The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Roman Empire (49 page)

Julian was the last of Constantine's line, and Jovian had left no heir. The officers and officials in Constantinople chose Valentinian, and Valentinian chose his brother, Valens; they ruled over west and east respectively in 364. The mishandling of invasions plagued this dynasty. Valentinian, in an audience with barbarian envoys along the Rhine, died from a stoke brought on in a fit of rage; he left his 16-year-old son, Gratian, in charge.

In the east, Valens settled many of the migrating Goths on Roman soil, but his administrators abused them so badly that they revolted and, together with the Ostrogoths, defeated and killed Valens in battle in
378. Gratian appointed a Spanish commander, Flavius Theodosius, as emperor of the east. Gratian completely offended the remaining old Romans by ordering the removal of the statue of Victory from Rome at the urging of Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. Even the old gods, who had served the city well, had now abandoned Rome. The end could not be far behind.

More pious than effective, Gratian was killed in 383 by rebellious troops. His brother, Valentinian II, briefly recovered the throne, but he, too, was assassinated by his commander Arbogast. Arbogast appointed a puppet emperor, Eugenius, to the throne, but they were defeated by Theodosius in 394.

Theodosius settled the Goths and negotiated a treaty with them in 382, which was to have grave consequences for the Empire. He allowed the Goths to settle as a kingdom under the jurisdiction of their own kings. While this allowed them to handle many of their own affairs and brought them into the Empire as a fighting force with their own organization and training, it also established a precedent for barbarian kingdoms to be set up within the borders of the Empire. When these kings eventually became the western emperors themselves, the “fall” of Rome was (at least in the historian Edward Gibbon's mind) complete.

 
Lend Me Your Ears
“Those following our law shall be known as ‘Catholic' Christians and the rest, since we judge them fools and madmen, shall endure the infamy of heretics nor call their gatherings ‘churches.' They are to be punished by divine retribution and by whatever vengeance we, in accordance with heavenly judgement, decide to inflict.”

—Theodosius I, from the
Theodosian Code
6.1.2

“It's a reasonable assumption that we all worship essentially the same thing. We gaze up at the same stars, the same sky is above us all, the same universe surrounds us. What difference does it make which system we each use to arrive at the truth? We cannot arrive at so great a mystery by one way alone.”

—Symmachus,
Dispatches to the Emperor,
3.9–10, adapted from Shelton

 
Veto!
Paganism didn't die out with Theodosius. Although its vitality declined and waned, pagan religion was still practiced into the sixth and seventh centuries. Pagan philosophy and ritual were profoundly influential upon Christianity, and some of it was incorporated, in different guises, over the centuries into Christian practice, thought, and doctrine. Neoplatonism, for example, profoundly influenced Christian conceptions of angels and demons, while December 25th was the birthday of
Sol Invictus
, the monotheistic “Unconquered Sun” god patronized by emperors such as Aurelian and Julian. It became the date for Christmas in the fourth century.

Theodosius, an ardent Nicene Christian, also influenced other important developments. With the council and urging of Ambrose, he first pursued making Nicene Christianity the only Roman Christianity, and then Christianity the only Roman religion. He completed Constantine's work by officially banning both public and private pagan religious observations in 391 (Jews were not included in this proclamation). But Theodosius found that religious sanction can bite even an emperor. He allowed his forces to massacre civilians in Thessolonika in 390 and found himself excommunicated by Ambrose. With the gates of paradise shut off from him, Thedosius was compelled to do penance. This set the stage for similar confrontations between state and ecclesiastical power in the west.

When Theodosius the Great died in 395, the traditional interpretation has been that he left an Empire stumbling under enormous taxes, corrupt officials, and depopulated cities. More recent archeological evidence, however, provides a different picture at least in places: Britain, for example, was extremely prosperous even as the Romans left the province! In any case, Theodosius divided the Empire that he had unified among his sons. He left the eastern half to his 18-year-old son, Arcadius, and to his 10-year-old son, Honorius, he left the wild, wild west. It was an uneven division. Rebellions and invasions kept Honorius's hold over the west very weak and very insecure. He spent most of his time hiding out in his capital at Ravenna, which was impregnable because of marshes on all sides and offered a sea escape and supply route.

