the mother might have failed to effect, the
tears of the daughter [Galla] accomplished. Theodosius, whose
wife Flaccilla had died two years before (385), took Galla for
his second wife, and vowed to avenge her wrongs and replace
her brother on the throne. He was some time in preparing for
the campaign, but, when it was opened, he conducted it with
vigour and decision. His troops pressed up the Save valley,
defeated those of Maximus in two engagements, entered Aemona
(Laybach) in triumph, and soon stood before the walls of
Aquileia [July, 388], behind which Maximus was sheltering
himself. … A mutiny among the troops of Maximus did away with
the necessity for a siege," and the usurper, betrayed and
delivered to Theodosius, was speedily put to death. Theodosius
"handed over to Valentinian II. the whole of the Western
Empire, both his own especial share and that which had
formerly been held by his brother Gratian. The young Emperor
was now 17 years of age; his mother, Justina, had died
apparently on the eve of Theodosius's victory, and he
governed, or tried to govern alone." But one of his Frankish
generals, named Arbogast, gathered all the power of the
government into his hands, reduced Valentinian to helpless
insignificance, and finally, in May, 392, caused him to be
strangled. "The Frankish general, who durst not shock the
prejudices of the Roman world by himself assuming the purple,
hung that dishonoured robe upon the shoulders of a
rhetorician, a confidant, and almost a dependent of his own,
named Eugenius. This man, like most of the scholars and
rhetoricians of the day, had not abjured the old faith of
Hellas. As Arbogast also was a heathen, though worshipping
Teutonic rather than Olympian gods, this last revolution
looked like a recurrence to the days of Julian, and threatened
the hardly-won supremacy of Christianity." Again Theodosius
was summoned to the rescue of the West, and, after two years
of careful preparation, marched against Eugenius by the same
route that he had taken before. The two armies met at a place
"half-way between Aemona and Aquileia, where the Julian Alps
are crossed, and where a little stream called the Frigidus
(now the Wipbach) burst suddenly from a limestone hill." The
battle was won by Theodosius after a terrible struggle,
lasting two days (September 5-6, A. D. 394). Eugenius was
taken prisoner and put to death; Arbogast fell by his own
hand. "Theodosius, who was still in the prime of life, had now
indeed 'the rule of the world,' without a rival or a colleague
except his own boyish sons. … Had his life been prolonged, as
it well might have been for twenty or thirty years longer,
many things might have gone differently in the history of the
world. But, little more than four months after the victory of
the Frigidus, Theodosius died [January 17, A. D. 395] of
dropsy, at Milan."

_T. Hodgkin,
The Dynasty of Theodosius,
chapter 4._

ALSO IN:
_F. W. Farrar,
Lives of the Fathers,
chapter 15: Ambrose and Theodosius (volume 2)._

_R. Thornton,
St. Ambrose,
chapters 6-14._

ROME: A. D. 388.
Formal establishment of Christianity.

Until the year 384, "paganism was still the constitutional
religion of the [Roman] senate. The hall or temple in which
they assembled was adorned by the statue and altar of Victory.
… The senators were sworn on the altar of the goddess to
observe the laws of the emperor and of the empire; and a
solemn offering of wine and incense was the ordinary prelude
of their public deliberations. The removal of this ancient
monument was the only injury which Constantius had offered to
the superstition of the Romans. The altar of Victory was again
restored by Julian, tolerated by Valentinian, and once more
banished from the senate by the zeal of Gratian. But the
emperor yet spared the statues of the gods which were exposed
to the public veneration: four hundred and twenty-four temples
or chapels still remained to satisfy the devotion of the
people, and in every quarter of Rome the delicacy of the
Christians was offended by the fumes of idolatrous sacrifice.
But the Christians formed the least numerous party in the
senate of Rome." The senate addressed several petitions to
Gratian, to the young Valentinian, and to Theodosius for the
restoration of the altar of Victory.
{2727}
They were supported by the eloquence of the orator Symmachus,
and opposed by the energy of Ambrose, the powerful Archbishop
of Milan. The question is said to have been, in the end,
submitted to the senate, itself, by the Emperor Theodosius (A.
D. 388)—he being present in person—"Whether the worship of
Jupiter or that of Christ should be the religion of the
Romans? The liberty of suffrages, which he affected to allow,
was destroyed by the hopes and fears that his presence
inspired. … On a regular division of the senate, Jupiter was
condemned and degraded by the sense of a very large majority."

