The Early Centuries - Byzantium 01

by John Julius Norwich

  Nowadays we tend to think of all these barbarian tribes that swarmed southward and westward into Europe during the fourth and fifth centuries as being very much the same, but we are wrong: by the time of which we are speaking the Goths were a relatively civilized people, the majority of them Arian Christians. Although the western branch, the Visigoths, was still ruled by local chieftains, the Ostrogoths of the east had already evolved into a united and prosperous kingdom. The Huns, on the other hand, were savages - a vast, undisciplined, heathen horde, Mongolian in origin, who had swept down from the Central Asian steppe, destroying and laying waste everything in their path. In 376 they flung themselves on the Goths with unprecedented fury. King Ermanaric, after several courageous stands against them, finally took his own life; his successor was killed a short time later in yet another hopeless battle. The Ostrogoths' resistance was now at an end; and although one venerable old Visigothic chieftain, Athanaric, did his best to rally his people and withdrew, undefeated, to the mountains of Transylvania, the greater number sought permission from Valens to settle within the Empire, on the plains of Thrace.

  Their request was granted, the Emperor giving express orders to his local representatives to provide the refugees with food and shelter while they established themselves in their new homes. Alas, his instructions were ignored: the local authorities, led by Lupicinus, Count of Thrace, saw in the new arrivals only opportunities for exploitation and extortion, robbing them of virtually everything that they possessed and reducing them to the brink of starvation. By the summer of 377 the settlers, now desperate, were driven to active resistance. Advancing en masse to Marcianople - the capital of the imperial province of Lower Moesia, some twenty miles inland from the modern port of Varna, in Bulgaria - they demanded to see Lupicinus, who refused to receive them. A day or two later he emerged with an army, intending to teach them a lesson; in fact he was soundly defeated, narrowly escaping with his life. Within days, all the Goths of Thrace were up in arms, to be joined by the Visigoths and even the Huns in a full-scale barbarian attack on the Roman Empire.

  The war raged throughout the winter, despite the arrival of heavy reinforcements from both the eastern and the western Emperors. At last, in the spring of 378, Valens headed in person for the Balkans, encouraged by a promise from Gratian to come quickly to his aid. Having defeated a sizeable Gothic force on the Maritsa river to the north-west of Adria-nople, he was advancing towards Philippopolis on his way to meet his nephew when news of an attempt to cut him off from his capital forced him to retire. Back again in Adrianople, he received word from Gratian asking him to delay any major confrontation until reinforcements could be sent; but these were still many miles away and the Gothic army, according to the most reliable information, was a small one - only some 10,000 men in all. His general, Sebastian, favoured an immediate attack, and Valens allowed himself to be persuaded. It was the greatest mistake of his life - and also the last. The battle that followed, fought on 9 August 378, was a debacle. The Emperor was killed by an arrow, Sebastian and his second-in-command Trajan fell at his side, and two-thirds of the Roman army perished with them.

  Everything now depended on Gratian, still only nineteen. Despite a magnificent victory that he had gained the previous February over yet another barbarian tribe, the Lentienses, at Argentaria in Alsace, he himself could not yet leave the West; instead, he turned to Theodosius, the son of that other Theodosius who had scored such signal successes in Britain ten years before. Sadly, in 376, the father had been disgraced and executed by Valens as the result of some court intrigue, since when his son had retired to the family estates in Spanish Galicia; now, however, he willingly responded to the Emperor's call, and within a few months had proved himself a leader of such distinction that, in January 379, Gratian raised him to be his co-Augustus. Establishing his headquarters at Thessalonica, he devoted the next two years to restoring order in Thrace and confidence among the Goths, vast numbers of whom were recruited into the legions.

