Arcadius Ancient Roman Coins for Sale on Ebay of Emperor 393-408 A.D.
and Biography and History on Video Presentation
Example of Authentic Ancient
Coin of:
Arcadius - Roman Emperor: 383-408 A.D. -
Bronze AE4 Nicomedia mint: 388-392 A.D.
DNARCADIVSPFAVG - Diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right.
SALVSREIPVBLICAE Exe: SMNS - Victory advancing left, holding trophy and
dragging captive.
 Flavius
Arcadius (377/3781 May 408) was
Byzantine Emperor in the Eastern half
of the
Roman Empire from 395 until his death.
History
Arcadius was born in
Hispania, the elder son of
Theodosius I and
Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of
Honorius, who would become a
Western Roman Emperor. His father
declared him an
Augustus and co-ruler for the
Eastern half of the Empire in January,
383. His younger brother was also declared Augustus in 393, for the
Western half.
As emperors, Honorius was under the control of the
Romanized Vandal
magister militum
Flavius Stilicho while Arcadius was
dominated by one of his ministers,
Rufinus. Stilicho is alleged by some to
have wanted control of both emperors, and is supposed to have had
Rufinus assassinated by Gothic mercenaries in 395; though definite proof
of Stilicho's involvement in the assassination is lacking, the intense
competition and political jealousies engendered by the two figures
compose the main thread of the first part of Arcadius' reign. Arcadius'
new advisor, the eunuch
Eutropius, simply took Rufinus' place
as the power behind the Eastern imperial throne.
Arcadius was also dominated by his wife
Aelia Eudoxia, who convinced her
husband to dismiss Eutropius, who was holding the consulate, at the
height of his power, in 399. That same year, on the 13th July, Arcadius
issued an edict ordering that
all remaining non-Christian temples should be
immediately demolished.
Eudoxia's influence was strongly opposed by
John Chrysostom, the
Patriarch of Constantinople, who felt
that she had used her family's wealth to gain control over the emperor.
Eudoxia used her influence to have Chrysostom deposed in 404, but she
died later that year. Eudoxia gave to Arcadius four children: three
daughters,
Pulcheria, Arcadia and Marina, and one
son, Theodosius, the future Emperor
Theodosius II.
Arcadius was dominated for the rest of his rule by
Anthemius, the
Praetorian Prefect, who made peace with
Stilicho in the West. Arcadius himself was more concerned with appearing
to be a pious
Christian than he was with political or
military matters, and he died, only nominally in control of his empire,
in 408.
Character and works
In this reign of a weak emperor dominated by court
politics, a major theme was the ambivalence felt by prominent
individuals and the court parties that formed and regrouped round them
towards
barbarians, which in Constantinople at
this period meant
Goths. In the well-documented episode
that revolved around
Gainas, a number of Gothic foederati
stationed in the capital were massacred, the survivors fleeing under the
command of Gainas to
Thrace, where they were tracked down by
imperial troops and slaughtered and Gainas dispatched. The episode has
been traditionally interpreted as a paroxysm of anti-barbarian reaction
that served to stabilise the East. The main source for the affair is a
mythology ΰ clef by
Synesius of Cyrene, Aegyptus sive de
providentia, (400)[1]
an Egyptianising allegory that embodies a covert account of the events,
the exact interpretation of which continues to baffle scholars. Synesius'
De regno, which claims to be addressed to Arcadius himself,
contains a tirade against Goths.
A new
forum was built in the name of Arcadius,
on the seventh hill of Constantinople, the Xērolophos, in which a
column was begun to commemorate his
'victory' over Gainas (although the column was only completed after
Arcadius' death by
Theodosius II).
The
Pentelic marble portrait head of
Arcadius (illustration) was discovered in Istanbul close to the
Forum Tauri, in June 1949, in excavating foundations for new buildings
of the University at
Beyazit.[2]
The neck was designed to be inserted in a torso, but no statue, base or
inscription was found. The
diadem is a fillet with rows of pearls
along its edges and a rectangular stone set about with pearls over the
young emperor's forehead.
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