General Notes

Flavius Arcadius, b.  c.377, d.  May 1, 408, was the first emperor of the
Eastern, or Byzantine, empire after the permanent division of the Roman Empire
on the death (395) of Theodosius I.  The oldest son of Theodosius, Arcadius
inherited the east, and his brother Honorius received the west.

Arcadius was a weak ruler dominated by his ministers, notably Rufinus and
Eutropius, and by his Frankish wife, Eudoxia.  In 395, Greece was overrun by
the Visigoths under Alaric.  A campaign against them by the general Flavius
Stilicho was cut short when Arcadius ordered Stilicho out of the east.  The
emperor then made peace (397) with Alaric by making him supreme commander of
Illyricum.  Two years later the empire's Gothic mercenary troops
revolted and held Constantinople for six months before they were defeated.
Arcadius's court was repeatedly denounced for immorality by John Chrysostom,
patriarch of Constantinople, whom the emperor banished in 404.  Arcadius was
succeeded by his son, Theodosius II.