The life of St. Patrick and his place in history

by J. B. Bury

Mouit et infesto spumauit remige Tethys.

Illius effectum curis ne tela timerem

Scottica, ne Pictum tremerem, ne litore toto

Prospicerem dubiis uenturum Saxona uentis.”

The second passage evidently suits the situation in which Britain would have almost inevitably found herself on the departure of Maximus with the legions. Two questions arise. In what year did Stilicho take measures for the defence of Britain? and did he visit the island in person? Keller supposes that the date was A.D. 385 and denies that he went to Britain (Stilicho, p. 17). As to the latter point it is possible that Keller may be right. The phrase illius effectum curis suggests this conclusion; if Stilicho had visited Britain and provided for its security on the spot, Claudian would perhaps have used some more vivid and graphic phrase, leaving the reader in no doubt that his hero had appeared on the scene of danger.

Before criticising Keller’s date, A.D. 385, it will be well to define the reference in the other passage, which distinctly states that the defeat of the Picts which is mentioned, was accomplished while Honorius was Emperor. This might mean one of two things. It might mean: since Honorius succeeded his father as sole Augustus in the west (Jan. A.D. 395); or it might mean: since Honorius was created Augustus (Jan. A.D. 393). The words cannot assuredly be interpreted of the Caesarship of Honorius (he appears with the title Caesar in his first consulship, A.D. 386). In the absence of any other counter-indication, we are, I think, fully entitled to assume that te principe bears its most obvious and natural meaning, and that the defeat of the Picts occurred while Honorius (and not his father Theodosius) was solely responsible for the government of the west. We may therefore assign as limits to the date of this event, Jan. 395-June 399 A.D..

Now Keller has made the mistake of associating these two passages of Claudian closely together. While the first emphasises a defeat of the Picts and does not refer to the other foes of Britain, the second describes the serious dangers which beset the island on three sides, and states that measures of defence were taken by Stilicho, but makes no mention of an actual defeat of the Picts, or indeed of any other enemy. There is therefore no reason for supposing that both passages refer precisely to the same events; and it may be argued with some force that if Claudian was thinking of the same achievements he would not have omitted, in rehearsing the military successes in the reign of Honorius, to mention the Scot and the Saxon as well as the Pict, especially as his description in the second passage conveys the idea that the Scot and the Saxon were the most formidable.

We may therefore refer the events mentioned in the poem “On Stilicho’s Second Consulship” to a date prior to A.D. 395, and may return to consider and reject Keller’s suggestion of A.D. 385. It does not need much consideration, for it is wholly inconsistent with the political situation. After Gratian’s death in A.D. 383 Maximus was recognised as Augustus by Theodosius (A.D. 384 or 385, cp. Schiller, Gesch. der röm. Kaiserzeit, ii. 405), who was not then in a position to advance against the usurper (Zosimus, 4, 37). From that time until he marched upon Italy in A.D. 387, there were no hostile dealings between Maximus and Theodosius. Maximus ruled over Britain, Gaul, and Spain from his headquarters at Trier, and it cannot for a moment be supposed that Theodosius or any general of his interfered in the administration of those provinces. Stilicho was a general of Theodosius,[365] and he cannot possibly have had to do with Britain till after Theodosius came to the rescue of the young Valentinian in A.D. 388. Thus Keller’s date is excluded.

The true date can easily be surmised. After the execution of Maximus in summer A.D. 388 Theodosius remained in Italy, ordering the affairs of the west for the young Valentinian, and did not return to Constantinople till summer A.D. 391. No part of the Gallic Prefecture probably demanded his attention more than Britain, and we cannot be far wrong in supposing that the measures of Stilicho, recorded by Claudian, belong to these three years. As was observed, the words of Claudian rather suggest that Stilicho did not himself pass into Britain. But we may assume that Theodosius sent him into Gaul, and that from there he ordered what was necessary to be done.