Palestine, following the reduction of the Jewish…

The first barbarian group to formally enter Roman territory—in 376, as refugees from the Huns—had been the Visigoths, or Tervingi, one of two main branches of the Goths, an East Germanic tribe, the Ostrogoths, or Greuthingi, being the other.

The Goths had remained in Dacia until 376, when one of their leaders, Fritigern, had appealed to the Roman emperor Valens to be allowed to settle with his people on the south bank of the Danube, where they hoped to find refuge from the Huns.

Valens permitted this, tolerating their presence on condition that they defend the Danube frontier.

However, a famine had broken out and Rome had been unwilling to supply them with either the food they had been promised or the land.

Open revolt had ensued, leading to six years of plundering and destruction throughout the Balkans, and in 378, the decisive moment of the Gothic War, the death of a Roman Emperor and the destruction of an entire Roman army in the Battle of Adrianople, which had shocked the Roman world and eventually forced the new emperor, Theodosius, to make peace with the rebels in 382 and permit them to settle within the imperial boundaries with a large degree of autonomy.

The new trend of settlement within the Empire will have far-reaching consequences that will result in the eventual fall of the Roman Empire.

Coexisting peacefully with the Romans, farming and trading agricultural products and enslaved people for luxury goods, the Visigoths break their eight-year peace with the Empire by allying with the Huns in 390 to ravage Thrace.

Theodosius, another emperor to adorn the Hippodrome, brings an obelisk from Egypt in 390 and erects it inside the racing track.

Carved from pink granite, it had originally been erected at the Temple of Karnak in Luxor during the reign of Tuthmosis III in about 1490 BCE.

Theodosius has had the obelisk cut into three pieces and brought to Constantinople.

(Only the top section survives, and it stands today where Theodosius placed it, on a marble pedestal.

The obelisk has survived nearly thirty-five hundred years in astonishingly good condition.)

The year 390 also sees the death of the Paphlagonian-born diplomat, rhetorician and philosopher Themistius, a teacher at Constantinople, where, apart from a short sojourn in Rome, he has resided all his life.

Though a pagan, he had been admitted to the senate by Constantius II in 355, and had been prefect of Constantinople in 384 on the nomination of Theodosius.

Themistius's paraphrases of Aristotle's chief cosmological treatise On the Heavens ("De Caelo") and of book twelve of the Metaphysics have reached us only through Hebrew versions.

In philosophy, Themistius is an eclectic, maintaining that Plato and Aristotle are in substantial agreement, that God has made men free to adopt the mode of worship they prefer, and that Christianity and Hellenism are merely two forms of the one universal religion.

The province of Palaestina has undergone several territorial changes in the fourth century CE although the details and the chronology remain obscure.

The governor of Prima bears the high rank of proconsul from 382 to 385 (and again from 535 onward).

A dux of Palestine commands the garrison of all three provinces.

The bishop of the civil capital, Caesarea, is, according to the usual rule, metropolitan of the province, but …

…the bishops of Jerusalem had claimed special prerogatives as early as the Council of Nicaea.

Theodosius, to safeguard Greece after a series of raids by the Goths, had stationed a large number of troops under General Butheric in Thessalonika, a city that had never been a garrison town.

The Thessalonians resent having to maintain the army, and tensions mount as quarrels between the soldiers and the citizens increase in number.

The trouble comes to a head in the summer of 390 when a popular charioteer makes a sexual advance to one of Butheric's attendants.

The general, taking the incident as a personal insult, has the charioteer thrown into prison.

When a mob gathers to protest the confinement of one of their favorite athletes, the demonstration degenerates into a riot in which Butheric is killed.

In retaliation for the murder of his general, Theodosius looses his troops on the city, making no attempt to sort the guilty from the innocent.

In the space of only three hours, seven thousand men, women, and children are massacred.

Jin general Liu Laozhi attacks Zhai Liao in autumn 390, capturing Juancheng (in modern Puyang, Henan), forcing Zhai Liao's son Zhai Zhao, who is in charge of the city, to flee, and next …

…defeats Zhai Liao near his capital, Huatai, but does not destroy Wei.

Ambrose, a gifted preacher, employs allegorical interpretations of Scripture and blends Christian persuasion with Stoic ethics.

A strong opponent of Arianism and paganism and a staunch champion of the independence of the church against the Roman state, he has the Emperor's action condemned in a church council and bids him do public penance to atone for his massacre of the Thessalonikans.

After a prolonged hesitation, Theodosius complies with the order and is readmitted to communion at Christmas 390.

Goguryeo, surrounded by the powerful forces of Baekje to its south and west, is therefore inclined to avoid conflict with its peninsular neighbor while cultivating constructive relations with the Xianbei and Rouran in order to defend itself from future invasions, and even the possible destruction of its state.

Gwanggaeto succeeds his father, King Gogukyang, upon his death in 391.

Immediately upon being crowned king of Goguryeo, Gwanggaeto grants himself the title Emperor Yeongnak, affirming himself as equal to the rulers of China and the king of Baekje.

He now begins to rebuild and retrain Goguryeo's cavalry units and naval fleet.

Zhai Liao dies in 391 and is succeeded by his son Zhai Zhao as the Heavenly Prince of Wei.

Zhai Zhao soon attempts to attack Later Yan's important city Yecheng, but is repelled by Murong Chui's son Murong Nong.