Stilicho's Wars with the Visigoths

The Visigoths, following their sack of Rome in 410, eventually coexist peacefully with the Romans, farming and trading agricultural products and enslaved people for luxury goods.

They adopt many elements of Roman culture, some becoming literate in Latin.

The Western Roman Empire wields negligible military, political, or financial power by the time that the barbarian general Odoacer deposes the Emperor Romulus in 476, and has no effective control over the scattered Western domains that still describe themselves as Roman.

The Western Empire's legitimacy will last for centuries and its cultural influence remains today, but it will never have the strength to rise again.

Theodosius marches west in May 394 to suppress the revolution.

As in 388, he will make his way toward the Danube and then the Sava with his powerful army.

His force consists largely of barbarians and their allies, one of whose leaders is the German-born Roman general Flavius Stilicho, who in 385 had been appointed count of the domestics (commanding the Emperor's household troops) and in or before 393 had been named master of both services (i.e., commander in chief of the army).

Following Stilicho’s service on an embassy to the Persian king Shapur III, Theodosius had in 384 arranged the marriage of his favorite niece Serena, whom he had adopted as his daughter, to Stilicho, then an upcoming military officer, ensuring his loyalty to the House of Theodosius in the years ahead.

Stilicho has become the enemy of Rufinus, a native of Gaul who had risen to the rank of praetorian prefect of Illyricum, because of a difference of opinion about the treatment of some barbarian invaders in 389.

Theodosius' sons Arcadius and Honorius stay behind in the capital.

Arcadius, who had been given the right to promulgate laws independently, is supposed to direct the government in the East.

Theodosius first meets the forces of the usurper Eugenius, commanded by Arbogast, at the Frigidus River (modern Vipava River) on the eastern border of Italy, between Aquileia and Emona.

Theodosius' advance guard, composed almost entirely of Visigoth federates under Alaric on September 5, 394, suffers heavy losses during an attempted breakthrough and is only saved by nightfall.

The emperor ventures to attack the following day, however, and is victorious, due chiefly to the brilliant tactics of Stilicho.

The Battle of the Frigidus is part of a trend towards using increasing percentages of barbarian troops, especially in the west, where it will led to the weakening of the empire itself.

Eugenius had represented the last opportunity for the Pagans and the senatorial class to oppose the Christianization of the Empire.

Arbogast commits suicide immediately after the defeat, as does Nicomachus Flavianus, while Eugenius is held for execution as a criminal, his head afterward being displayed in Theodosius' camp.

Theodosius following the deaths of these three shows himself lenient and strives to achieve the settlement between opposing forces that is necessary to strengthen imperial unity.

He promotes Stilicho to generalissimo.

The peace between the Visigoths and the Roman Empire has held essentially unbroken, but the serious loss of military manpower in the Gothic War has forced the Roman Empire to rely much more on foederati, of whom the Goths are the largest contingent.

They have adopted many elements of Roman culture, some becoming literate in Latin.

The Goths living in Lower Moesia have meanwhile been converted to Arian Christianity, apparently during the past dozen years.

Following the death of Theodosius on January 17, 395, a few days after his forty-eighth birthday, the Visigothic mercenaries, having suffered severe losses in the campaign against Eugenius and considering their treaty of 382 to have ended with the emperor’s' death, renounce their allegiance to the empire and rebel under the leadership of their chieftain Alaric, who had begun his career leading a band of Gothic foederati.

Alaric charges that his tribe has not been given subsidies promised by the Romans; …

…the Visigoths, taking military advantage of the division between the Empire’s two halves, begin to devastate Thrace, marching eastward toward Constantinople until Roman forces divert them.

They now turn westward to ravage Macedonia.

Theodosius had appeared to recover; his sudden death is generally unexpected.

On his deathbed, he had entrusted Stilicho with the care of his son Honorius in the West, and maintaining unity with the East, which had been entrusted to Arcadius, for whom Rufinus is appointed guardian.

The empire is now officially divided into its Greek (east) and Latin (west) component parts; most of the Balkans fall in the eastern portion.

This had happened many times before in the previous two centuries, but this time it is to be final—the Roman Empire will never reunite, and the Western half will soon fall.

However, from Ambrose's funeral oration, filled with praise of the Christian ruler, it is evident that contemporaries have no doubt as to the continuing unity of the empire, for the question of succession seems to have been settled in the best possible way.

The two regents become enemies at once.

Stilicho has the military advantage, for the army Theodosius had assembled to crush the usurper Eugenius is still concentrated in the West under Stilicho's command.

Stilicho, claiming for the Western government the prefecture of Illyricum, which is disputed between the brother-emperors Arcadius and Honorius, goes with his army to Thessaly.

About to engage Alaric there, however, he receives orders from the weak-willed Arcadius, who acts on Rufinus' advice, to send a number of his troops to Constantinople.

In apparent (or pretended) compliance with the order, Stilicho obeys, cutting short the campaign and giving Alaric's marauding Visigoths the run of the peninsula.

The capture of the empire has begun.

The body of Theodosius is borne in state to Constantinople and interred in the mausoleum erected by Constantius II.

It soon becomes apparent that Theodosius had not chosen his advisers with sufficient care and that the men who are guiding the sickly Arcadius are unwilling to cooperate with Stilicho, who remains loyal to the dynasty.

The Eastern leaders soon reject Stilicho's tutelage.

An antibarbarian reaction has developed in Constantinople, which impedes the objectives of the half-Vandal Stilicho.

Rufinus seeks to strengthen his political position by marrying his only daughter to Arcadius, but the corrupt chamberlain, the eunuch Eutropius, prevents the marriage.

Instead, the youthful emperor is married on April 27, 395, to Aelia Eudocia, the sister of the late Arbogast and daughter of the late Flavius Bauto, the Romanized Frankish general who had served as magister militum of the Western Roman Empire.

The ambitious Gothic leader Gainas, who had begun his military career as a common foot-soldier, but had later commanded the barbarian contingent of Theodosius' army against the usurper Eugenius in 394, combines his forces with those of Stilicho and Eutropius to bring about the fall of Rufinus.

When the imperial army, under the command of the Gainas, reaches the capital city in late November 395 and unexpectedly murders Rufinus, Eutropius, as Arcadius' palace chamberlain, or cubicularius, becomes the most powerful man in the Eastern Empire.