General Notes

Origin and Early Career Flavius Theodosius was born at Cauca in Spaininabout 346 to Thermant ia and Theodosius the Elder (so-calledtodistinguish him from his son). Theodosius the Elde r was a seniormilitaryofficer serving in the Western empire and rose to become themagistere quitum praesentalis under the emperor Valentinian I from late368 untilhis execution in earl y 375. As the son of a soldier, Theodosiuswaslegally obliged to enter upon a military career . He seems to haveservedunder his father during his expedition to Britain in 367/8, and was thedux Moesiae Primae by late 374. Unfortunately, greatcontroversysurrounds the rest of hi s career until Gratian had him hailedas hisimperial colleague in succession to the emperor V alens at Sirmiumon 19January 379. It is clear that he was forced to retire home to Spainonl yto be recalled to active service shortly thereafter, butthecircumstances of his forced reti rement are shrouded in mystery.Hisfather was executed at roughly the same time, and much spe culationhascentred on the relationship between these events. A generalconsensusseems to hav e emerged, however, that the future emperor wasforced intoretirement shortly after the execu tion of his father atCarthage inAfrica during the winter of 375/6. the same court faction which hadengineered the death of his father managed to persuade Valentiniantodismiss him also , or so the consensus goes. This interpretation ofeventsis incorrect, however, not least bec ause it places far too muchtrust ina number of unreliable sources.

the answer to the mystery surrounding Theodosius' forced retirementliesin Ammianus' descript ion of a severe defeat which Sarmatianraidersinflicted upon Roman forces in the province o f Valeria in late374 whenthey almost annihilated a legio Moesiaca, i.e. a legion fromMoesia , anda legio Pannonica, i.e. a legion from Pannonia. These legionshad beensent to intercep t a party of Sarmatians who had been pursuing aseniorRoman officer named Aequitius deep int o Roman territory, andwouldundoubtedly have triumphed had they acted together. But they fail edtoco-operate, and their quarrelling allowed the Sarmatians to catchthemunprepared, defeat ing the legion from Moesia first, then the legionfromPannonia. Valentinian's reaction to thi s defeat can best be judgedfromhis reaction to an earlier defeat which the Alamanni had mana gedtoinflict on his forces in Gaul during the spring of 365. He soughtoutthose who had bee n the first to turn and run before the enemy andblamedthem for the subsequent defeat. He ord ered the unit in question -theBatavi - to be stripped of their weapons and sold into slavery , andittook the whole army to persuade him to relent. In this instance,thefirst of the tw o units to break and run had been the legion fromMoesia.Hence Valentinian would have held th eir commanding officerresponsiblefor the wider defeat, and, as the dux Moesiae Primae, Theodosius was theofficer ultimately responsible for this unit. HenceValentinian dismissedTheodos ius and sent him home to Cauca in Spain inthe same manner, andfor the same reason, that th e emperor Constantius IIhad dismissedValentinian himself in 357, or the magister equitum pe rGallias Marcellusin the same year. He had found him guilty of cowardice.

the best explanation for the death of Theodosius the Elder is that hehadtried to intervene o n behalf of his son, and Valentinian had hadhimexecuted as a result, most probably during th e early new year of 375.Hisson regained his commission within the army only following the de athofValentinian himself on 17 November 375. He seems to have obtainedaposition similar t o that which he had originally held at hisdismissal,that of dux Valeriae perhaps. He campaig ned against theSarmatians againin 376, during which he was promoted as the magistermilitu m perIllyricum. He remained as magister militum per Illyricum from376 until19 January 379 wh en the western emperor Gratian appointed himto succeedhis eastern colleague Valens who had b een killed at the BattleofAdrianople on 9 August 378. the fact that Gratian chose him as hi snewcolleague does not necessarily mean that he enjoyed a particularlygoodreputation as th e best general of his day. Gratian had effectivelybeenforced to choose him since he seems t o have been the most seniorofficerof Roman birth available to him at the time.