_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 28._

ROME: A. D. 391-395.
Suppression of Paganism.

"The religious liberty of the Pagans, though considerably
abridged by Gratian, was yet greater than had been allowed by
the laws of Constantine and his immediate successors. The
priests and vestals were deprived of their immunities; the
revenues of the temples were confiscated for the service of
the State; but the heathen rites of their forefathers were
still allowed to those who were conscientiously attached to
them, provided they abstained from nocturnal sacrifices and
magical incantations. But when Theodosius, in the early part
of his reign, prohibited the immolation of victims, their
superstition was attacked in its most vital part, and, in the
course of a few years, the success of his measures against
heresy, and his triumph over Maximus, emboldened him to
proceed to steps of a still more decisive kind, and to attempt
the entire subversion of the already tottering fabric of
paganism. A commission was issued to the præfect of the East,
directing him to close all heathen temples within his
jurisdiction; and while the imperial officers were engaged in
this task, assisted by the clergy, and especially by the
monks, with a vigour not always strictly legal, Theodosius
gradually increased the rigour of his legislative
prohibitions. A law was passed in the year 391, declaring that
to enter a heathen temple, with a religious purpose, was an
offence liable to a fine of fifteen pounds of gold; and in the
following year, not only all public, but even all private and
domestic, exercise of heathen rites was interdicted under the
severest penalties. In some few instances, the intemperate and
tumultous proceedings of the monks in destroying the temples,
excited the opposition of the fanatical heathen peasantry, and
at Alexandria a serious commotion, fatal to many Christians,
was occasioned by the injudicious measures of the patriarch
Theophilus. But, generally speaking, the pagans showed little
disposition to incur the rigorous penalties of the laws, still
less to become martyrs for a religion so little calculated to
inspire real faith or fortitude. Some show of zeal in the
cause of paganism was made at Rome, where the votaries of the
ancient superstition still had a strong party, both among the
senate and populace. But the eloquent exertions of Symmachus,
the champion of heathenism, were easily baffled by Ambrose,
who encountered him with equal ability, better argument, and a
confident reliance on the support of his sovereign; and not
long after, a more important victory was gained, in an
enactment by the senate, carried, through the influence of
Theodosius, by an overwhelming majority, that Christianity
should for the future be the sole religion of the Roman State.
This decisive measure sealed the ruin of paganism in Rome and
its dependencies. The senators and nobles hastened to conform,
nominally at least, to the dominant religion; the inferior
citizens followed their example, and St. Jerome was in a
little while able to boast that every heathen altar in Rome
was forsaken, and every temple had become a place of
desolation."

_J. B. S. Carwithen and A. Lyall,
History of the Christian Church,
page 63-65._

ALSO IN:
P. Schaff,
History of the Christian Church,
period 3, chapter 1, section 7 (volume 2).

_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 28._

ROME: A. D. 394-395.
Final division of the Empire between the sons of Theodosius.
Arcadius in the East, Honorius in the West.
Ministries of Rufinus and Stilicho.
Advent of Alaric the Visigoth.

"The division of the Empire between East and West on the
accession of the sons of Theodosius [A. D. 395], though it was
possibly meant to be less complete than some preceding
partitions, proved to be the final one. It is worth while to
indicate the line of division, which is sufficiently
accurately traced for us in the Notitia. In Africa it was the
well-known frontier marked by 'the Altars of the Philaeni,'.
which separated Libya (or Cyrenaica) on the East from Africa
Tripolitana on the West. Modern geographers draw exactly the
same line (about 19° E. of Greenwich) as the boundary of Barca
and Tripoli. On the Northern shore of the Mediterranean the
matter is a little more complicated. Noricum, Pannonia, Savia,
and Dalmatia belonged to the West, and Dacia—not the original
but the later province of Dacia—to the East. This gives us for
the frontier of the Western Empire the Danube as far as
Belgrade, and on the Adriatic the modern town of Lissa. The
inland frontier is traced by geographers some 60 miles up the
Save from Belgrade, then southwards by the Drina to its
source, and so across the mountains to Lissa. Thus Sclavonia,
Croatia, and Dalmatia in the Austrian Empire, and Croatia,
most of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro in the state which
was lately called Turkey in Europe, belonged to the Western
Empire. The later province of Dacia, which fell to the Eastern
share, included Servia (Old and New), the south-east corner of
Bosnia, the north of Albania, and the west of Bulgaria. By
this partition the Prefecture of Illyricum, as constituted by
Diocletian, was divided into two nearly equal parts. … What
makes the subject somewhat perplexing to the student is the
tendency to confuse Illyricum the 'province' and Illyricum the
'prefecture,'" the latter of which embraced, in modern
geographical terms, Servia, Western Bulgaria, Macedon, Epirus
and Greece.

