One—
Introduction

The purpose of this book is to reinterpret a famous episode in the reign of the emperor Arcadius—the Gothic rebellion and massacre of A.D. 399–400. The story has been told many times, always the same way. After all, one of our sources was written within months of the climactic events and by an eyewitness, the ambassador Synesius of Cyrene. He cast his story in the form of an edifying fiction, calling it Egyptians; or, On Providence . Scholars have always treated it as a thin disguise. They have translated Egyptian kings back into praetorian prefects and Egyptian Thebes back into Constantinople, and with relief passed over Neoplatonic sermonizing. With these adjustments they have credited all the details of Synesius's narrative, simply because he was a contemporary. But eyewitnesses do not always see clearly—or tell the truth.

The crisis was sprung by a combination of several tensions developing in the later Roman Empire. Arcadius's father, Theodosius I, had effected important transitions. In the wake of Valens's disastrous defeat by the Visigoths at Adrianople (378), Theodosius signed a treaty allowing Goths to settle in Roman territory under their own laws and chieftains. He outlawed both heresy (381) and paganism (391–92). Finally, on his unexpected death at Milan in January 395 the empire was divided between his two sons, never to be reunited.

Adrianople devastated the Eastern army that Theodosius inherited.

He could not expect to be able to challenge the Goths in open battle before rebuilding the Roman forces. Permitting the Goths to settle depopulated regions of the empire peacefully bought him much-needed time. Panegyrists like Themistius duly praised Theodosius's diplomatic clemency. Traditionalists deplored his "philobarbarism," though they were unable to propose workable alternatives for restoring Roman affairs.^[1] Theodosius encouraged Gothic settlers to enter Roman service individually; Gaïnas and Fravitta, two major actors in the narrative that follows, were among these recruits. Even within the structure of the army, however, the Goths' Arianism prevented full assimilation. And dangerously large numbers of Goths remained grouped together in the Danubian region, free to recreate Gothia inside Romania. Unless supplied with regular subsidies they turned to pillage. Theodosius's military abilities might have been able to contain the situation, had he lived longer. In fact, the moment he was dead the young chieftain Alaric began a career of revolt. For fifteen years he remained a thorn in the Roman side. In 410 he finally sacked Rome itself.

Every emperor since Constantine had accepted the Christian faith, with only the exception of Julian, whose sole reign was brief (361–63). Theodosius's two predecessors as Eastern emperor, Constantius II (337–61) and Valens (364–78), conspicuously favored the Church.^[2] Most Christian emperors discouraged but tolerated paganism. Theodosius broke off this tolerance. In 391–92 he issued a series of laws banning all forms of pagan worship. He forbade incense burning as well as animal sacrifice, in private as well as in public.^[3] This must be borne in mind when assessing the widespread modern belief that the Eastern court at the turn of the fifth century was led by a band of intellectuals sympathetic to paganism.

Constantius and Valens both actively supported Arianism, giving it an edge over Catholicism in the competition for the devotion of the East. Theodosius reversed this trend. From as early as 380 he issued a series of ferocious edicts enforcing orthodoxy for all his subjects. The emperor's own words betray his attitude better than any summary of his actions:

It is Our will that all the peoples who are ruled by the administration of Our Clemency shall practice that religion which the divine Peter the

[1] Pavan 1964, with Matthews 1966, 245–46.

[2] The best general account is Piganiol 1972.

[3] King 1960, 71–86; Lippold 1980, 45–51.

Apostle transmitted to the Romans . . . . The rest, whom We adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of Our own initiative.^[4]

It was not a tolerant age.

Moderns always note 395 as the year in which the Roman Empire was irrevocably divided. Contemporaries could scarcely have noticed or anticipated the significance of this demarcation. The empire had been divided between at least two emperors almost continuously since Diocletian (284–305).^[5] Valentinian and Valens ruled West and East respectively from 364. On Valentinian's death in 375 Gratian took over the West; Theodosius was appointed Valens's successor as emperor of the East in 379. It was only during the last four months of his life that Theodosius ruled as sole Augustus over a united empire.^[6] There is something disturbingly paradoxical about dating the final division of the empire four months after its final unification.

Since Theodosius had two sons, it was inevitable that sooner or later one would rule the West and the other the East.^[7] Nor was it simply the minority of Honorius or the incapacity of Arcadius that precipitated the crisis of the years following 395. With loyal and united ministers the empire had survived child emperors before. But when a pair of rois fainéants held separate courts, dividing the empire between them, the dynamics of the system changed.

