ENLARGED FROM COINS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
Theodosius, who is incomparably the leading ruler of the fourth century, had come from the same part of Spain as Trajan, to whom some of the writers of the time compare him—with no little flattery. His father, Count Theodosius, had been an able commander and a just administrator, but had been unjustly disgraced and executed owing to some obscure jealousy. Later writers, thinking of the magical Th E O D of Antioch, believed that his name led to his undoing. The younger Theodosius, a cultivated and skilful officer, retired to his estates in Spain, from which he was drawn by Gratian, and presently clothed with the purple. He had, in 376 or 377, married a Spanish lady, Ælia Flaccilla, who is believed, on slender grounds, to have been the daughter of the consul Antonius. Their son Arcadius, the future Emperor, was born during the retirement in Spain. A daughter, Pulcheria, was born in Spain, while Theodosius was on campaign. Then Flaccilla found herself transferred from the quiet Spanish estate to the pomp of Constantinople, and the second son, Honorius, was born in the purple.
Although Flaccilla is canonized in the Greek Church, it does not appear that she had a marked individuality. She is one of the crowd of fourth-century Empresses who live in the chronicles only as generous benefactors of the Church. Theodosius was the first Emperor to persecute his pagan subjects on the ground of religion, and his successive decrees quickly changed the religious aspect of the East. His modern biographers, Ifland and Güldenpenning (“Der Kaiser Theodosius”), lay much of the blame for these violent measures on Flaccilla, but they point out that the coercive legislation begins just after Theodosius came under the influence of Bishop Acholius during a severe illness, and that his efforts to crush paganism by violence relaxed with his advance in age and experience. All that we learn of Flaccilla is that she was generous to the Church and the poor, and that she occasionally curbed the fiery and vindictive temper of Theodosius. She seems to have died in the year 385, and the Greek ritual celebrates her memory on September 14th.
Theodosius was, therefore, a middle-aged widower—his biographers put his birth in 346—when, in the autumn of 387, Justina presented her daughter Galla to him. Dr. Ifland admits that the young girl probably turned the hesitating scale of his judgment. He returned to Constantinople, and made energetic preparations for war. A two months’ campaign in the following summer (388) completely destroyed the forces of Maximus, and the full Empire of the West was restored to Valentinian. But Justina had little personal profit by the victory. Zosimus tells us that she “supplied the deficiencies of her son as well as a woman can” after the return to Milan, while Sozomen declared that she died before the return. The point is obscure, but the evidence suggests, on the whole, that she returned to Milan. It was, however, to a different Milan from that she had quitted. Theodosius accompanied them, and the strong, earnest character of Ambrose made a deep impression on him. Valentinian was “converted” to the true creed, and the policy of persecution was introduced into the Western world. Justina must have remained a powerless and embittered spectator of the ascendancy of Ambrose. So great did it become that the coldest decisions of the Emperor were reversed by him, and his transgressions were ignominiously punished. The news came to Milan that the monks and populace of a small town in Persia had burned the synagogue of the Jews, and that the prefect had ordered them to rebuild the synagogue and restore its property. Theodosius confirmed the just sentence, but Ambrose assailed him so strongly, in letter and sermon, that he was obliged to give complete immunity to the offenders; and the wave of violence—the burning of temples and synagogues, and the despoiling and slaying of unbelievers and heretics of all shades—continued to roll destructively over the East. The more impressive incident of Theodosius, the greatest ruler of his time, standing in the humble attitude of a penitent in the church at Milan is well known. The people of Thessalonica, stung by the heavy taxation which the extravagant rule of Theodosius imposed on the East, and the quartering of barbaric troops on them, took some occasion to riot, and slew the representatives of the Emperor. In a fit of passion Theodosius turned his troops upon the defenceless people, whom he had treacherously invited to the Circus, and a horrible and unexampled massacre was perpetrated. Ambrose nobly insisted that the Emperor must expiate his crime like the humblest member of his flock. The world was entering upon a new era.
