The Historians of Late Antiquity (37 page)

While the historicity of Constantine’s letter cannot be proven, its protective attitude toward Persian Christians was to become official
Roman policy during the reign of Theodosius II. Socrates describes the reign of Yezdegerd as wholly benevolent. He attributes the persecution of Christians which took place at the end of Yezdegerd’s reign to his son’s reign, and even claims that Yezdegerd was planning to embrace Christianity and was prevented from doing so only by his death (7.8). Socrates attributes the emperor’s near conversion to the activities of the bishop of Mesopotamia, Maruthas, who was sent to Persia as part of an official embassy. He reports that Maruthas gained the trust of the emperor when he cured his painful headaches by prayer. This tale follows in the pattern of numerous stories of conversion which are inspired by healings. Maruthas also triumphantly exposes the deceptions of the Magi, who were in the habit of hiding under fire altars and speaking for the deity, as well as emitting unpleasant odors near the king and blaming the smells on the Christians.

The accession of Vahram V to the throne after the death of his father led to the persecution of Christians and a Roman military response in 421 (7.18). Socrates provides fully detailed accounts of this war, in which the appearance of angels predicting a Roman victory demonstrates the justice of the Roman cause. In an epilogue to the victory, Socrates tells the story of the bishop Acacius. Seven thousand Persian prisoners of war were starving and stranded in Roman Azazane, and the bishop organized his parishioners to melt the church vessels and to use the money raised to feed the Persians and return them home. This benevolence proved that the Romans “were accustomed to conquer by generosity as well as by war” (7.21.5).

Theodoret provides anecdotes from a war against Persia which he does not clearly date. It thus may be the same war of 421 which Socrates discusses, or the historian may be referring to the later conflict of 441 (Croke 1983: 300 n. 11; Blockley 1992: 203 n. 17). He emphasizes that the war is a holy war, fought on behalf of Christianity, which in one case featured a bishop as a combatant (5.37.5–9). Disgusted by the curses of the enemy, Bishop Eunomius himself commanded that the ballista which had been given the nickname “Apostle Thomas” be erected. When the ballista’s stone crushed the skull of the Persian blasphemer, Theodoret tells us, the siege came quickly to an end. Theodoret reveals that the persecution of Christians which led to war was at least in part incited by the excessive zeal of some Christians who destroyed Zoroastrian fire temples (5.39). “I say that the destruction of the fire temple was not timely,” Theodoret judges. The historian provides many details of
the terrible tortures the Persian Christians endured. This section, the penultimate chapter of the work, concludes with a celebration of the survival and rejuvenation of true Christianity in the face of persecution, a message which would have resonated with the author himself as he wrote in the midst of heated theological controversy.

For the remainder of the fifth century, the two large empires remained usually at peace with each other while they fended off threats on their other flanks. Priscus reveals the importance of diplomacy during this period and displays an interest in the political and military situation in Persia which had been less prevalent in earlier historians. He reports the demands, for example, of a Persian embassy, which included the return of Persian refugees, an end to the persecution of fire worshippers in the empire, and subsidies for the defense of the Caspian Gates against the Kidarite Huns (
frs
. 41.1, 47). The Roman reply simply denied the existence of any refugees or persecution, and denied responsibility for the subsidies. When Priscus and the east Romans, while participating in an embassy to Attila, heard from western ambassadors that the Huns might turn away from the empire and launch an attack on the Persians, their first reaction was to pray that it might be true (
fr
. 11.2). But the parties are sobered by consideration of the possibility that Attila could return west after a conquest of Persia even stronger and more dangerous. This recognition, and the repeated requests by the Persians for Roman help in the defense of the Caspian Gates, were perhaps signs of a growing understanding of the interdependent relationship necessary among the two ancient civilized powers in the face of more barbarous threats.

The Roman state groped toward the establishment of a suitable relationship with Persia throughout late antiquity. After enduring the incessant warfare of the beginning of the fourth century, the two powers managed to avoid major conflict for more than a century. As violence increased in the other frontier areas, peace on the eastern border became particularly important to the Romans. Late antique historians recognized that the ancient civilization of the Persians set them apart from other, and in their eyes more contemptible, non-Roman peoples. Occasional remarks, such as those found in Ammianus’ ethnographic digression, suggested that the Romans could even learn from them. It was more common, however, for fourth-century historians to urge military conflict with the Persians, and even to propose wildly unrealistic plans such as the complete annihilation of the Persian state. Christianity played conflicting roles in this process. The presence of a large Christian community
in Persia probably helped at times to foster communication between the empires, and the ecclesiastical historians wrote favorably about Persian Christians. But the mistreatment of Christians also triggered support among Christian intellectuals like Socrates and Theodoret for military intervention and encouraged the outbreak of war (Blockley 1992).