Arcadius died in 408 and left the east to his 7-year-old son, Theodosius II. Theodosius II ruled for 40 years, mostly under the eye of his sister, Pulcheria, and his wife, Eudocia. His most famous achievement came when he formed a board of scholars to compile a codification of Roman laws since the time of Constantine. This compilation, known as the Theodosian Code and published in 438, was intended to bring a unified legal system to the whole Empire. One of Theodosius's other projects suggests the dangerous times in which he lived. He completed a massive defensive wall around Constantinople, which, like Rome, had become vulnerable to attack by Goths and Huns, whom he paid massive yearly tributes to keep away.

Theodosius fell from his horse in 450 and died. His death without an eastern heir firmly entrenched the split between east and west. Factions of the eastern empire were left to contend for political and doctrinal dominance under the emperors Marcian (450–457), Leo I (457–474), and Zeno (474–491), who was the eastern emperor when the west “fell.”

The succession of boy emperors in both east and west helped to bring on the permanent division of the Empire. In short, these youngsters required adults (who were not emperors) to do their jobs. Sometimes these adults were powerful imperial women. Sometimes they were high-ranking court officials. Both attempted to maneuver the emperors according to their own rivalries and ambitions. All eventually became powerless to control the barbarian warlords and commanders who ostensibly served them.

None of these barbarians (and often Arians) had hope of becoming emperor in the face of Rome and Constantinople. Instead they sought their own kingdoms within Rome in some cases, and in others sought to become supreme commander,
Magister Militum
(Master of the Soldiers) and achieve the status of patrician. From these positions, they could control the Empire and the emperors, and through marriage into the imperial families attempt to establish dynasties of their own.

 
Great Caesar's Ghost!
Besides the legal code that bears his name, Theodosius, under the influence of Eudocia, established and endowed a great university in Constantinople to rival earlier centers of learning such as Athens and Alexandria. This university was responsible for preserving much of the Greek classical culture that passed eventually to the west and fueled the Italian Renaissance.

 
When in Rome
Patrician
was an honorary title bestowed by the emperor, not an official office.

A number of imperial women played important roles in the Theodosian dynasty. Some of the most important of these include . . .

• Gallia Placidia,
  the half-sister of Honorius and Arcadius, and mother of Valentinian III. She was captured when the Goths sacked Rome and carried off. Later, she became the practical ruler of the west and rival of the general Aetius. Some of her correspondences survive as well as the churches she built at Ravenna.
  
• Pulcheria,
  the older sister of Theodosius II. She was a powerful figure, committing herself to orthodoxy and to chastity, which she maintained through her dynastic marriage to the emperor Marcian in 450. She was influential and active: She ruled as regent over Theodosius II, issued edicts against pagans and Jews (the famous Greek female philosopher
  Hypatia
  was killed in Alexandria during this time), and convened the Council of Ephesus in 431 to debate ongoing doctrinal differences among the bishops. Pulcheria vied for influence over religion, politics, and Theodosius II with Eudocia, and eventually won.
  
• Eudocia,
  the wife of Theodosius II. She was the well-educated daughter of a philosopher, and a poet of some distinction. She converted to Christianity for the marriage and fought a long battle with Pulcheria for influence. Eudocia was eventually disgraced by rumors of adultery (started by Pulcheria) and left for Jerusalem to devote herself to better things.
  

 
Great Caesar's Ghost!
Hypatia
(ca 370–415) was the leader of the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria (Egypt). She was a famous philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, speaker, and popular teacher. Supporters of Pulcheria's bishop, Cyril, feared her influence with city authorities. A mob of them attacked and killed Hypatia in her own home.