Theodosius I - Roman Emperor 379-395 A.D.
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Theodosius I - Roman Emperor: 379-395 A.D. -
Bronze AE4 Struck at the mint of Siscia 379-383 A.D.
Reference: RIC 29d.2 (Siscia), LRBC 1546
DNTHEODOSIVSPFAVG - Diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right.
Exe: ASISC - Wreath, VOT/V/MVLT/X within.
Flavius Theodosius ( 11 January 347 17
January 395), also called Theodosius I and Theodosius the
Great (Greek:
Θεοδόσιος Α΄ and Θεοδόσιος ο Μέγας), was
Roman Emperor from 379 to 395.
Reuniting the eastern and western portions of the empire, Theodosius was
the last emperor of both the
Eastern and
Western Roman Empire. After his death,
the two parts split permanently. He is also known for making
Nicene Christianity the official
state religion of the Roman Empire.
Career
Theodosius was born in
Cauca, in
Hispania (modern day
Coca,
Spain) or, more probably, in or near
Italica (Seville)[2],
to a senior military officer,
Theodosius the Elder. He accompanied
his father to
Britannia to help quell the
Great Conspiracy in 368. He was
military commander (dux)
of
Moesia, a Roman province on the lower
Danube, in 374. However, shortly
thereafter, and at about the same time as the sudden disgrace and
execution of his father, Theodosius retired to Spain. The reason for his
retirement, and the relationship (if any) between it and his father's
death is unclear. It is possible that he was dismissed from his command
by the emperor
Valentinian I after the loss of two of
Theodosius' legions to the
Sarmatians in late 374.
The death of Valentinian I in 375 created political
pandemonium. Fearing further persecution on account of his family ties,
Theodosius abruptly retired to his family estates where he adapted to
the life of a provincial aristocrat.
From 364 to 375, the Roman Empire was governed by two
co-emperors, the brothers
Valentinian I and
Valens; when Valentinian died in 375,
his sons,
Valentinian II and
Gratian, succeeded him as rulers of the
Western Roman Empire. In 378, after
Valens was killed in the
Battle of Adrianople, Gratian appointed
Theodosius to replace the fallen emperor as co-augustus for the
East. Gratian was killed in a rebellion in 383, then Theodosius
appointed his elder son,
Arcadius, his co-ruler for the East.
After the death in 392 of Valentinian II, whom Theodosius had supported
against a variety of usurpations, Theodosius ruled as sole emperor,
appointing his younger son
Honorius Augustus as his co-ruler for
the West (Milan,
on 23 January 393) and defeating the usurper
Eugenius on 6 September 394, at the
Battle of the Frigidus (Vipava
river, modern
Slovenia) he restored peace.
Family
By his first wife, the probably Spanish
Aelia Flaccilla Augusta, he had two
sons,
Arcadius and
Honorius and a daughter, Aelia
Pulcheria; Arcadius was his heir in the
East and Honorius in the West. Both Aelia Flaccilla and Pulcheria died
in 385.
His second wife (but never declared Augusta)
was
Galla, daughter of the emperor
Valentinian I and his second wife
Justina. Theodosius and Galla had a son
Gratian, born in 388 who died young and a daughter Aelia
Galla Placidia (392450). Placidia was
the only child who survived to adulthood and later became an Empress; a
third child, John, died with his mother in childbirth in 394.
Diplomatic
policy with the Goths
The
Goths and their allies (Vandali,
Taifalae,
Bastarnae and the native
Carpi) entrenched in the
provinces of
Dacia and eastern
Pannonia Inferior consumed Theodosious'
attention. The Gothic crisis was so dire that his co-Emperor Gratian
relinquished control of the
Illyrian provinces and retired to
Trier in
Gaul to let Theodosius operate without
hindrance. A major weakness in the Roman position after the defeat at
Adrianople was the recruiting of
barbarians to fight against other
barbarians. In order to reconstruct the Roman Army of the West,
Theodosius needed to find able bodied soldiers and so he turned to the
most capable men readily to hand: the barbarians recently settled in the
Empire. This caused many difficulties in the battle against barbarians
since the newly recruited fighters had little or no loyalty to
Theodosius.