_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 4, note C,
and chapter 3 (volume 1)._

"This decree for a partition, published by Theodosius shortly
before his death, appears to have been generally expected and
approved. The incapacity of Arcadius and Honorius, of whom the
former had only attained his 18th and the latter his 11th
year, had not then been discovered. These princes showed more
and more clearly, as time went on, that they inherited no
share of their father's abilities, their weakness being such
as to render their sovereignty little more than nominal. … It
was never intended that the two jurisdictions should be
independent of each other, but rather that the Emperors should
be colleagues and coadjutors, the defenders of one
commonwealth. …
{2728}
At the time of the decree, belief in the unity and immortality
of the 'Sancta Respublica Romana' was universal. … Enactments
were invariably made in the names of both Emperors; and, so
often as a vacancy of either throne occurred, the title of the
Caesar elect remained incomplete until his elevation had been
approved and confirmed by the occupant of the other. …
Theodosius left the Roman world in peace, and provided with a
disciplined army sufficient, if rightly directed, for its
defence; but his choice of the men to whom he confided the
guidance of his sons was unfortunate. Rufinus, to whom the
guardianship of Arcadius was entrusted, by birth a Gascon,
owed his advancement to his eloquence as an advocate, and his
plausible duplicity had so far imposed on the confiding nature
of Theodosius as to obtain for him the prefecture of the East.
Stilicho, the guardian of Honorius, was by descent a Vandal,
and is styled by St. Jerome a semi-barbarian. … His military
abilities, combined with a prepossessing exterior, induced
Theodosius to confer upon him the chief command of the
imperial forces, and the hand of his niece, Serena."

_R. H. Wrightson,
The Sancta Respublica Romana,
chapter 1._

"Stilicho … was popular with the army, and for the present the
great bulk of the forces of the Empire was at his disposal;
for the regiments united to suppress Eugenius had not yet been
sent back to their various stations. Thus a struggle was
imminent between the ambitious minister who had the ear of
Arcadius, and the strong general who held the command and
enjoyed the favour of the army. … It was the cherished project
of Rufinus to unite Arcadius with his only daughter. … But he
imprudently made a journey to Antioch, in order to execute
vengeance personally on the count of the East, who had
offended him; and during his absence from Byzantium an
adversary stole a march on him. This adversary was the eunuch
Eutropius, the lord chamberlain. … Determining that the future
Empress should be bound to himself and not to Rufinus, he
chose Eudoxia, a girl of singular beauty, the daughter of a
distinguished Frank, but herself of Roman education. …
Eutropius showed a picture of the Frank maiden to the Emperor,
and engaged his affections for her; the nuptials were arranged
by the time Rufinus returned to Constantinople, and were
speedily celebrated (27th April 395). This was a blow to
Rufinus, but he was still the most powerful man in the East.
The event which at length brought him into contact with
Stilicho was the rising of the Visigoths, who had been settled
by Theodosius in Moesia and Thrace. … Under the leadership of
Alaric they raised the ensign of revolt, and spread desolation
in the fields and homesteads of Macedonia, Moesia, and Thrace,
even advancing close to the walls of Constantinople. …

See GOTHS: A. D. 395.