  None of this, to be sure, was achieved without sacrifice: the Goths were granted complete autonomy, exemption from taxation and an exceptionally high rate of pay for their military services, either as treaty-bound allies (foederati) or directly subordinate to the Emperor. This in turn meant increased financial burdens, and proportionately higher taxes for those ordinary citizens who were not exempt. It also led to continued resentment against the barbarians as a whole, and fears that the Germanic element in the army was now becoming dangerously strong. If, on the other hand, this was the price of retaining the Eastern Empire, Theodosius was happy enough to pay it. By the summer of 380, thanks to his quiet, patient diplomacy, the Goths were happily settled in their new homes and Thrace was once again at peace; on 24 November he made his formal entry into Constantinople, and on 11 January 381 welcomed old Athanaric to the capital, receiving him outside the walls and personally escorting him to his place of residence. The excitements of the splendid city and the lavishness of the entertainment he received obviously proved too much for the old man, who died a fortnight later; but he was given a sumptuous funeral, the Emperor himself accompanying his body to the grave. Such consideration for their former leader deeply gratified the Goths, disposing them still further towards a lasting reconciliation; the Romans, too, welcomed the new accord. 'Now that the wounds of strife are healed,' declared the court orator Themistius, 'Rome's most courageous enemies will become her truest and most loyal friends.'

  Gratian's elevation of Theodosius to the supreme power was perhaps the most lasting benefit that he conferred on the Empire. And yet, ironically, that very year - 383 - that saw the conclusion of the final peace treaty with the Goths also witnessed the Emperor's downfall. Few had ever shown greater promise. In the course of his short life, his piety and purity of heart had never left him. As a fervent Nicene Christian, he had been the first Emperor to refuse the title and insignia of Pontifex Maximus; in Rome, he had swept away the altar and statue of Victory that Julian had restored to the Senate House, and had expropriated the immense wealth of the Temple of Vesta and its chosen virgins for the benefit of the imperial treasury. But he had other interests besides religion. His tutor, Ausonius, proudly described him as possessing a mens aurea, a golden mind: he was remarkably well read and, if reports are true, a very passable poet. He was also a superb athlete and a magnificent horseman, while his skill as a hunter was - according once again to Ausonius - almost supernatural: he could kill a lion with a single arrow. Finally, he remained all his life an inspired leader in the field. But, at the age of twenty-four, he was already growing lazy. The pleasures of the chase and the excitements of the amphitheatre were taking up more and more of his time. More dangerous still, he no longer attempted to conceal the predilection he felt for the barbarian element in the army (and particularly for his own personal guard of tall, blond Alani) whom he openly favoured at the expense - and to the increasing resentment - of their Roman colleagues. Matters came to a head when one of the imperial generals serving in Britain, Magnus Clemens Maximus, was suddenly acclaimed Augustus by his men; a few days later he landed in Gaul, where his army met Gratian's just outside Paris. After some inconclusive skirmishing the Emperor would probably have won the day had not his Moorish cavalry suddenly and unexpectedly defected to Maximus. He fled, but was taken prisoner soon afterwards at Lyons and there, on 25 August, was murdered while attending a banquet - under a promise of safe conduct - with his captors.

  In Constantinople, Theodosius received the news with horror. For the moment, however, he was powerless. The Persian King Ardashir II -who had succeeded his brother Shapur four years before - had just been deposed in favour of his nephew Shapur III, an unknown quantity who needed watching; meanwhile the Huns were still causing trouble along the northern frontier. This was no time to embark on a long punitive expedition against Maximus. Reluctantly, Emperor acknowledged usurper - as did most of the provinces of the West.

  Except Italy. Thither Gratian's co-Emperor Valentinian II, now twelve years
old, hastily moved his court from Sirmium, and there in Milan he maintained, somewhat precariously, his authority - ruling largely through his Sicilian mother,1 the redoubtable Justina, and under the guidance of the still more formidable Bishop Ambrose, who actually travelled to Trier in the winter of 383-4 in an attempt to reach an understanding with Maximus. The young Emperor's life cannot have been made happier by the machinations of his fanatically Arian mother, who feared the bishop's growing influence over her son and was forever intriguing against him; but Ambrose - who does not hesitate to compare her in his writings with Jezebel and Herodias — gave as good as he got, and out-manoeuvred her every time. His only failure was in his attempts to wean the boy from his mother's heretical persuasion; only after Justina's death was he eventually to persuade Valentinian to accept the Nicene faith, and by then it was too late: Maximus had been given the excuse he needed.

