Thus the earnest desire of Eudoxia was accomplished: she remained mistress of the field, mistress, as she fondly hoped, of the Empire. The government for the present passed from the hands of a eunuch and slave into the hands of a woman. The possible rivals to her supremacy were the Gothic commander Gaïnas and the Archbishop. In what manner she was brought into hostile collision with these two very different personages remains now to be related. The Goth was determined in the ambitious pursuit of power, the Archbishop equally determined in the conscientious discharge of duty. The collision of the ruling powers with him was yet to come, but the contest with Gaïnas immediately succeeded the fall of Eutropius.
The Empress procured the elevation of Aurelian, Prætorian Prefect, to the consulship, and of her favourite (some said her criminal lover[489]), Count John, to the office of Comptroller of the Royal Treasury, or sacred largesses. The public affairs of the Empire were discussed and settled in a sort of cabinet council by her and her friends, of whom three wealthy but avaricious ladies, Castricia, Eugraphia, and Marcia, were the most influential. The haughty and manly spirit of the Gothic warrior naturally disdained to be directed by a coterie of women. He united his army with that of Tribigild, and the two forces assumed a menacing attitude in the vicinity of Constantinople, on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus. Gaïnas opened negotiations with the Emperor, refusing to communicate with any lesser power, complained that his services had been inadequately requited, and demanded, as a preliminary to any further correspondence, the surrender of three principal favourites at Court—Aurelian the Consul, Saturninus the husband of Castricia, and the Count John. The embarrassment of the Court was extreme; but the three ministers, in a genuine spirit, to all appearance, of Roman courage and self-sacrifice for the good of the State, crossed the Bosporus, and sent word to the camp of Gaïnas that they had come to surrender themselves into his hands. The chieftain subjected them to a grim practical jest. He caused them to be loaded with chains, and received them in his tent in the presence of an executioner. After all manner of insults had been heaped upon them, the executioner approached and swung his sword over them with a furious countenance as if on the point of decapitating, but, checking the impending blow, only made a slight scratch on their necks so as just to draw blood. This savage farce having been performed, the three were simply detained in the camp without suffering further violence.[490]
Chrysostom appears to have laboured diligently to mitigate the demands of Gaïnas. His language, in a homily delivered just after the surrender of the three captives, implies that some degree of success had attended his efforts, but it manifests also a feeling of great depression, caused by the unsettled, indeed anarchical, state of public affairs.
“After a long interval of silence, I return to you, my beloved disciples—a silence occasioned, not by any indifference or indolence, but by my absence spent in earnest endeavours to allay a tempest, and to bring into a haven those who were beginning to drown.”... “For this purpose I have withdrawn from you for a time, going backwards and forwards” [across the Bosporus], “exhorting, beseeching, supplicating, so as to avert the calamity which was impending over the higher powers. But now that these dismal matters have been concluded I return to you....” He had gone to rescue those who were falling and tempest-tossed; he came back to confirm those who were still standing and at rest, lest they should become victims of some calamity. “For there is nothing secure, nothing stable in human affairs; they are like a raging sea, every day producing strange and fearful shipwrecks. The world is full of tumult and confusion; everywhere are cliffs and precipices, rocks and reefs, fearfulness and trembling, peril and suspicion. No one trusts any one; each man is afraid of his neighbour. The time is at hand which the prophet depicted in those words: ‘Trust not in a friend, put not confidence in a guide’ (Micah vii. 5); civil strife prevails everywhere, not honest open warfare, but veiled under ten thousand masks. Many are the fleeces beneath which are concealed innumerable wolves; so that one might live more safely among enemies than among those who appear to be friends.”[491]