It was impossible to take the field against the Goths, because
there were no forces available, as the eastern armies were
still with Stilicho in the West. Arcadius therefore was
obliged to summon Stilicho to send or bring them back
immediately, to protect his throne. This summons gave that
general the desired opportunity to interfere in the politics
of Constantinople; and having, with energetic celerity,
arranged matters on the Gallic frontier, he marched overland
through Illyricum, and confronted Alaric in Thessaly, whither
the Goth had traced his devastating path from the Propontis. …
It seems that before Stilicho arrived, Alaric had experienced
a defeat at the hands of garrison soldiers in Thessaly; at all
events he shut himself up in a fortified camp and declined to
engage with the Roman general. In the meantime Rufinus induced
Arcadius to send a peremptory order to Stilicho to despatch
the eastern troops to Constantinople and depart himself whence
he had come; the Emperor resented, or pretended to resent, the
presence of his cousin as an officious interference. Stilicho
yielded so readily that his willingness seems almost
suspicious. … He consigned the eastern soldiers to the command
of a Gothic captain, Gainas, and himself departed to Salona,
allowing Alaric to proceed on his wasting way into the lands
of Hellas." When Gainas and his army arrived at the gates of
Constantinople, the Emperor came out to meet them, with
Rufinus by his side. The troops suddenly closed round the
latter and murdered him. "We can hardly suppose that the
lynching of Rufinus was the fatal inspiration of a moment, but
whether it was proposed or approved of by Stilicho, or was a
plan hatched among the soldiers on their way to
Constantinople, is uncertain."

_J. B. Bury,
History of the Later Roman Empire,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1)._

ROME: A. D. 396-398.
Commission of Alaric under the Eastern Empire.
Suppression of the revolt of Gildo in Africa.
Commanding position of Stilicho.

"For the next five or six years the chief power over the
feeble soul of Arcadius was divided between three persons, his
fair Frankish Empress Eudoxia, Eutropius, the haggard old
eunuch who had placed her on the throne, and Gainas the Goth,
commander of the Eastern army. Again, in the year 306, did
Stilicho, now commanding only the Western forces, volunteer to
deliver Greece from the Visigoths. The outset of the campaign
was successful. The greater part of Peloponnesus was cleared
of the invader, who was shut up in the rugged mountain country
on the confines of Elis and Arcadia. The Roman army was
expecting soon to behold him forced by famine to an
ignominious surrender, when they discovered that he had
pierced the lines of circumvallation at an unguarded point,
and marched with all his plunder northwards to Epirus. What
was the cause of this unlooked-for issue of the struggle? …
The most probable explanation … is that Fabian caution
co-operated with the instinct of the Condottiere against
pushing his foe too hard. There was always danger for Rome in
driving Alaric to desperation: there was danger privately for
Stilicho if the dead Alaric should render him no longer
indispensable. Whatever might be the cause, by the end of 396
Alaric was back again in his Illyrian eyrie, and thenceforward
whatever threats might be directed towards the East the actual
weight of his arms was felt only by the West. Partly, at
least, this is to be accounted for by the almost sublime
cowardice of the ministers of Arcadius, who rewarded his
Grecian raids by clothing him with the sacred character of an
officer of the Empire in their portion of Illyricum.

See GOTHS: A. D. 395.

{2729}

The precise title under which he exercised jurisdiction is not
stated. … During an interval of quiescence, which lasted
apparently about four years, the Visigothic King was using the
forms of Roman law, the machinery of Roman taxation, the almost
unbounded authority of a Roman provincial governor, to prepare
the weapon which was one day to pierce the heart of Rome
herself. The Imperial City, during the first portion of this
interval, was suffering the pang's of famine. … Since the
foundation of Constantinople … Egypt had ceased to nourish the
elder Rome. … Rome was thus reduced to an almost exclusive
dependence on the harvests of Africa proper (that province of
which Carthage was the capital), of Numidia, and of
Mauretania. … But this supply … in the year 397 was entirely
stopped by the orders of Gildo, who had made himself virtual
master of these three provinces." The elder Theodosius had
suppressed in 374 a revolt in Mauretania headed by one Firmus.
"The son of a great sheep-farmer, Nabal, he [Firmus] had left
behind him several brothers, one of whom, Gildo, had in the
year 386 gathered up again some portion of his brother's
broken power. We find him, seven years later (in 393), holding
the rank of Count of Africa in the Roman official hierarchy. …
He turned to his own account the perennial jealousy existing
between the ministers of the Eastern and Western Courts,
renounced his allegiance to Rome, and preferred to transfer it
to Constantinople. What brought matters to a crisis was his
refusal to allow the grain crops of 397 to be conveyed to
Rome. … The Roman Senate declared war in the early winter
months of 398 against Gildo. Stilicho, who, of course,
undertook the fitting out of the expedition, found a suitable
instrument for Rome's chastisement in one who had had cruel
wrongs of his own to avenge upon Gildo. This was yet another
son of Nabal, Mascezel." Mascezel, at the head of nearly
40,000 men, accomplished the overthrow of his brother, who
slew himself, or was slain, when he fell into Roman hands.
"Thus the provinces of Africa were for the time won back again
for the Empire of the West, and Rome had her corn again. … The
glory and power of Stilicho were now nearly at their highest
point. Shortly before the expedition against Gildo he had
given his daughter Maria in marriage to Honorius, and the
father-in-law of the Emperor might rightly be deemed to hold
power with a securer grasp than his mere chief minister."