In the West, the magister militum Stilicho claimed that with his dying breath Theodosius had appointed him regent of both his sons.^[8] There were no legal provisions for the minority of an Augustus, but Honorius

[4] Cod. Theod . 16.1.2 (28.ii.380), trans. C. Pharr; see Enßlin 1953; King 1960, 28f.; Lippold 1980, 21f.

[5] The exceptions are the sole rules of Constantine (324–37) and Julian and Jovian (361–64).

[6] That is to say, sole ruling Augustus; Arcadius and Honorius, though Augusti since 383 and 393 respectively, controlled no territory. For this distinction, see Palanque 1944, 48f., with Cameron in CLRE 13–16.

[7] Indeed, Theodosius marked his decision between them as early as 389, when he proclaimed Honorius Caesar in Rome. In 394 he left Arcadius in Constantinople and even before his fatal illness summoned Honorius, now Augustus, to Milan, where he clearly intended to leave him as nominal ruler of specified western provinces under the guidance of Stilicho (Cameron 1968a, 265f.). As Mommsen saw (1903, 101), Ambrose referred to this disposition when he said in his funeral oration for Theodosius that his will "de filiis . . . non habebat novum quod conderet" (De obitu Theod . 5).

[8] On the question of the regency, see Mommsen 1903, 101f. (= 1906, 516f.); Cameron 1968a, 276f., and 1970a, 39f.

was only ten and clearly in need of guidance. Stilicho was on the spot, in command of Theodosius's troops and related to the imperial family by his marriage to Theodosius's adopted daughter. The West had little option but to accept his claims. Not so the East. In civil law tutela ceased at the age of fourteen. Gratian had ruled the West at fifteen. Arcadius was eighteen. His ministers too had been installed by Theodosius and enjoyed his authority. It was not so much a question of belief in Stilicho's claims or their legitimacy: Arcadius's ministers, not unnaturally, wanted to play the role of regent themselves, in reality if not in name. The brother emperors were not in competition as the sons of Constantine had been, and their unity remained an ideal acclaimed by all. But the ministers of either emperor stood to lose their own authority if they accepted direction from their opposite numbers. Their rivalry parted the courts.

Among other consequences, this split prevented prompt or united action against Alaric, thereby exacerbating the Gothic danger. Other military crises were exploited by the opposing courts as weapons of rivalry. The Eastern court received the allegiance of Gildo when he led Africa in revolt from the West. Claudian's In Eutropium shows that Stilicho temporarily hoped to use the Gothic rebellion of 399 as an excuse to take over the East directly. Both groups of ministers took advantage of their emperors' inaction and doubtless encouraged it. Neither Arcadius nor Honorius ever attempted to exercise any personal control over affairs of state. Themes of late antique panegyric suggest that the two might have been redeemed before popular perception if they had ever led their own armies in the field, but this they also failed to do. Later generations remembered only the stories: that Arcadius could hardly keep his eyes open and Honorius thought of nothing but his chickens. The great Roman tradition of the soldier-emperor died with Theodosius. The political circumstances surrounding Theodosius's death marked out the lines along which power subsequently descended. In the West, Stilicho was the first in a long line of military dictators. In the East, power remained in the hands of civilians.

Contemporaries spoke of these ministers as all-powerful, and modern historians have tended to write of rule from behind the throne. It makes a convenient shorthand, but it oversimplifies the structures of power at the individual courts. No later Roman emperor or chief minister oversaw all the details of his administration, though of course some involved themselves more closely on individual issues (Arcadius and Honorius mark a low point of imperial involvement). The routine gov-

ernment of the empire was conducted by a large and stable bureaucracy divided into separate branches, each presided over by its own head. The heads normally held office for only a few years, but their staffs consisted of permanent civil servants. Policy decisions were reached in the emperor's consistory, at which the bureau heads and other high officials and court favorites presented their various recommendations and points of view. Even when an emperor was pressured into making decisions elsewhere, perhaps by his wife or a favorite eunuch, the decisions might still be challenged in the consistory: for example, by the counts of the sacred or private largesses, who would have to provide any funds required. Even the proposals of powerful prefects might be thwarted by other members of the consistory.^[9]

When Theodosius marched against the Western usurper Eugenius in 394, he left his praetorian prefect Rufinus as "guardian" (epitropos )^[10] of the inexperienced Arcadius. Given Arcadius's age, the relationship must have been intended purely informally, as a seal on Rufinus's authority. When Theodosius died, Rufinus took charge. The main basis of his power was undoubtedly his prefecture. The PPO had long been in effect vice-emperor:^[11] though he no longer commanded troops, he had a treasury of his own, was paymaster general of all civil and military employees, and controlled conscription of troops; he appointed provincial governors, sat as a court of final appeal, and ruled with the force of law. Having been magister officiorum for nearly five years before reaching the prefecture,^[12] Rufinus must have intimately understood the bureaucracy. He must also have picked many key officials on whose loyalty he could count.