It is possible that the intercessions of Chrysostom may have saved the lives of the three captives, or averted any immediate assault of the Gothic army; but Gaïnas was in a position to dictate any terms he pleased, and his army was like a great swelling wave, threatening at any moment to break in overwhelming force upon the capital. An interview with the Emperor, protected from any insidious attack by the solemn oath of each party, took place in the church of St. Euphemia, situated on a lofty eminence above the city of Chalcedon. The Gothic leader no longer pretended to disguise his ambitious designs. He demanded to be made Consul and Commander-in-chief of the Imperial army, cavalry and infantry, Roman as well as barbarian troops; in short, he aspired to be in position the Stilicho of the East. The Emperor yielded to these ignominious terms, which in effect placed his capital at the mercy of a foreign invader. The troops were rapidly transported from the Asiatic side of the Bosporus and occupied Constantinople. They waited but the word of their commander to fly upon the booty with which the wealthy and luxurious city teemed, and which they beheld with hungry eyes; but for a time the signal was not given.[492]
Gaïnas, either from sincere attachment to the Arian form of faith, or possibly from ambition to display his power to his countrymen, who were mainly of the Arian persuasion, demanded the abolition of that law of Theodosius by which Arians were prohibited from public worship inside the city walls. He represented that it was specially indecorous for the Commander-in-chief of the Imperial forces to go outside the city to pay his public devotions. Arcadius, intimidated, and as usual on the point of yielding, referred the matter to the Archbishop. Chrysostom earnestly and indignantly deprecated any concession; to give up one of the Catholic churches to the Arians would be to cast things holy to the dogs, and to reward the impious at the expense of the reverent worshippers of Jesus Christ. He begged the Emperor to allow the whole matter to be discussed between himself and Gaïnas in the royal presence, when he trusted that, by the help of God, he should succeed in silencing the Gothic heretic, and in repressing any repetition of his profane demand.[493] Gaïnas was not averse from the interview; he rather prided himself on his skill in theological debate, and boasted of having vanquished the monk Nilus on the question of the identity, or similarity, of substance in the first two Persons of the Holy Trinity.[494] The Emperor was well satisfied to act the part of a quiet, irresponsible auditor. Accordingly, on the following day, Chrysostom appeared at the palace, accompanied by all those bishops who were in Constantinople at the time. Gaïnas put forward his demand. The Archbishop replied that it was impossible for a prince who laid claim to piety to take any step adverse to the interests of the Catholic faith. If Gaïnas wished to worship inside the walls, all the churches in the city were open to him. When the Goth claimed a right to possess one for his own sect, in consideration of his great services to the State, Chrysostom repelled the demand with indignant scorn. “You have already rewards far exceeding your deserts; you are Commander-in-chief and Consul. Consider what once you were, and what now you are; consider your former destitution and your present abundance. Look at the magnificence of your consular robes, and remember the rags in which you crossed the Danube. Speak not then of ingratitude on the part of those who have laden you with honours. Remember the oaths by which you swore fidelity to the great Theodosius and to his children.” He then cited the prohibitory law issued by Theodosius in A.D. 381, called upon the Emperor to enforce it, and on the Gothic commander to observe it. The ecclesiastical historians concur in affirming that the Goth was completely vanquished by the authoritative demeanour and eloquence of the Archbishop, and for the time at least desisted from pressing his demand; but it appears that Arcadius was obliged to satisfy his rapacity by melting the plate of the Apostles’ Church.[495]
Possibly, indeed, extortion of money had been the object of Gaïnas from the beginning in making his demand for an Arian church. The plunder-loving spirit of his army was aroused, and the gold and silver visible on the counters of money-changers, and in the shops of wealthy jewellers, was a temptation constantly dangling before their eyes, till a rumour of violent intentions, or perhaps common prudence, caused the owners to remove these alluring treasures into secret places of safety. If the enemy had entertained any design upon the shops, it was transferred from them to the palace, upon which they made a nocturnal assault. According to some accounts, it was repulsed by the vigorous courage of the citizens, who fell with arms upon the assailants; according to others, Gaïnas was scared in several attempts by a vision of an angelic host planted in bright array around the walls of the palace.[496] The materials for the history of these occurrences are so meagre that it is impossible to ascertain details, but, from whatever cause, Gaïnas resolved to escape from the city. Fearing that if he attempted to quit it openly with his troops, he might be forcibly stopped or impeded in his departure, he pretended to be under the influence of a demon and that he desired to offer up prayers for relief from his affliction at the martyry of St. John at Hebdomon, seven miles outside Constantinople.