How much of these proceedings Justina lived to see it is impossible to determine. She died some time between 388 and 391; the obscurity of her death is a sufficient proof of her powerlessness in her last years. Valentinian, whose weakness was hardly compensated by the propriety of his conduct and his docility to St. Ambrose, was instructed in the elements of government by the older Emperor, who remained three years in Italy, to the lasting grief of its pagan citizens. He visited Rome, where the majority of the leading citizens still clung to an idealized version of the old cult, and appealed to the Senate to abandon the dying gods. No answer was made to his appeal, and he resorted to the growing practice of coercive legislation. In 391 he returned to Constantinople.
Galla had married Theodosius soon after the destruction of Maximus. The Chronicle of Marcellinus puts the marriage in 386; Zosimus, more plausibly, implies that it took place in 387 or 388. From a curious statement in the Chronicle of Marcellinus it seems that she was sent to live in the palace at Constantinople while Theodosius remained in Italy. The statement is that the elder son of the Emperor, Arcadius, a boy of thirteen years, drove her out of the palace. Commentators are loath to believe that so young a prince could do this, but it is not in the least impossible, and the authority is respectable. We shall see that Arcadius was a peevish and worthless prince, indolently guided by eunuchs and servants, and capable of very cruel decisions. Theodosius had departed from the finer Imperial tradition of appointing a grave and distinguished scholar as the tutor of his sons, and had committed them to the care of a Roman deacon, Arsenius, who had a repute for piety. We can hardly regard the authority of a late Greek writer (Metaphrastes) as weighty enough to commend the statement that Arcadius set his servants to take the life of Arsenius for whipping him, but the unhappy events of the next chapter will show that the only result of this kind of education was to leave the character unformed, and throw the stress on external observances.
In 391 Theodosius returned to Constantinople, and Galla entered upon her brief Imperial career. Whether or no we accept the biased picture which Zosimus offers us of the Eastern court, it is clear that it sustained a soft and excessive luxury at the cost of the enfeebled Empire. Large numbers of eunuchs found employment, and, with the genius of their class, intrigued for favour in the sleeping quarters, and in the service of the Empress and the Imperial children. The kitchen employed a regiment of ministers to the heavy and voluptuous table; the circus and theatre supported vast numbers of mimes, dancers, and charioteers. Besides this large army of ministers to the Imperial pleasure, a second army of idle and avaricious place-seekers beset the palace, and extorted a generous revenue from the offices which were created for them in the army and the administration. It is even said that such offices were openly sold in the public places and in the palace of Constantinople. Strenuous as Theodosius was in the field, he was not strong enough to sustain the burden of peace, and he unconsciously prepared the Empire for the avalanche that was soon to be cast upon it.
But the drowsy indulgence of Theodosius was soon startled once more by a call to arms from the West. In the spring of 392 Valentinian was slain, or in despair slew himself, and a Frankish commander had put his purple robe upon the shoulders of a Roman rhetorician. The young Emperor had been so overshadowed by the power of his general that he had attempted to dismiss him, and had then been found dead with a cord round his neck. Theodosius again hesitated to exchange the softness of his palace for the rigours of a campaign. Galla “filled the palace with her lamentations,” but Theodosius sent away the ambassadors of the usurper with pleasant words and presents, and continued for nearly two years to resist the appeals of his young Empress. It was not until the summer of 394 that he led out his legions for the punishment of the murderer, as Argobastes was believed to be. Galla did not live to see her brother avenged. She died in childbirth just as the army was about to start, and Theodosius is said to have mourned for her one day and then started for Italy.
The issue does not now concern us. We pass on to a fresh generation, a new and more interesting group of Empresses and princesses. Suffice it to say that, partly by valour, partly by accident and treachery, the forces of Argobastes were destroyed, and the empurpled rhetorician was slain. The younger son of the Emperor, Honorius, was summoned from the East, and placed upon the throne of the West. Arcadius remained in feeble charge of the throne of Constantinople. And within a few months the powerful Emperor sank into the grave, and the Empire entered upon the unhappy reigns of Arcadius and Honorius.