Nevertheless, he did not enjoy power long. On 18 November he was lynched by the troops of the barbarian comes Gaïhas during a ceremonial reception at which it was later alleged Rufinus was planning to proclaim

[9] Jones 1964a, 339–40. Jill Harries draws our attention to Theodosius II, Nov . 18, which shows a prefect circumventing financial objections to a proposal of his own prohibiting prostitution in Constantinople. But this is not to say that the members of the consistory ever "acquired sufficient esprit de corps to pursue a consistent and independent policy," as Jones rightly emphasized (340); that is to say, the consistory could hardly be described as a government.

[10] Eunap. frags. 62, 63; John Ant. frags. 188, 190.

[11] PPO is a convenient ancient acronym, P(raefectus) P(raetori)O. As regards the PPO's status as vice-emperor, Cod. Theod . 11.30.16 of 331 formally states that the PPO may hold court vice sacra , that is to say, in the emperor's stead. For a convenient summary tabulation of the various powers of the PPO, see Levy 1935, 12–14; for more detail, see Jones 1964a, 448–62.

[12] On Rufinus's career see PLRE 1.778–81; Clauss 1980, 197–99.

himself Arcadius's co-emperor. But immediately, as Claudian described it to his Western audience,

Rufini castratus prosilit heres.

Rufinus's castrated heir leaps forth.
(In Eutr . 2.550)

That is to say, the man who succeeded to Rufinus's position as Arcadius's chief minister was the grand chamberlain Eutropius, a eunuch. Eutropius had been working against Rufinus for some time. Rufinus had planned to marry his own daughter to Arcadius, but Eutropius contrived to interest him in a candidate of his own, Eudoxia, daughter of the Frankish general Bauto. According to Zosimus (5.3), Rufinus had no idea his plans had been foiled until the imperial carriage drew up outside Eudoxia's house instead of his own. This is an early example of the intrigue for which the word Byzantine was to become proverbial. Once Rufinus was dead, Eutropius exercised his influence over Arcadius openly.

Contemporaries perceived Eutropius as wielding virtually absolute power between late 395 and mid-399. The basis of this power was the proximity to the emperor that his position gave him, combined with the ability to control the access of others.^[13] But he cannot have found it as easy to control the imperial bureaucracy. He may always have been able to count on Arcadius's support when necessary, but Arcadius did not himself deal with the day-to-day details of administration. What Eutropius needed was allies among the actual administrators. It was the magister officiorum Hosius (allegedly a former cook) to whom he turned. The magister officiorum was only slightly less powerful than the PPO: he controlled the entire palace staff, including the state police, the palace guards, and embassies both internal and external, and was especially active in religious affairs.^[14] Claudian describes the pair holding court:

considunt apices gemini dicionis Eoae,
hic coquus, hic leno.

Here they sit, twin rulers of the East,
he's a cook, he's a pander.
(In Eutr . 2.350–51)

From the legal sources we know that two men held the praetorian prefecture during Eutropius's ascendancy, Caesarius (395–97) and Eu-

[13] In general see Hopkins 1978, 172–96.

[14] See Clauss 1980.

tychian (397–99), consuls respectively in 397 and 398. Were they, like Hosius, Eutropius's creatures? The fact that both returned to the prefecture soon after Eutropius's fall, Caesarius in 400–403, Eutychian in 404–5, does not suggest that either was seriously compromised by holding office under Eutropius. Perhaps Eutropius was able to rely on his personal ascendancy over Arcadius to override the informal influence a PPO could normally count on exercising. He had the magister officiorum in his pocket to help neutralize any opposition from the other ministers.^[15]

There has been a tendency in recent studies (those of S. Mazzarino, E. Demougeot, and E. P. Gluschanin) to treat all legislation issued during, say, the ascendancy of Eutropius as directly reflecting his personal policies. But no favorite, however influential, could treat the consistory as a rubber stamp. We have to reckon with the likelihood that on particular issues even a Eutropius would find it prudent to acquiesce in being outvoted rather than spend his personal credit on appealing to the emperor. It is anachronistic in any case to suppose that any late Roman politician even attempted to impose a consistent social and economic policy on his administration, and much legislation that he supported in the consistory would have been initiated by others.