Foreign Policy the problem confronting Theodosius immediately uponhisaccession was how to ch eck the Goths and their allies who werecontinuingto ravage the Balkans. One difficulty was t hat they had spreadbeyond thediocese of Thrace into the dioceses of Macedonia and Dacia in theprefecture of Illyricum, which had traditionally belonged to thewesternempire. the resul t was that Gratian surrendered the threedioceses of theprefecture of Illyricum to the tempor ary control ofTheodosius for theduration of the Gothic crisis, while he himselfreturned t o Trier inGaul. the date of this transfer is disputed, but itseems to have comeinto formal e ffect at the beginning of the new taxyear on 1 September379 and may be presumed to have ende d on 31 August382. This leftTheodosius in control of the entire theatre of operations.Theod osiusleft Sirmium, the site of his accession, for Thessalonica inMacedoniawhich remained hi s base for the campaign seasons of 379 and380. Gratianhad transferred some of his own office rs and men toTheodosius in orderto assist him in his efforts to rebuild the easternfield-ar mies, whichhad been shattered at the Battle of Adrianople. Thesetransfers includedhis come s domesticorum Richomer, who becameTheodosius' magister peditumpraesentalis, a post which h e retained untilhis death by illness in late392.

We are poorly informed about the exact sequence of events duringtheGothic war, but Theodosiu s' "general" Modares appears to haveinflictedan important defeat upon the Goths somewhere i n Thrace in 379.Theodosiusproved himself willing to recruit one group of barbarians intohi s armyto use against the other groups who remained hostile, but thiswas arisky strategy. I n order to reduce the risk, Theodosius transferredsomeof these fresh barbarian recruits to E gypt in return for some oftheexperienced Roman troops stationed there, during late 379 apparently.Nevertheless, a large number of his new recruits appeared tohavedefected to the othe r side during the course of his campaign in 380,sothat he suffered at least one serious reve rse. He left Thessalonicaandentered Constantinople for the first time on 24 November 380. H e wastoremain in Constantinople, or its immediate vicinity, until late387.During the winte r of 380/1 he wrote to Gratian for his help againsttheGoths in Illyricum, and Gratian replie d first by sending his"generals"Bauto and Arbogast against them, then by taking to the fiel dhimself.They appear to have succeeded in driving the Goths and theirallies fromIllyricum a nd back into Thrace during 381. Theodosius,however, did enjoya propaganda coup when the Goth ic chieftain Athanaricsurrendered to himat Constantinople on 11 January 381, although he die donly two weekslater. Theodosius finally reached a settlement with theremainder of theGoth s on 3 October 382. the exact terms of thissettlement have not beenpreserved, but it is clea r that the Goths weregranted the right tosettle large amounts of land along the Danube frontier in the diocese ofThrace and enjoyed an unusual degree of autonomy.Many came to serve int he Roman army, but the terms of their serviceremain unclear. Manyvolunteered to serve on a f ull-time professionalbasis, while more wereobliged to serve only for the duration of a specific campaign. Theresults were that the Goths who settled within theempire remained aconstan t threat to its internal stability. Asubstantial number of Gothictroops defected to the sid e of MagnusMaximus when Theodosius joined hisforces with those of the youngValentinian II a t Thessalonica in 387 inpreparation for their jointcampaign westwards against Maximus. Thes e hidin the rough country aboutThessalonica until Theodosius managed to drivethem back int o Thraceduring his return from the West in 391, where theyremained a threat aslate as 392 w hen they managed to kill the "general"Promotus. One oftheir emerging leaders, Alaric, partic ipated inTheodosius' campaignagainst Eugenius in 394, only to resume hisrebellious behaviou r againstTheodosius' son and eastern successor,Arcadius, shortly thereafter. Nordid the ext ernal threat cease. the"general" Promotus won a notablevictory for Theodosius in 386 when he defeated an attempt by Odotheus andhis Greuthungian Goths to force theirway across the Danub e.