_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 4 (volume 1)._

ROME: A. D. 400-403.
First Gothic invasion of Italy under Alaric.
Stilicho's repulse of the invaders.

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 400-403.

ROME: A. D. 400-518.
The Eastern Empire.
Expulsion of Gothic soldiery from Constantinople.
Conflict of John Chrysostom and the Empress Eudoxia.
Reigns of Theodosius II., Pulcheria, Marcianus,
Leo I., Zeno, and Anastasius.
Persistent vitality of the Byzantine government.

"While Alaric's eyes were turned on Italy, but before he had
actually come into conflict with Stilicho, the Court of
Constantinople had been the seat of grave troubles. Gainas,
the Gothic 'Magister militum' of the East, and his creature,
the eunuch Eutropius, had fallen out, and the man of war had
no difficulty in disposing of the wretched harem-bred Grand
Chamberlain. … The Magister militum now brought his army over
to Constantinople, and quartered it there to overawe the
emperor. It appeared quite likely that ere long the Germans
would sack the city; but the fate that befell Rome ten years
later was not destined for Constantinople. A mere chance brawl
put the domination of Gainas to a sudden end [July, A. D.
400]. … The whole population turned out with extemporized arms
and attacked the German soldiery. … Isolated bodies of the
Germans were cut off one by one, and at last their barracks
were surrounded and set on fire. The rioters had the upper
hand; 7,000 soldiers fell, and the remnant thought themselves
lucky to escape. Gainas at once declared open war on the
empire, but … he was beaten in the field and forced to fly
across the Danube, where he was caught and beheaded by Uldes,
king of the Huns. … The departure of Alaric and the death of
Gainas freed the Eastern Romans from the double danger that
[had] impended over them. … The weak Arcadius was enabled to
spend the remaining seven years of his life in comparative
peace and quiet. His court was only troubled by an open war
between his spouse, the Empress Ælia Eudoxia, and John
Chrysostom, the Patriarch of Constantinople. John was a man of
saintly life and apostolic fervour, but rash and inconsiderate
alike in speech and action. … The patriarch's enemies were
secretly supported by the empress, who had taken offence at
the outspoken way in which John habitually denounced the
luxury and insolence of her court. She favoured the intrigues
of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, against his brother
prelate, backed the Asiatic clergy in their complaints about
John's oppression of them, and at last induced the Emperor to
allow the saintly patriarch to be deposed by a
hastily-summoned council, the 'Synod of the Oak,' held outside
the city. The populace rose at once to defend their pastor;
riots broke out, Theodosius was chased back to Egypt, and the
Emperor, terrified by an earthquake which seemed to manifest
the wrath of heaven, restored John to his place. Next year,
however, the war between the empress and the patriarch broke
out again. … The Emperor, at his wife's demand, summoned
another council, which condemned Chrysostom, and on Easter
Day, A. D. 404, seized the patriarch in his cathedral by armed
force, and banished him to Asia. That night a fire, probably
kindled by the angry adherents of Chrysostom, broke out in St.
Sophia, which was burnt to the ground. From thence it spread
to the neighbouring buildings, and finally to the
Senate-house, which was consumed with all the treasures of
ancient Greek art of which Constantine had made it the
repository. Meanwhile the exiled John was banished to a dreary
mountain fastness in Cappadocia, and afterwards condemned to a
still more remote prison at Pityus on the Euxine. He died on
his way thither. … The feeble and inert Arcadius died in A. D.
408, at the early age of thirty-one; his imperious consort had
preceded him to the grave, and the empire of the East was left
to Theodosius II., a child of seven years, their only son. …
The little emperor was duly crowned, and the administration of
the East undertaken in his name by the able Anthemius, who
held the office of Praetorian Praefect. History relates
nothing but good of this minister; he made a wise commercial
treaty with the king of Persia; he repelled with ease a
Hunnish invasion of Moesia; he built a flotilla on the Danube,
where Roman war-ships had not been seen since the death of
Valens, forty years before; he reorganized the corn supply of
Constantinople; and did much to get back into order and
cultivation the desolated north-western lands of the Balkan
Peninsula. …
{2730}
The empire was still more indebted to him for bringing up the
young Theodosius as an honest and god-fearing man. The palace
under Anthemius' rule was the school of the virtues; the lives