The Goths

The Goths were an agricultural Germanic people who inhabited the territory northwest of the Black Sea, between the Danube and the Don rivers in modern-day Romania (Heather 1991, 1996; Wolfram 1988; Todd 1975). The third century had seen numerous Gothic raids into the empire. At the beginning of the fourth century, conflicts with the emperor Constantine ended in Gothic capitulation and the signing of a peace treaty in 332, which remained in effect for three decades. During this period, Goths were occasionally recruited as auxiliary soldiers by Roman generals, such as Constantius in 360 and the usurper Procopius in 365. Increasing Gothic hostility led to the outbreak of warfare with Valens from 367 to 369, but after three years of inconclusive battles, the parties made peace.

The
breviaria
record third-century conflicts with the Goths, including invasions under Decius (Vic. 29.2) and Gallienus (Vic. 33.3; Eut. 9.8.2), and the defeat of the Goths by Claudius II (Eut. 9.11.2). The accounts in Eutropius and Festus of Constantine’s conflict with the Goths are colored by contemporary events, since they write during or immediately after Valens’ Gothic campaign. Eutropius states that after Constantine’s defeat of the Goths in several skirmishes “he left enormous gratitude in the memory of the barbarian tribes” (10.7.1). Eutropius here refers to the Goths’ allegiance to the usurper Procopius, whom they claimed to support as the last surviving member of the line of Constantine. Perhaps we are additionally to understand Eutropius’ remark as expressing the hope that the Goths will be equally loyal to Valens now that he has subdued them. Festus also draws a parallel between Constantine’s victories and those of Valens. Buoyed by the glory that he had won from his Gothic victory, Festus claims, Constantine went to Persia, where ambassadors of the Persian king immediately submitted to him (26.1). Festus’ instructions to the emperor in his last sentence call upon him to emulate Constantine’s feats: add victory over the Persians to your great victory over the Goths (30.2).

Ammianus portrays Valens complaining to the Goths in 367 about their support of Procopius in the previous year (27.5). The Goths claimed that they had merely been supporting the legitimate heir to the throne, since Procopius was a relative of Julian. Rejecting this explanation, Valens invaded Gothic territory for three successive years. In the first year, the Goths hid in the mountains, and in the second year, floods bogged down the imperial army, but in the third year Valens defeated the Gothic king Athanaric in battle. Although Valens’ victory was not decisive, Ammianus is favorable toward his decision to settle. He reports that Athanaric had sworn an oath at his father’s demand never to set foot on Roman soil, and notes that “it would have been shameful and degrading” for the emperor to sign on Gothic territory. The two leaders met, therefore, in the middle of the Danube, on boats, to sign the peace treaty.

A fragment of Eunapius describes the war in slightly different terms (
fr
. 37). He suggests that the Gothic king had sent reinforcements to Procopius which arrived only after the defeat of the usurper. Eunapius believes that the war began when Valens seized these Goths and disarmed them, and that Valens’ foresight allowed him to bring the war to a successful end. Eunapius is not generally an admirer of Valens (
fr
. 39.9; Zos. 4.4.1), but as a civilian and a traditionalist, he was a great hater of barbarians. He denounces the Goths as arrogant and contemptuous, and states that they acted particularly outrageously since no one restrained them. After the emperor disarmed them, they shook their long hair insolently (
fr
. 37). He adds that the Goths were mocked by the Romans because they were excessively tall, seemed too heavy to stand, and were narrow at the waist like insects.