the East remained relatively quiet under Theodosius. the Saracensrejectedtheir previous trea ty of 377 with the Romans and resumed theirraids oncemore along the frontier from Arabia t o Syria in 383apparently. We do notknow the reason for this revolt, but the magisterpeditu m praesentalisRichomer appears to have crushed it in but onecampaign that year. As aresult , the Salihids replaced the Tanukhids asthe dominant group amongRome's Saracen foederati. A s for the Persians,Theodosius maintained goodrelations with a rapid succession of Persiankin gs during his reign.Armenia remained a potential source of conflictbetween the two powers until they reached agreement upon the division ofthis country in 387 whenTheodosius sent his m agister militum perOrientem Stilicho on an embassyto the Persian court. In accordance withth is agreement, the pro-Romanking Arsak retained possession of thewestern part of the country , whilethe pro-Persian king Khosro retainedpossession of the eastern part.

Civil Wars Theodosius fought two bloody civil wars in quicksuccessionagainst the usurpers Ma gnus Maximus and Eugenius. MagnusMaximus was afellow Spaniard who even claimed to be a relat ive ofTheodosius himself.Like Theodosius, he was also a pious Catholic. Hencethere was no d eepideological differences between the two. Magnus Maximushad been thecommander of a field a rmy in Britain in 383 when he had ledhis troopsback to Gaul in an attempt to seize power. H e forced Gratianto flee froman initial encounter near Paris, but was blamed forGratian'sass assination near Lyons as he made for northern Italy. Thiswas the onlycharge which Theodosiu s could seriously have held againsthim in 383,that he had risen to power through the assassi nation of alegitimateemperor. War between the two had not been inevitable, and theoratorThe mistius undoubtedly exaggerates when he claims that Theodosiusset outagainst him in 384 wit h the intention of avenging Gratian'sdeath. Theyoung Valentinian II continued to rule the pr efectures ofItaly,Illyricum and Africa, which constituted a buffer-ground betweentheterrito ries of his two more powerful colleagues. An uneasypeaceprevailed until the late summer of 3 87 when Maximus sent his troopsintonorthern Italy and forced Valentinian to retreat to Thess alonica attheeastern extreme of his territory. Yet while Maximus may have struckthefirst fo rmal blow in this renewed bout of civil war, one suspectsthat hefelt compelled to act as h e did much because of the growinginfluence ofTheodosius over Valentinian and his ministers . One notesthat Theodosius'magister peditum praesentalis Richomer was the uncle ofValentini an'smagister equitum praesentalis Arbogast, who was effectivelythe solecommander of Valentin ian's forces at this point. Moreimportantly,perhaps, Valentinian had appointed Gildo as hi s comesAfricae ca. 386,and Theodosius had attempted to win Gildo over to hiscause by marryi ngNebridius, a nephew of the empress Flaccilla, toGildo's daughterSalvina.the fact that Maxi mus suffered some sort ofserious defeat atSicily during the initial stage of the civil war i n388, and that hecommitted a large number of men to naval operations offthe southernItalia n coast under the command of his magisterpraesentalisAndragathius, suggests that Theodosiu s was well rewarded forhis efforts,that he did at least persuade Gildo to defect to his sid eand seizeSicily on his behalf. Whatever the case, Theodosius joinedwithValentinian at Thes salonica during the late summer of 387, at whichtimehe also married Valentinian's sister Gal la. They launched ajointexpedition against Maximus during the summer of 388, defeating his forcesin pitched battles at Siscia, then Poetovio. They then forced theirwayacross the Alps a nd captured Maximus himself at Aquileia. They hadhimexecuted three miles outsid'Aquileia o n 28 August 388, and sentArbogastto do the same to his son Victor in Trier. However, they sp aredhis wifeand two daughters.