of the emperor and his three sisters, Pulcheria, Arcadia, and
Marina, were the model and the marvel of their subjects.
Theodosius inherited the piety and honesty of his grandfather
and namesake, but was a youth of slender capacity, though he
took some interest in literature, and was renowned for his
beautiful penmanship. His eldest sister, Pulcheria, was the
ruling spirit of the family, and possessed unlimited influence
over him, though she was but two years his senior. When
Anthemius died in A. D. 414, she took the title of Augusta,
and assumed the regency of the East. Pulcheria was an
extraordinary woman: on gathering up the reins of power she
took a vow of chastity, and lived as a crowned nun for
thirty-six years; her fear had been that, if she married, her
husband might cherish ambitious schemes against her brother's
crown; she therefore kept single herself and persuaded her
sisters to make a similar vow. Austere, indefatigable, and
unselfish, she proved equal to ruling the realms of the East
with success, though no woman had ever made the attempt
before. When Theodosius came of age he refused to remove his
sister from power, and treated her as his colleague and equal.
By her advice he married in A. D. 421, the year that he came
of age, the beautiful and accomplished Athenaïs, daughter of
the philosopher Leontius. … Theodosius' long reign passed by
in comparative quiet. Its only serious troubles were a short
war with the Persians, and a longer one with Attila, the great
king of the Huns, whose empire now stretched over all the
lands north of the Black Sea and Danube, where the Goths had
once dwelt. In this struggle the Roman armies were almost
invariably unfortunate. The Huns ravaged the country as far as
Adrianople and Philippopolis, and had to be bought off by the
annual payment of 700 lbs. of gold [£31,000]. … The
reconstruction of the Roman military forces was reserved for
the successors of Theodosius II. He himself was killed by a
fall from his horse in 450 A. D., leaving an only daughter,
who was married to her cousin Valentinian III., Emperor of the
West. Theodosius, with great wisdom, had designated as his
successor, not his young son-in-law, a cruel and profligate
prince, but his sister Pulcheria, who at the same time ended
her vow of celibacy and married Marcianus, a veteran soldier
and a prominent member of the Senate. The marriage was but
formal, for both were now well advanced in years: as a
political expedient it was all that could be desired. The
empire had peace and prosperity under their rule, and freed
itself from the ignominious tribute to the Huns. Before Attila
died in 452, he had met and been checked by the succours which
Marcianus sent to the distressed Romans of the West. When
Marcianus and Pulcheria passed away, the empire came into the
hands of a series of three men of ability. They were all bred
as high civil officials, not as generals; all ascended the
throne at a ripe age; not one of them won his crown by arms,
all were peaceably designated either by their predecessors, or
by the Senate and army. These princes were Leo I. (457-474),
Zeno (474-491), Anastasius (491-(18). Their chief merit was
that they guided the Roman Empire in the East safely through
the stormy times which saw its extinction in the West. While,
beyond the Adriatic, province after province was being lopped
off and formed into a new Germanic kingdom, the emperors who
reigned at Constantinople kept a tight grip on the Balkan
Peninsula and on Asia, and succeeded in maintaining their
realm absolutely intact. Both East and West were equally
exposed to the barbarian in the fifth century, and the
difference of their fate came from the character of their
rulers, not from the diversity of their political conditions."

_C. W. C. Oman,
Story of the Byzantine Empire,
chapters 4-5._

"In spite of the dissimilarity of their personal conduct, the
general policy of their government [i. e. of the six emperors
between Arcadius and Justinian] is characterised by strong
features of resemblance. … The Western Empire crumbled into
ruins, while the Eastern was saved, in consequence of these
emperors having organised the system of administration which
has been most unjustly calumniated, under the name of
Byzantine. The highest officers, and the proudest military
commanders, were rendered completely dependent on ministerial
departments and were no longer able to conspire or rebel with
impunity. The sovereign was no longer exposed to personal
danger, nor the treasury to open peculation. But,
unfortunately, the central executive power could not protect
the people from fraud with the same ease as it guarded the
treasury; and the emperors never perceived the necessity of
intrusting the people with the power of defending themselves
from the financial oppression of the subaltern
administration."