Eutropius's real Achilles' heel was in the military sphere, and he took drastic measures to protect it.^[16] Of the two generals at court (magistri militum praesentales ), Stilicho was now in the West, and the other, Timasius, Eutropius had exiled. He also exiled Abundantius, magister militum of Illyricum. None of the three were replaced. From 395 to 397 Illyricum was abandoned to the depredations of the renegade Goth Alaric. Eventually Eutropius solved that problem by appointing Alaric himself to the vacant post of MVM in Illyricum.^[17]

In effect Eutropius took over the supreme command himself. In 398 he led a successful expedition against the Huns. But ambitious officers denied advancement by this policy naturally were resentful. Chief among these were Gaïnas, unrewarded for his role in the death of Rufinus, and another Goth, the comes Tribigild. In 399 Tribigild rebelled in Phrygia, and this time Eutropius decided against taking command himself. Gaïnas was at last given his chance, but with a colleague, Eutropius's protégé Leo. Leo was disastrously defeated; Gaïnas exploited the situation to his

[15] The unfounded modern hypothesis that Eutropius divided the prefecture between two men to weaken its power will be discussed more fully in chapter 5.

[16] Jones's claim (1964a, 177–78) that the scheme of five Eastern magistri militum attested by the Notitia dignitatum is the work of Eutropius is not borne out by the other evidence; see Demandt 1970, 726–39; and further below, p. 225 n. 122.

[17] MVM = M(agister) V(triusqe) M(ilitiae).

own ends. He wrote to court saying that Tribigild was too strong for him and it would be better to come to terms, Tribigild's terms being that Eutropius be deposed. Unluckily for Eutropius these events coincided with a rift between himself and Eudoxia, who added her protests to those of Gaïnas. Arcadius finally gave way. Eutropius was deposed and sent in exile to Cyprus.

With Eutropius fell Hosius and the PPO Eutychian. No new magister officiorum is recorded, but the prefecture went to Aurelian, who had already held the prefecture of Constantinople in 393–94. A few weeks later he had Eutropius recalled from exile, and presided at a tribunal that condemned the eunuch to death. Aurelian's position in subsequent events confirms the obvious implication of Synesius's allegory in De providentia , that as praetorian prefect he was now the emperor's chief minister: thanks to its structural importance, the prefecture was able to recover its influence once Eutropius fell. Little else is known of Aurelian's short ministry, but he evidently failed to solve the problem of Gaïnas and Tribigild. Gaïnas wanted legitimation of his command and honors appropriate to his rank and services. In particular, he wanted to be consul, like so many of the great marshals of Theodosius before him.^[18] Receiving no satisfaction, he decided to force Arcadius's hand once more. In April 400 he marched to Chalcedon at the head of his army and demanded to see Arcadius there in person. The terrified emperor complied. This time Gaïnas demanded the surrender of Aurelian, together with Saturninus, a veteran general, and John, a favorite of the empress. Arcadius yielded again.

Gaïnas was now master of the situation, but he did not know how to use it. Caesarius was reappointed to the prefecture; Arcadius agreed to designate Gaïnas as consul for the following January. But the presence of his Goths about the city roused apprehension and resentment. Gaïnas responded to the growing tensions by ordering his men to evacuate Constantinople on 12 July. Fear spread that he was planning to sack and burn the city. Panic erupted. In a wild riot, Roman civilians fell on the Goths still within the city walls, burning alive many thousands of Goths in a church where they had fled for asylum.

Once more, Gaïnas did not know what to do. After a few days of unsatisfactory negotiations, he withdrew to Thrace and was declared a public enemy. By this time the MVM per Orientem , Fravitta, another Goth, had arrived and was dispatched after him. A sea battle ensued in which Gaïnas was heavily defeated. He retreated to Thrace again, where

[18] All these points will be justified in detail below.

he was cut off and killed by a band of Huns. Caesarius remained in the prefecture till 403, when he was succeeded briefly by Eutychian (404–5) before the long tenure of Anthemius, who held power till 414.