Theodosius spent about three years in Italy until he began his returntripto Constantinople i n the summer of 391. Valentinian now ruled thewholeof the western empire, but he was increas ingly dominated by hismagisterpeditum praesentalis Arbogast, whose own arrogance increased t hefurtherTheodosius moved from the scene. Matters came to a head in 392whenValentinian trie d to cashier Arbogast and Arbogast simply refusedtoaccept his command. Valentinian secretl y wrote to Theodosius forhisassistance, but was found dead on 15 May 392. An uneasy peace followed asArbogast awaited the news of Theodosius' reaction to the deathof hisbrother-in-la w Valentinian; Theodosius tried to determinewhetherValentinian really had committed suicid e as alleged.Unfortunately forall concerned, Theodosius was still married to Galla,who refu sed toaccept that her brother had committed suicide. Worsestill, Arbogast'sstrongest advocat e at Theodosius' court, his uncleRichomer, was mortallyill. As a hostile judgement seemed in creasinglylikely, Arbogast struckfirst. He hailed Valentinian's magister scrinii asempero r on 22 August392 and quickly secured Italy for his cause. Incontrast to hisacceptance of Ma ximus for several years, Theodosiusrefused to recogniseEugenius as emperor right from the st art. Hepublicly indicated this byhis refusal to accept Eugenius' nominees forthe consulshi p of 393 and byhis coronation of his second son Honorius asAugustus on 23 January 393.the wa r did not begin until the summer of 394when Theodosius finallybegan his march from Constanti nople. the war wasdecided by one decisivebattle on the banks of the river Frigidus in thefo othills of the Alps on6 September 394. While Christian sources delightto recount how Godassi sted Theodosius by sending a wind to blow hisenemies' weapons backinto their faces, the cruc ial factor was surely thedecision by a keysection of Maximus' army under the comes Arbitio t odefect from his sideto that of Theodosius. So Theodosius triumphed andhad Eugenius execute d,while Arbogast committed suicide.

Religious Policy Theodosius was Catholic and received baptism at thehandsof bishop Acholiu s of Thessalonica during the autumn of 380 whenseriousillness threatened his life. Two day s after his first arrivalinConstantinople on 24 November 380, Theodosius expelled the "Arian "bishopDemophilus of Constantinople from the churches of that cityandsurrendered them to Gr egory of Naziaznus who happened to be theleader ofthe small Catholic or "Nicene" community t here at the time.This wasgreatly resented and may even have resulted in an attempt toassass inatethe emperor. He also called a synod of 150 Catholic bishopswho assembledat Constantinop le in May 381. An early meeting of thissynod, when allthe bishops had not yet arrived, elect ed Gregory ofNazianzus as the newBishop of Constantinople, but he was quickly forcedto resi gn. the synodthen elected the senator Nectarius, who obviouslyenjoyed the strongbacking of t he emperor himself, in his stead.Theodosius' early reignwitnessed the gradual expulsion of a ll hereticalbishops from the townsand cities of the East and the transfer of allchurch buil dings andproperty to their Catholic rivals. the depth ofresentment which suchpolicies cause d can best be judged by the fact thatin 388 "Arian" mobsat Constantinople rioted and cause d widespread damagein reponse to thefalse rumour that Magnus Maximus had inflicted a sever edefeat uponTheodosius.