Gothic raids into the empire in the third century had brought back many slaves, including some who were Christian. Ulfila, a second- or third-generation descendant of such Christian captives, was consecrated in Antioch in 341 as bishop of the Goths. Gothic persecution of Christians in the 340s forced Ulfila and his followers to flee to Roman territory, where he was active as a writer and evangelist until his death in 383. Trilingual in Gothic, Latin, and Greek, Ulfila invented a Gothic script in order to translate the Bible into his native tongue. Ulfila and his followers adhered to the predominant homoiousian (“Arian”) Christianity of his time, with fateful results for the future, for when the Goths and other Germans converted to Christianity, their beliefs were heretical in the eyes of the Roman state after Theodosius I. The extent to which Christianity
had penetrated Gothic society prior to the major crossing of the Goths into Roman territory in 376 is unclear (Thompson 1963; Heather 1986; Lenski 1995). It was considered enough of a threat that, following the peace treaty signed by Valens and Athanaric, Athanaric launched a second persecution of Gothic Christians, who were seen as supporters of Rome and whose faith undermined tribal authority.

Constantine’s Gothic victory is portrayed in Socrates as resulting in the conversion of many Goths to Christianity (1.18.4), and Sozomen even more extravagantly claims that the Goths had long been Christianized by the age of Constantine, attributing their conversion to the presence of priests among the Gothic captives of the third century (2.6). When Sozomen returns to the subject, however, he appears to contradict his earlier statement, suggesting that most Goths were pagan before they entered the empire (6.37). Socrates pinpoints a crucial moment in the conversion of the Goths in the 370s, when a faction of Goths under Fritigern received help from Valens in a Gothic civil war and embraced Christianity in gratitude (4.33). Sozomen’s less coherent account of these events locates them on Roman territory and therefore after 376 (6.37.7).

All three Greek church historians discuss Ulfila and provide explanations for Gothic Arianism. For Socrates, the conversion under Valens suffices to explain why the Goths were not orthodox, and he hastens to point out that many Goths, although Arian, acquitted themselves nobly under persecution in Gothic territory and were martyred. Socrates therefore does not attribute Gothic Arianism to Ulfila’s personal beliefs (4.33.5). Although Sozomen also blames the original Arianism of the Goths on Valens, he adds that he does not find this sufficient explanation for the continuing lack of Gothic orthodoxy up to his own day (6.37.8–14). Ulfila’s example was very strong among the Goths, Sozomen suggests, and he was personally converted to Arian beliefs at Constantinople, either from conviction or because he was told that it would help his position at the imperial court. Theodoret’s account is shorter, but dramatizes the same themes which Sozomen had raised (4.37). His Ulfila was originally orthodox, but was convinced by Eudoxius of Antioch to convert and to lead his people to Arianism. Eudoxius convinces Ulfila by the force of his eloquence, which Theodoret suggests a simple Goth could not withstand, as well as with bribes.

Sozomen relates several martyr stories from the persecution of Athanaric, including the killing of women and children in the burning down of a Gothic church, which was inside a tent
(6.37.14). Orosius too remarks on the persecution, noting that there were many barbarian martyrdoms (7.32.9). His claim that many came as refugees to Roman soil, where they lived in peace with Romans as brothers, supports his argument that the distinction between barbarian and Roman has become less important than the distinction between Christian and pagan.

Peace between Romans and Goths did not last long. In the 370s a band of Huns from the east conquered the Alans of the Caucasus Mountains and subjected the eastern Goths to their rule. In 376, the Gothic leader Fritigern requested of Valens that he and his followers be permitted to settle on Roman territory. The reception of large numbers of barbarians into the empire was not new. Such peoples had been accepted under various conditions of submission as tenant farmers or freeholders, who owed taxes or military service to the empire. The Goths under Fritigern appear to have been granted the right to settle as free people, but were obligated to provide some military service, and perhaps were encouraged to convert to Christianity as a guarantee of their loyalty (Heather 1986).

Trouble broke out as the Goths crossed the river. Food supplies were inadequate because of Roman incompetence and corruption. With the emperor and his army in the east, Roman forces rapidly lost control of the migration, and Gothic warbands began devastating Thrace. Although Roman forces tried to prevent the onslaught, more Goths came across the river. In August 378, Valens met the Goths in battle and was killed at Adrianople in a tremendous Roman defeat which left the Balkans at the mercy of the Goths. Because Ammianus’ history comes to an end with this battle, the depth of our knowledge of events declines precipitously. It is clear that the eastern parts of the empire suffered through several difficult years, until Gratian and the new emperor Theodosius managed to sign a peace treaty with the Goths in October 382.