A dazzling series of poems by Stilicho's propagandist Claudian brilliantly illuminates the rivalry between the courts from the Western side.^[19] On the intrigues of the Eastern court we are much less well informed. But it is possible to flesh out the bare bones of the narrative with the testimony of Synesius, a contemporary and participant in these events.^[20] His De regno , formally an address to Arcadius attacking dependence on barbarians, and De providentia , an allegorized account of Gaïnas's coup in 400, have been held to document a bitter struggle between two parties that split the court after the fall of Eutropius. Caesarius is believed to have led a party of barbarophiles, committed to Theodosius's policy of filling the empty Roman legions with barbarians. Opposing them (it is held) were Caesarius's brother Aurelian and the nationalists, who were anxious to reduce this dangerous dependence on unreliable foreigners. Gaïnas's coup of April 400 is said to have been planned by Caesarius, as revenge on his brother for having been preferred to him for the prefecture. But the July massacre revealed the fiercely Roman sentiments of the populace. Thus vindicated, Aurelian was soon recalled to power, and a general purge of barbarians followed. The influential chapter in Otto Seeck's history (1913) is called "The Victory of Anti-Germanism."

This picture rests entirely on a misinterpretation and misdating of Synesius's two works. It was A. Güldenpenning (1885) who first put forward the theory of pro- and anti-German parties; four years later J. B. Bury described this as "perhaps the most valuable part of [Güldenpenning's] work."^[21] But it was Seeck who worked the idea out in detail (1894, 1913, 1914), on the basis of a new, unhappily false chronology. Seeck considered that Synesius arrived at Constantinople in 399 and left in 402, that on the fall of Gaïnas in 400 Caesarius was disgraced, and that in 402–4 Aurelian was restored to power and the prefecture and completed the "de-Germanization" of the Eastern empire.

In 1931 K. Zakrzewski broadened the scope of these parties. For him it was not just the barbarian question that divided the court. He claimed that Aurelian was the leader of a nationalist movement that wanted to

[19] Fully elucidated by Cameron 1970a; for a more recent attempt to cover the same ground, Döpp 1980.

[20] He was not merely an eyewitness, as modern historians like to style him.

[21] Bury 1889, 90 n. 1.

restore the empire of the Antonines in every sphere. He identified Synesius as the propagandist of this movement. He also argued that it had a religious, as well as a political, dimension. The nationalists' creed was Neoplatonism and, he believed, they were either actively pagan or nominally Christian, but in any case sympathetic to Hellenism and the old ways.

These views have dominated later research, notably the important studies of Mazzarino (1942) and Demougeot (1951). K. Holum (1982) was skeptical about the pro- and anti-German parties but succumbed to the idea of a Hellenist party sympathetic to paganism. G. Albert (1984) was skeptical of both antibarbarian and propagan movements; Gluschanin, reexamining Theodosius's Gothic policy, has also questioned the antibarbarian thesis. But since neither made any attempt to reexamine Seeck's chronology or to reconsider De regno or De providentia , neither has come any nearer a satisfactory interpretation of Synesius or of the political situation.

This book attempts to show that Seeck's chronology and interpretation are alike mistaken. The only fixed point in the chronology of Synesius's life and works is the earthquake during which he ended his three-year stay in Constantinople. Seeck thought he could fix this date to 402, and so great is his authority in such matters that everyone acquiesced. But this is one of the rare occasions when Seeck erred. Contemporary evidence he misunderstood shows that the relevant earthquake must in fact be dated to 400. As a consequence, both De regno and De providentia must be dated two years earlier. Inevitably the events to which they allude have to be differently identified and assessed. Even on the later date, there is no evidence in De regno or elsewhere for pro- and antibarbarian parties. What De regno does document is hostility to Eutropius's handling of the problem of Alaric and Illyricum in 397. De providentia does not describe a "victory of anti-Germanism," since no such victory was ever won, nor indeed was such a battle ever joined. The barbarian crisis of these years took a different form. It is not that there was no antibarbarian sentiment; rather, since there was no pro -barbarian party, there was no antibarbarian party . Aurelian was not restored to power on Gaïnas's defeat at the end of 400. There was no purge of barbarians.

Chapters 5–7 provide the first attempt to analyze De providentia as a whole on its own terms, revealing it to be a far more subtle, complex, and deceitful work than has been appreciated hitherto. The self-consciously enigmatic complexities with which Synesius has wrought it have misled modern historians to mistake for facts the optimistic inter-

pretations he presented to his contemporaries. We have also included an annotated translation of De providentia in chapter 9. We hope thus to facilitate study of a complex work written in extraordinarily difficult Greek. In chapter 4 we discuss De regno and its true significance. Chapters 2–3 reassess the Hellenism of Synesius and Aurelian. For all Synesius's enthusiasm for Greek philosophy and culture, he was in fact an orthodox, if unconventional, Christian. Aurelian was the disciple of an ascetic monk and a stern persecutor of heretics.

In short, there emerges an entirely new picture of the crisis of the year 400.