Theodosius I, Emperor of Rome

Theodosius I was born in Spain on 11^th January 347. His father, also called Theodosius, was a general who was involved in the campaign to restore Britain to the Empire after the “Great Conspiracy” of 367. It is quite likely that the younger Theodosius accompanied him on this campaign. It is certainly the case that he learned a great deal about the arts of war from his father.

The elder Theodosius was later involved in a rigged trial in which he was unjustly accused of treason and then executed in 376. It was possibly for this reason, as a way of making amends, that Emperor Gratian appointed the younger Theodosius to take military control of Illyricum after the death of Valens, who was Gratian’s co-Emperor.

Theodosius had no experience of senior command but was clearly a fast learner. He allowed himself to be declared Eastern Emperor in January 379, which was not actually unwelcome news to Gratian, whose officials offered Theodosius all the help he needed. Being in charge of the Eastern Empire was clearly going to be a difficult job, after what had happened to Valens, and anyone who was willing to do it was welcome to do so.

However, it was not possible for him to claim the throne in any realistic sense until the problem of the Goths had been settled. He therefore decided to set up court in Thessalonica rather than Constantinople so that he could keep an eye on both the northern and eastern frontiers.

Theodosius continued to benefit from assistance from Gratian’s generals up until the treaty of 382 that Theodosius struck with the Goths. This gave them lands in the Balkans, to be governed by their own chiefs, in return for giving service, when required, to the Roman forces in the east. The effect of this treaty was, far from the Goths becoming staunch allies of Rome, that they were henceforth mere pawns in the power struggles between different parts of the Roman bureaucratic machine.

Despite the generosity that Gratian had shown to Theodosius, when the former faced problems of his own Theodosius did not rush to his aid. Indeed, when Magnus Maximus invaded Gaul from Britain in 383, Theodosius responded by recognising Maximus’s claim to be Emperor of Britain, Gaul, and Spain. However, Maximus then invaded Italy in 386, sending the young co-Emperor Valentinian II (then aged 15) into exile in Theodosius’s part of the Empire. Theodosius responded by attacking Maximus, who was captured and executed near Aquileia. Valentinian was restored to power, but only nominally, with Theodosius being the only Emperor that mattered.

Theodosius made use of the services of marshals to mop up any further resistance, one of these being the Frankish general Arbogast, who placed Valentinian under house arrest at Vienne. When Valentinian tried to depose Arbogast, he paid with his life.

In 390, while Theodosius was in Milan, a riot broke out in Thessalonica and several officials were killed. Theodosius sent an army of Goths eastwards to take revenge on the city. The people were tricked into gathering in the circus where they were massacred, with at least 7,000 people being killed. This act led St Ambrose to rebuke Theodosius and demand that he acknowledge his guilt, which he did in front of the whole congregation in the church at Milan. The Emperor was excommunicated for eight months.

Civil war broke out in 394 between Theodosius and Arbogast, which the former represented as a war between Christianity and paganism. Theodosius regarded his victory at the Battle of the Frigidus in September as being due to divine intervention in the form of a violent storm.

Theodosius died in January 395, having declared that his sons Arcadius (18) and Honorius (11) would rule jointly after him.

Theodosius was the last Emperor who could claim to rule the whole Empire. The split that followed between east and west placed the Balkan dioceses of Illyricum and Macedonia, which included the lands settled by the Goths after 382, in the west. The Goths therefore became a problem that only the Western Empire would have to face in future.

© John Welford