  In 387 the pretender crossed the Alps into Italy, ostensibly to deliver the Empire from the taint of heresy. Justina and Valentinian fled, first to Aquileia and thence to Thessalonica, where Theodosius was able to join them. The past year had not been easy for the Emperor of the East. In January he had had to contend with serious disturbances at Antioch, where the populace had rioted in protest against a special tax laid upon the city in connection with his forthcoming decennalia, wrecked the public baths and smashed the statues of himself and his family. The local authorities had over-reacted, and the resulting massacre - graphically described, with its consequences, by St John Chrysostom, who was there - had

  1 Zosimus (iv, 19, 43) claims that Justina had been the wife of the usurper Magnentius before her marriage to Valentinian: possible, but hardly likely.

  included many women and children among its victims. It was Easter before order was restored by the Emperor's emissaries, and one of the proudest cities of Asia received the imperial pardon by which it regained its former rights and privileges. Then there had been the usual difficulties with the Persians. The new King had formally notified him of his accession by means of an embassy laden with magnificent presents -including, incidentally, elephants - but in subsequent diplomatic negotiations had showed that he could strike just as hard a bargain as his father. From the partition of Armenia that finally resulted in 387, the Empire emerged with only one-fifth of the country under its control, four-fifths having been appropriated by Shapur.

  But peace, at least, had been assured. The long-planned expedition against Maximus was finally a possibility. Theodosius spent the winter at Thessalonica with Valentinian and Justina - now his mother-in-law, since his recent marriage en secondes noces to her daughter Galla1 - actively preparing for war. Only in June 388 was he ready, with Valentinian, to march; but once started he moved fast, pressing up through the mountain passes of Macedonia and Bosnia (successfully foiling a plot to assassinate him on the way) and eventually meeting Maximus at Siscia - the modern Sisak - on the Sava. Despite the fatigue of their long march, his troops plunged, fully armed, into the river, swam to the opposite bank and put the rebels to flight. One or two more battles followed, but thenceforth the campaign was largely a matter of pursuit until Maximus was finally driven to surrender at Aquileia. Brought before Theodosius, he confessed to him that he had claimed to have his approval when he usurped the throne; and for a moment it looked as if the Emperor was about to spare the life of his old colleague. But the soldiers dragged their prisoner away before he could do so. They knew Theodosius's reputation for clemency, and preferred to take no chances.

  Appointing the Frankish general Arbogast as Comes - and thus effective Governor - of Gaul, Theodosius and Valentinian spent the winter in Milan and in the following year moved on with the former's four-year-old son Honorius to Rome where, on 13 June 389, they made their solemn entry into the city. The senior Emperor's energetic efforts to weaken the hold of paganism cannot have endeared him to the local members of the old regime; but his easy approachability and charm of

  1 Zosimus believes (iv, 44) that Thcodosius was at first reluctant to take arms against Maximus, and agreed to do so only after Justina, knowing of his recent widowhood and his extreme susceptibility to attractive women, sent Galla to plead with him. The Emperor, he suggests, was not only persuaded but besotted: and Galla's efforts resulted not only in war but in marriage.

  manner won him a personal popularity such as no predecessor of his had enjoyed for a century or more. The two Augusti then returned to Milan, remaining there all through the following year - the year of that famous confrontation between Theodosius and Ambrose for which both of them, perhaps unfairly, are best remembered.

  The incident that set the two on a collision course was one at which neither was personally present: the murder, at Thessalonica, of the captain of the imperial garrison. For some years already, resentment had been building up among the citizens over the billeting of troops: Roman soldiers, they pointed out, had been bad enough in the past, but these new barbarian ones were a good deal worse. Flash-point was reached when the captain - himself a Goth, by the name of Botheric - ignoring all their protests, imprisoned the city's most popular charioteer on charges of gross immorality. Suddenly and, it seemed, spontaneously, the mob attacked the garrison headquarters, smashed their way into the building and cut down Botheric where he stood. When the incident was reported to Theodosius in Milan, he flew into an ungovernable rage. In vain Ambrose pleaded with him not to take vengeance on the many for the crimes of a few; he ordered the troops in the city to show it no mercy, and to reassert their authority in whatever way they saw fit. A short while afterwards he repented and countermanded the order, but too late. It had already been received, and the soldiers were only too eager to obey. They deliberately waited until the people were all gathered in the Hippodrome for the games; then, at a given signal, they fell on them with unbridled brutality. Seven thousand were dead by nightfall.