_G. Finlay,
Greece under the Romans,
chapter 2, section 11._

ROME: A. D. 404-408.
The Western Empire: The last gladiatorial show.
Retreat of Honorius and the imperial court to Ravenna.
Invasion of Radagaisus.
Alliance with Alaric the Goth.
Fall and death of Stilicho.

"After the retreat of the barbarians, Honorius was directed to
accept the dutiful invitation of the senate, and to celebrate
in the imperial city the auspicious era of the Gothic victory
and of his sixth consulship. The suburbs and the streets, from
the Milvian bridge to the Palatine mount, were filled by the
Roman people, who, in the space of a hundred years, had only
thrice been honoured with the presence of their sovereigns
[whose residence had been at Constantinople, at Treves, or at
Milan]. … The emperor resided several months in the capital. …
The people were repeatedly gratified by the attention and
courtesy of Honorius in the public games. … In these games of
Honorius, the inhuman combats of gladiators polluted for the
last time the amphitheatre of Rome. … The recent danger to
which the person of the emperor had been exposed in the
defenceless palace of Milan urged him to seek a retreat in
some inaccessible fortress of Italy, where he might securely
remain, while the open country was covered by a deluge of
barbarians; … and in the 20th year of his age the Emperor of
the West, anxious only for his personal safety, retired to the
perpetual confinement of the walls and morasses of Ravenna.
{2731}
The example of Honorius was imitated by his feeble successors,
the Gothic kings, and afterwards the exarchs, who occupied the
throne and palace of the emperors; and till the middle of the
8th century Ravenna was considered as the seat of government
and the capital of Italy. The fears of Honorius were not
without foundation, nor were his precautions without effect.
While Italy rejoiced in her deliverance from the Goths, a
furious tempest was excited among the nations of Germany, who
yielded to the irresistible impulse that appears to have been
gradually communicated from the eastern extremity of the
continent of Asia [by the invasion of the Huns, which Gibbon
considers to have been the impelling cause of the great
avalanche of barbarians from the north that swept down upon
Italy under Radagaisus in 406. …

See RADAGAISUS.

Many cities of Italy were pillaged or destroyed; and the siege
of Florence by Radagaisus is one of the earliest events in the
history of that celebrated republic, whose firmness checked
and delayed the unskilful fury of the barbarians." Stilicho
came to the relief of the distressed city, "and the famished
host of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged." The barbarians,
surrounded by well guarded entrenchments, were forced to
surrender, after many had perished from want of food. The
chief was beheaded; his surviving followers were sold as
slaves. Meantime, Alaric, the Gothic king, had been taken into
the pay of the Empire. "Renouncing the service of the Emperor
of the East, Alaric concluded with the Court of Ravenna a
treaty of peace and alliance, by which he was declared
master-general of the Roman armies throughout the præfecture
of Illyricum; as it was claimed, according to the true and
ancient limits, by the minister of Honorius." This arrangement
with Alaric caused great dissatisfaction in the army and among
the people, and was a potent cause of the fall and death of
Stilicho, which occurred A. D. 408. He was arrested and
summarily executed, at Ravenna, on the mandate of his
ungrateful and worthless young master, whose trembling throne
he had upheld for thirteen years.

_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 30 (volume 3)._

ROME: A. D. 406-500.
The breaking of the Rhine barrier.
The great Teutonic invasion and occupation
of the Western Empire.

"Up to the year 406 the Rhine was maintained as the frontier
of the Roman Empire against the numerous barbarian races and
tribes that swarmed uneasily in central Europe. From the
Flavian Emperors until the time of Probus (282), the great
military line from Coblenz to Kehlheim on the Danube had been
really defended, though often overstepped and always a strain
on the Romans, and thus a tract of territory (including Baden
and Würtemberg) on the east shore of the Upper Rhine, the
titheland as it was called, belonged to the Empire. But in the
fourth century it was as much as could be done to keep off the
Alemanni and Franks who were threatening the provinces of
Gaul. The victories of Julian and Valentinian produced only
temporary effects. On the last day of December 406 a vast
company of Vandals, Suevians, and Alans crossed the Rhine. The
frontier was not really defended; a handful of Franks who
professed to guard it for the Romans were easily swept aside,
and the invaders desolated Gaul at pleasure for the three
following years. Such is the bare fact which the chroniclers
tell us, but this migration seems to have been preceded by
considerable movements on a large scale along the whole Rhine
frontier, and these movements may have agitated the
inhabitants of Britain and excited apprehensions there of
approaching danger. Three tyrants had been recently elected by
the legions in rapid succession; the first two, Marcus and
Gratian, were slain, but the third Augustus, who bore the
auspicious name of Constantine, was destined to play a
considerable part for a year or two on the stage of the
western world.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 407.

