Results of the battle.
Beneath that crushing blow the everlasting Empire shook from end to end. The whole power of the East had been mustered with a painful effort to the struggle, and the whole power of the East had been shattered in a summer's day. For the first time since the days of Gallienus, the Empire could place no army in the field. But Claudius and Aurelian had not fought in vain, nor were the hundred years of respite lost. If the dominion of Western Europe was transferred for ever to the Northern nations, the walls of Constantinople had risen to bar their eastward march, and Christianity had shown its power to awe their boldest spirits. The Empire of the Christian East withstood the shock of Hadrianople—only the heathen West sank under it. When once the old barriers of civilization on the Danube and the Rhine were broken through, the barbarians poured in for centuries like a flood of mighty waters overflowing. Not till the Northman and the Magyar had found their limit at the siege of Paris (888) and the battle of the Lechfeld (955) could Europe feel secure. The Roman Empire and the Christian Church alone rode out the storm which overthrew the ancient world. But the Christian Church was founded on the ever-living Rock, the Roman Empire rooted deep in history. Arianism was a thing of yesterday and had no principle of life, and therefore it vanished in the crash of Hadrianople. The Homœan supremacy had come to rest almost wholly on imperial misbelief. The mob of the capital might be in its favour, and the virtues of isolated bishops might secure it some support elsewhere; but serious men were mostly Nicenes or Anomœans. Demophilus of Constantinople headed the party, and his blunders did it almost as much harm as the profane jests of Eudoxius. At Antioch Euzoius, the last of the early Arians, was replaced by Dorotheus. Milan under Ambrose was aggressively Nicene, and the Arian tyrants were very weak at Alexandria. On the other hand, the greatest of the Nicenes had passed away, and few were left who could remember the great council's meeting. Athanasius and Hilary were dead, and even Basil did not live to greet an orthodox Emperor. Meletius of Antioch was in exile, and Cyril of Jerusalem and the venerated Eusebius of Samosata, while Gregory of Nazianzus had found in the Isaurian mountains a welcome refuge from his hated diocese of Sasima. If none of the living Nicenes could pretend to rival Athanasius, they at least outmatched the Arians.
Gratian's toleration.
As Valens left no children, the Empire rested for the moment in the hands of his nephew, Gratian, a youth of not yet twenty. Gratian, however, was wise enough to see that it was no time to cultivate religious quarrels. He, therefore, began by proclaiming toleration to all but Anomœans and Photinians. As toleration was still the theory of the Empire, and none but the Nicenes were practically molested, none but the Nicenes gained anything by the edict. But mere toleration was all they needed. The exiled bishops found little difficulty in resuming the government of their flocks, and even in sending missions to Arian strongholds. The Semiarians were divided. Numbers went over to the Nicenes, while others took up an independent or Macedonian position. The Homœan power in the provinces fell of itself before it was touched by persecution. It scarcely even struggled against its fate. At Jerusalem indeed party spirit ran as high as ever, but Alexandria was given up to Peter almost without resistance. We find one or two outrages like the murder of Eusebius of Samosata by an Arian woman in a country town, who threw down a tile on his head, but we hardly ever find a Homœan bishop heartily supported by his flock.
Gregory of Nazianzus.
Constantinople itself was now the chief stronghold of the Arians. They had held the churches since 340, and were steadily supported by the court. Thus the city populace was devoted to Arianism, and the Nicenes were a mere remnant, without either church or teacher. The time, however, was now come for a mission to the capital. Gregory of Nazianzus was the son of Bishop Gregory, born about the time of the Nicene council. His father was already presbyter of Nazianzus, and held the bishopric for nearly half a century. (329-374.) Young Gregory was a student of many schools. From the Cappadocian Cæsarea he went on to the Palestinian, and thence to Alexandria; but Athens was the goal of his student-life. Gregory and Basil and Prince Julian met at the feet of Proæresius. They all did credit to his eloquence, but there the likeness ends. Gregory disliked Julian's strange, excited manner, and persuaded himself in later years that he had even then foreseen the evil of the apostate's reign. With Basil, on the other hand his friendship was for life. They were well-matched in eloquence, in ascetic zeal, and in opposition to Arianism, though Basil's imperious ways were a trial to Gregory's gentler and less active spirit. During the quarrel with Anthimus of Tyana, Basil thought fit to secure the disputed possession of Sasima by making it a bishopric. (372.) It was a miserable post-station—'No water, no grass, nothing but dust and carts, and groans and howls, and small officials with their usual instruments of torture.' Gregory was made bishop of Sasima against his will, and never fairly entered on his repulsive duties. After a few years' retirement, he came forward to undertake the mission to Constantinople. (379.) The great city was a city of triflers. They jested at the actors and the preachers without respect of persons, and followed with equal eagerness the races and the theological disputes. Anomœans abounded in their noisy streets, and the graver Novatians and Macedonians were infected with the spirit of wrangling. Gregory's austere character and simple life were in themselves a severe rebuke to the lovers of pleasure round him. He began his work in a private house, and only built a church when the numbers of his flock increased. He called it his Anastasia,—the church of the resurrection of the faith. The mob was hostile—one night they broke into his church—but the fruit of his labours was a growing congregation of Nicenes in the capital.
Theodosius Emperor in the East (379).
Gratian's next step was to share his burden with a colleague. If the care of the whole Empire had been too much for Diocletian or Valentinian, Gratian's were not the Atlantean shoulders which could bear its undivided weight. In the far West, at Cauca near Segovia, there lived a son of Theodosius, the recoverer of Britain and Africa, whose execution had so foully stained the opening of Gratian's reign. That memory of blood was still fresh, yet in that hour of overwhelming danger Gratian called young Theodosius to be his honoured colleague and deliverer. Early in 379 he gave him the conduct of the Gothic war. With it went the Empire of the East.
End of the Gothic war.
Theodosius was neither Greek nor Asiatic, but a stranger from the Spanish West, endued with a full measure of Spanish courage and intolerance. As a general he was the most brilliant Rome had seen since Julian's death. Men compared him to Trajan, and in a happier age he might have rivalled Trajan's fame. But now the Empire was ready to perish. The beaten army was hopelessly demoralized, and Theodosius had to form a new army of barbarian legionaries before the old tradition of Roman superiority could resume its wonted sway. It soon appeared that the Goths could do nothing with their victory, and sooner or later would have to make their peace with Rome. Theodosius drove them inland in the first campaign; and while he lay sick at Thessalonica in the second, Gratian or his generals received the submission of the Ostrogoths. Fritigern died the same year, and his old rival Athanaric was a fugitive before it ended. When the returning Ostrogoths dislodged him from his Transylvanian forest, he was welcomed with honourable courtesy by Theodosius in person at Constantinople. But the old enemy of Rome and Christianity had only come to lay his bones on Roman soil. In another fortnight the barbarian chief was carried out with kingly splendour to his Roman funeral. Theodosius had nobly won Athanaric's inheritance. His wondering Goths at once took service with their conqueror: chief after chief submitted, and the work of peace was completed on the Danube in the autumn of 382.