  Reports of the massacre at Thessalonica spread rapidly through the Empire - losing, we may be sure, nothing in the telling. The disturbances at Antioch three years before had been insignificant in comparison. On that occasion, in any case, the responsibility had rested with the local authorities; this time the guilt fell on the Emperor himself - an Emperor, moreover, who had always enjoyed a reputation for humanity and justice. A crime on such a scale could not be overlooked; certainly, Ambrose was not the man to overlook it.

  At this time, it must be remembered, Ambrose was the most influential churchman in Christendom - more so by far than the Pope in Rome, by reason not only of the greater importance of Milan as a political capital but also of his own background. Member of one of the most ancient Christian families of the Roman aristocracy, son of a Praetorian Prefect of Gaul and himself formerly a consularis, or governor, of Liguria and Aemilia, he had never intended to enter the priesthood; but on the death in 374 of the previous bishop, the Arian Auxentius, an acrimonious dispute had arisen between the orthodox and Arian factions in the city over which he, as governor, was obliged to arbitrate. Only when it finally emerged that he alone possessed sufficient prestige to make him equally acceptable to both parties did he reluctantly allow his name to go forward. In a single week he was successively a layman, catechumen, priest and bishop.

  Once enthroned, Ambrose had started as he intended to go on, distributing his entire personal fortune among the poor and adopting an extreme asceticism in his private life. Since first hearing of the murder of Botheric he had done everything in his power to urge Theodosius towards moderation; when he saw that he had failed, he withdrew from the city rather than meet the Emperor and then wrote him a letter in his own hand, telling him that, despite his continuing high regard, he must regretfully withhold communion from him until he should perform public penance for his crime.

  And Theodosius submitted - less, we may be sure, for reasons of political expediency than for those of genuine remorse. His handling of the affair had been not only unworthy of him; it had also been uncharacteristic. Almost certainly, he had allowed himself to be persuaded by his mili
tary entourage. At all events it seems to have been an immense relief to his spirit when, bare-headed and dressed in sackcloth, he presented himself in the cathedral of Milan to acknowledge his misdeeds and humbly beg forgiveness. But it was also something more. It was a turning-point in the history of Christendom - the first time that a minister of the Gospel had had the courage to assert the rights of the spiritual power over the temporal, and the first time that a Christian prince had publicly submitted to judgement, condemnation and punishment by an authority which he recognized as higher than his own.

  Early in 391 the two Emperors left Milan - Theodosius to return to Constantinople, Valentinian to accept the transference of power in Gaul, where Arbogast the Frank had been ruling as Comes in his absence. On his arrival at Vienne, however, it soon became clear to him that Arbogast had no intention of handing over the reins as he was morally obliged to do. Instead, he was governing just as he always had, ignoring the Emperor completely and not even making a show of consulting him on important issues. Determined to assert his authority, Valentinian one day handed the Frank a written order, demanding his immediate resignation. Arbogast looked at it for a moment and then, slowly and contemptuously, tore it to pieces. At that moment war between the two was declared; and a few days later, on 15 May 392, the young Emperor, now just twenty-one, was found dead in his apartment. Much trouble was taken to suggest that his death was the result of suicide, and indeed foul play was never conclusively proved: Valentinian may well have taken his own life in the despairing knowledge that if he did not do so, someone else unquestionably would. Neither was murder hinted at by Ambrose in his subsequent funeral oration - unless some inference can be drawn from the bishop's assurances to the sorrowing princesses that their brother's soul had been carried up instantly to heaven, a reward not in theory accorded to those who had died by their own hand.1