Theodosius continued to tolerate the traditional pagan practicesandrituals which had enjoye d toleration from successive Christianemperorsthroughout the fourth century, i.e., almost an ything which didnotinclude blood-sacrifice or did not smack of treason against theemperor,u ntil 391 at least. He then issued a series of laws whichseemedeffectively to prohibit all pa gan worship by forbidding visits topagansites of worship or even the adornment in any manne r of the imagesof thegods. This apparent change of policy on his part has often beencredite dto the increased influence of bishop Ambrose of Milan. For in390 Ambrosehad excommunicate d Theodosius because he had ordered theexecution ofseveral thousand of the inhabitants of Th essalonica inresponse to themurder there of his "general" Butherichus. Theodosiusaccepted h isexcommunication and even performed several months of publicpenance, soit is all too easy t oo imagine how he might have taken thetime to reviewhis other "failings" also, including hi s continuedtoleration ofpaganism. However, the importance of these laws has beengreatlyexag gerated. They were limited in scope, specific measures inresponse tovarious petitions and ac cusations and tell us less aboutTheodosius thanthe private agenda of many of the increasingl y militantChristians whocould be found throughout his administration. Although hehad voice d hissupport earlier for the preservation of temples or paganstatues asuseful public buildin gs or as works of art, in 391 heofficiallysanctioned the destruction of the most famous of t he templesin the East,the Serapeum at Alexandria. Bands of monks and Christianofficials had long been accustomed to take the law into their own handsand destroyvarious centres of paga n worship, but the destruction of theSerapeumseemed to confirm that such actions had often e njoyed theemperor's tacitapproval at least, and served to encourage such action inthe futur ealso. Again, however, Theodosius had been effectivelymanipulated intosanctioning the destru ction of the Serapeum by localofficials who hadessentially engineered the crisis there for t his verypurpose.

Family and Succession Theodosius married twice. His first wife wastheSpanish Aelia Flavia Fl accilla. She bore him Arcadius ca. 377,Honoriuson 9 September 384, and Pulcheria ca. 385. Th eodosius honouredher withthe title of Augusta shortly after his accession, but she died in3 86. Inlate 387 he married Galla, daughter of Valentinian I andfull-sister ofValentinian II . She bore him Gratian ca. 388, GallaPlacidia ca. 388/390,and died in childbirth in 394, tog ether with hernew-born son John. Ofhis two sons who survived infancy, he appointedArcadiu s as Augustus on19 January 383 and Honorius as Augustus on 23January 393. His promotionof Ar cadius as a full Augustus at an unusuallyyoung age points to hisdetermination right from th e start that one ofhis own sons shouldsucceed him. He sought to strengthen Arcadius' position in particular bymeans of a series of strategic marriages whose purposewas to tie hisleadin g "generals" irrevocably to his dynasty. Hence hemarried his nieceand adoptive daughter Sere na to his magister militumper OrientemStilicho in 387, her elder sister Thermantia to a "gen eral"whose namehas not been preserved, and ca. 387 his nephew-in-law NebridiustoSalvina, da ughter of the comes Africae Gildo. By the time of his deathbyillness on 17 January 395, Theo dosius had promoted Stilicho fromhisposition as one of the two comites domesticorum under hi s owneasternadministration to that of magister peditum praesentalis in awesternadministrati on, in an entirely traditional manner, under hisyounger sonHonorius. Although Stilicho manag ed to increase the power ofthe magisterpeditum praesentalis to the disadvantage of his colle aguethe magisterequitum praesentalis and claimed that Theodosius hadappointed him asguardia n for both his sons, this tells us more about hiscunning andambition than it does about Theo dosius' constitutionalarrangements.

Theodosius' importance rests on the fact that he founded a dynastywhichcontinued in power un til the death of his grandson Theodosius II in450.This ensured a continuity of policy whic h saw the emergence ofNiceneChristianity as the orthodox belief of the vast majority of Christiansthroughout the middle ages. It also ensured the essentialdestruction ofpaganism and th e emergence of Christianity as the religionof the state,even if the individual steps in thi s process can bedifficult toidentify. On the negative side, however, he allowed hisdynastic interests and ambitions to lead him into two unnecessary andbloody civilwars which severel y weakened the empire's ability to defenditself in theface of continued barbarian pressure u pon its frontiers. Inthis manner,he put the interests of his family before those of the wide rRomanpopulation and was responsible, in many ways, for the phenomenon towhichwe now refe r as the fall of the western Roman empire.


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