As he was going out, however, by one of the gates on this pretext, the guards stationed at the gate perceived that his followers were taking with them a quantity of arms which they endeavoured to conceal. The guards refused to let them pass; a fray ensued in which the guards were killed. The inhabitants were seized with mingled rage and terror. Gaïnas was declared by royal decree a public enemy. He himself was outside the walls, and the city gates were now all closed to cut him off and such forces as were with him from those who were left inside Constantinople. A large number of these assembled in and around the church of the Goths. Here they were attacked by the infuriated populace, which set fire to the building. The Goths perished wholesale in the flames or by the sword. Gaïnas, with the remainder of his followers, betook himself to a life of plunder in the Thracian Chersonese. But he found the inhabitants generally prepared to offer a stout resistance to his pillaging bands, which were soon reduced to great straits for subsistence. Meanwhile, a countryman of his in Constantinople was organising measures for his destruction. Fravitta was one of those Goths who had become assimilated to the people among whom they lived. He had married a Roman lady, and was eminent alike for refinement of manners, for valour in arms, and for honest fidelity to the government which he served.[497] He offered to lead out such forces as could be placed at his disposal, pledged himself to clear the Chersonese of the rebels, and drive them, if necessary, beyond the Danube. The offer was accepted with joy, and Fravitta defeated the enemy in several engagements. Gaïnas attempted to cross the Hellespont, and throw his troops again into the fertile regions of Asia Minor; but his flimsy fleet of hastily-constructed rafts, being attacked by a well-managed body of galleys in the middle of the passage, was dispersed or broken in pieces, and a large part of his army was drowned. Gaïnas then determined, with the remnant of his followers, to beat a hasty retreat in the direction of the Danube, where he hoped to be joined by some of his own countrymen, and renew the offensive. The accounts of his march are not quite harmonious, and somewhat obscure. According to Zosimus,[498] he was hotly pursued by Fravitta from place to place, across the range of Hæmus up to the shores of the Danube, into the waters of which he plunged on horseback, and with a scanty band of followers gained the opposite bank, intending thence to make his way to the settlements of his forefathers on the banks of the Pruth or Borysthenes. But his design was frustrated by an unexpected enemy. The Huns occupied at that time the region immediately north of the Danube, and their king, Uldes or Uldin, was disposed to enter into friendly relations with the Roman Empire. He took up the pursuit which Fravitta had abandoned at the river frontier, chased the unhappy Goth like a wild beast from one hiding-place to another, till at last the prey was caught and killed. His head was carried on the point of a lance to Constantinople, as a visible pledge of the good-will of the Hunnish chief. Sozomen and Socrates,[499] on the other hand, represent him to have been overtaken, routed, and slain by Roman troops in Thrace.[500]
Theodoret has a vague story of his own, that when Gaïnas was ravaging Thrace, neither warrior nor ambassador could be found courageous enough to encounter him but Chrysostom, who, yielding to the public appeal, set forth to intercede, and was most respectfully received by the barbarian, who placed the right hand of the Archbishop on his own eyes, and brought his children to his knees—it may be presumed, to receive his blessing. Theodoret does not venture to affirm that the mission availed to induce the Goth to lay down his arms, and the whole story has an unreal and romantic character.[501]
Three aspirants to the absolute control of the Eastern Empire, widely different in race, character, and original condition of life—Rufinus, Eutropius, Gaïnas—had alike perished by a violent death. Fravitta was made consul, but he was too loyal or too unambitious to go beyond the line of his legitimate power. Eudoxia now stood without a rival in the management of the Emperor and the kingdom. Her influence over her husband was enhanced by the birth of a prince, who afterwards mounted the throne as Theodosius II.; and thus the final obstacle was removed to her being solemnly proclaimed Empress under the venerable title of Augusta.