A History of Rome to 565 A. D.

by Arthur E. R. Boak

VI. The Survival of the Empire in the East

Arcadius, 395–408 A. D. The year of the death of Theodosius the Great saw the Asiatic provinces of the empire overrun by the Huns who ravaged Syria and Asia Minor, while the Visigoths under Alaric devastated the Balkan peninsula. The absence of the eastern troops in Italy prevented the government from offering any effective opposition to either foe. And when Stilicho came to the rescue from Italy and was holding the Visigoths in check, his rival the praetorian prefect Rufinus, who directed the policy of the young Arcadius, induced the emperor to order Stilicho to withdraw and sent the troops of the East to Constantinople. This order resulted in the death of Rufinus, who was killed by the returning soldiery at the orders of their commander, the Goth Gaïnas.

The influential position of Rufinus at the court fell to the grand-chamberlain Eutropius, who had been an enemy of the late prefect. He had induced Arcadius to marry Eudoxia, daughter of a Frankish chief, instead of the daughter of Rufinus, as the latter had desired. The fall of Eutropius was brought about by Gaïnas, now a master of the soldiers, who sought to play the rôle of Stilicho in the East. He was supported by the empress Eudoxia, who chafed under the domination of the chamberlain. In 399 on the occasion of a revolt of the Gothic troops in Phrygia, Gaïnas held aloof and the failure of the nominee of Eutropius to crush the movement gave him the opportunity to bring about the latter’s dismissal and eventually his death.

But Gaïnas did not long retain his power. He quarrelled with the empress, and the Arianism of himself and his followers roused the animosity of the population of the capital. A massacre of the Goths in Constantinople followed and with the aid of a loyal Goth Fravitta, Gaïnas was driven north of the Danube where he was slain by the Huns (400 A. D.). The influence of Eudoxia was now paramount. However, she found a critic in the eloquent bishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom, who inveighed against the extravagance and dissipation of the society of the court, and directed his censures towards the empress in particular. Ultimately, Eudoxia was able to [pg 363]have him deposed from his see in 404 A. D., a few months before his death. Four years later Arcadius himself died, leaving the empire to his eight-year-old son Theodosius II.

Theodosius II, 408–450 A. D. At the opening of the reign of Theodosius II the government was in the hands of the praetorian prefect Anthemius, who had shown himself an able administrator during the last years of Arcadius. However, in 414, the emperor’s elder sister, Pulcheria, was made regent with the title of Augusta. She was a strong personality and for many years completely dominated the emperor who was lacking in independence of character and energy. In 421 Pulcheria selected as a wife for Theodosius, Athenais, the daughter of an Athenian sophist, who took the name of Eudocia upon accepting Christianity. After a lapse of some years differences arose between the empress and her sister-in-law which led to the latter’s withdrawal from the court (after 431 A. D.). But, about 440, Eudocia lost her influence over the emperor; she was compelled to retire from Constantinople and reside in Jerusalem, where she lived until her death in 460. The reins of power then passed to the grand chamberlain Chrysapius, whose corrupt administration rivalled that of his predecessor Eutropius.

During the reign of Theodosius II the peace of the eastern empire was broken by a war with Persia and by inroads of the Huns. The Persian war which began in 421 as a result of persecutions of the Christians in Persia was brought to a victorious conclusion in the next year. A second war, the result of a Persian invasion in 441, ended with a Persian defeat in 442. But with the Huns the Romans were not so fortunate. In 434, king Rua, the ruler of the Huns in the plains of Hungary, had extorted from the empire the payment of an annual tribute to secure immunity from invasion. At the accession of Attila and his brother in 433, this tribute was raised to 700 pounds of gold and the Romans were forbidden to give shelter to fugitives from the power of the Huns. But the payment of tribute failed to win a permanent respite, for Attila was bent on draining the wealth of the empire and reducing it to a condition of helplessness. In 441–43 the Huns swarmed over the Balkan provinces and defeated the imperial armies. An indemnity of 6000 pounds of gold was exacted and the annual payment increased to 2100 pounds. Another disastrous raid occurred in 447. The empire could offer no resistance, and so Chrysapius plotted the assassination of Attila, but the [pg 364]plot was detected. Attila claimed to regard himself as the overlord of Theodosius.

In 438 there was published the Theodosian code, a collection of imperial edicts which constituted the administrative law of the empire, and which was accepted in the West as well as in the East. Theodosius died in 450, without having made any arrangements for a successor.

Marcian, 450–57 A. D. The officials left the choice of a new emperor to the Augusta Pulcheria. She selected Marcian, a tried officer, to whom she gave her hand in formal marriage. Marcian proved himself an able and conscientious ruler. He refused to continue the indemnity to Attila, and was able to adhere to this policy owing to the latter’s invasion of the West and subsequent death. It was he who permitted the Ostrogoths to settle as foederati in Pannonia (454 A. D.).

Leo I, 457–474 A. D. At the death of Marcian in 457 the imperial authority was conferred upon Leo, an officer of Dacian origin. His appointment was due to the Alan Aspar, one of the masters of the soldiers, whose power in the East rivalled that of Ricimer in the West. But Leo did not intend to be the puppet of the powerful general, whose loyalty he eventually came to suspect. Accordingly as a counterpoise to the Gothic mercenaries and foederati, the mainstay of Aspar’s power, he drew into his service the Isaurians, the warlike mountaineers of southern Anatolia, who had defied the empire under Arcadius and Theodosius. The emperor’s eldest daughter was given in marriage to Zeno, an Isaurian, who was made master of the soldiers in the Orient. However, in 470 Aspar was still strong enough to force Leo to bestow the hand of his second daughter upon his son Leontius and to appoint the latter Caesar. But in the following year when Zeno returned to Constantinople the Alan and his eldest sons were treacherously assassinated in the palace.