It seems almost certain that these two movements, the passage
of the Germans across the Rhine and the rise of the tyrants in
Britain, were not without causal connection; and it also seems
certain that both events were connected with the general
Stilicho. The tyrants were elevated in the course of the year
406, and it was at the end of the same year that the Vandals
crossed the Rhine. Now the revolt of the legions in Britain
was evidently aimed against Stilicho. … There is direct
contemporary evidence … that it was by Stilicho's invitation
that the barbarians invaded Gaul; he thought that when they
had done the work for which he designed them he would find no
difficulty in crushing them or otherwise disposing of them. We
can hardly avoid supposing that the work which he wished them
to perform was to oppose the tyrant of Britain—Constantine, or
Gratian, or Marcus, whoever was tyrant then; for it is quite
certain that, like Maximus, he would pass into Gaul, where
numerous Gallo-Roman adherents would flock to his standards.
Stilicho died before Constantine was crushed, and the
barbarians whom he had so lightly summoned were still in the
land, harrying Gaul, destined soon to harry and occupy Spain
and seize Africa. From a Roman point of view Stilicho had much
to answer for in the dismemberment of the Empire; from a
Teutonic point of view, he contributed largely to preparing
the way for the foundation of the German kingdoms."

_J. B. Bury,
A History of the Later Roman Empire,
book 2, chapter 6 (volume 1)._

"If modern history must have a definite beginning, the most
convenient beginning for it is the great Teutonic invasion of
Gaul in the year 407. Yet the nations of modern Europe do not
spring from the nations which then crossed the Rhine, or from
any intermixture between them and the Romans into whose land
they made their way. The nations which then crossed the Rhine
were the Vandals, Suevians, and Alans. … None of these nations
made any real settlements in Gaul; Gaul was to them simply the
high road to Spain. There they did settle, though the Vandals
soon forsook their settlement, and the Alans were soon rooted
out of theirs. The Suevian kept his ground for a far longer
time; we may, if we please, look on him as the Teutonic
forefather of Leon, while we look on the Goth as the Teutonic
forefather of Castile. Here we have touched one of the great
national names of history; the Goth, like the Frank, plays
quite another part in Western Europe from the Alan, the
Suevian, and the Vandal. … Now both Franks and Goths had
passed into the Empire long before the invasion of 407. One
branch of the Franks … was actually settled on Roman lands,
and, as Roman subjects, did their best to withstand the great
invasion.
{2732}
What then makes that invasion so marked an epoch? … The answer
is that the invasion of 407 not only brought in new elements,
but put the existing elements into new relations to one
another. Franks and Goths put on a new character and begin a
new life. The Burgundians pass into Gaul, not as a road to
Spain, but as a land in which to find many homes. They press
down to the south-eastern corner of the land, while the Frank
no longer keeps himself in his north-eastern corner, while in
the south-west the Goth is settled as for a while the liegeman
of Cæsar, and in the north-west a continental Britain springs
into being. Here in truth are some of the chiefest elements of
the modern world, and though none of them are among the
nations that crossed the Rhine in 407, yet the new position
taken by all of them is the direct consequence of that
crossing. In this way, in Gaul and Spain at least, the joint
Vandal, Alan, and Suevian invasion is the beginning of the
formation of the modern nations, though the invading nations
themselves form no element in the later life of Gaul and only
a secondary element in the later life of Spain. The later life
of these lands, and that of Italy also, has sprung of the
settlement of Teutonic nations in a Roman land, and of the
mutual influences which Roman and Teuton have had on one
another. Roman and Teuton lived side by side, and out of their
living side by side has gradually sprung up a third thing
different from either, a thing which we cannot call either
Roman or Teutonic, or more truly a thing which we may call
Roman and Teutonic and some other things as well, according to
the side of it which we look at. This third thing is the
Romance element in modern Europe, the Romance nations and
their Romance tongues."

_E. A. Freeman,
The Chief Periods of European History,
pages 87-90._