Theodosius was reduced to the costly expedient of
shipping his recruits to
Egypt and replacing them with more
seasoned Romans, but there were still switches of allegiance that
resulted in military setbacks. Gratian sent generals to clear the
dioceses of Illyria (Pannonia
and
Dalmatia) of Goths, and Theodosius was
able finally to enter
Constantinople on 24 November 380,
after two seasons in the field. The final treaties with the remaining
Gothic forces, signed 3 October 382, permitted large contingents of
primarily
Thervingian Goths to settle along the
southern
Danube frontier in the
province of
Thrace and largely govern themselves.
The Goths now settled within the Empire had, as a
result of the treaties, military obligations to fight for the Romans as
a national contingent, as opposed to being fully integrated into the
Roman forces. However, many Goths would serve in Roman legions and
others, as
foederati, for a single campaign,
while bands of Goths switching loyalties became a destabilizing factor
in the internal struggles for control of the Empire.
In 390 the population of Thessalonica rioted in
complaint against the presence of the local Gothic garrison. The
garrison commander was killed in the
violence, so
Theodosius ordered the Goths to kill all the
spectators in the circus as retaliation;
Theodoret, a contemporary witness to
these events, reports:
the anger of the Emperor rose to the highest
pitch, and he gratified his vindictive desire for vengeance by
unsheathing the sword most unjustly and tyrannically against all,
slaying the innocent and guilty alike. It is said seven thousand
perished without any forms of law, and without even having judicial
sentence passed upon them; but that, like ears of wheat in the time
of harvest, they were alike cut down.
In the last years of Theodosius' reign, one of the
emerging leaders of the Goths, named
Alaric, participated in Theodosius'
campaign against
Eugenius in 394, only to resume his
rebellious behavior against Theodosius' son and eastern successor,
Arcadius, shortly after Theodosius'
death.
Civil
wars in the Empire
The administrative divisions of the
Roman Empire in 395, under
Theodosius I.
After the death of
Gratian in 383, Theodosius' interests
turned to the
Western Roman Empire, for the usurper
Magnus Maximus had taken all the
provinces of the West except for Italy. This self-proclaimed threat was
hostile to Theodosius' interests, since the reigning emperor
Valentinian II, Maximus' enemy, was his
ally. Theodosius, however, was unable to do much about Maximus due to
his still inadequate military capability and he was forced to keep his
attention on local matters. However when Maximus began an invasion of
Italy in 387, Theodosius was forced to take action. The armies of
Theodosius and Maximus met in 388 at Poetovio and Maximus was defeated.
On 28 August 388 Maximus was executed.
Trouble arose again, after Valentinian was found
hanging in his room. It was claimed to be a suicide by the
magister militum,
Arbogast. Arbogast, unable to assume
the role of emperor, elected
Eugenius, a former teacher of rhetoric.
Eugenius started a program of restoration of the
Pagan faith, and sought, in vain,
Theodosius' recognition. In January 393, Theodosius gave his son
Honorius the full rank of Augustus in
the West, citing Eugenius' illegitimacy.
Theodosius campaigned against Eugenius. The two
armies faced at the
Battle of Frigidus in September 394.
The battle began on 5 September 394 with Theodosius' full frontal
assault on Eugenius' forces. Theodosius was repulsed and Eugenius
thought the battle to be all but over. In Theodosius' camp the loss of
the day decreased morale. It is said that Theodosius was visited by two
"heavenly riders all in white" who gave him courage. The next day, the
battle began again and Theodosius' forces were aided by a natural
phenomenon known as the
Bora, which produces cyclonic winds.
The Bora blew directly against the forces of Eugenius and disrupted the
line.
Eugenius' camp was stormed and Eugenius was captured
and soon after executed. Thus Theodosius became the only emperor.
Art
patronage
Theodosius oversaw the removal in 390 of an Egyptian
obelisk from Alexandria to
Constantinople. It is now known as the
obelisk of Theodosius and still stands
in the
Hippodrome, the long
racetrack that was the center of
Constantinople's public life and scene of political turmoil. Re-erecting
the monolith was a challenge for the technology that had been honed in
the construction of
siege engines. The obelisk, still
recognizably a
solar symbol, had been moved from
Karnak to
Alexandria with what is now the
Lateran obelisk by
Constantius II). The Lateran obelisk
was shipped to Rome soon afterwards, but the other one then spent a
generation lying at the docks due to the difficulty involved in
attempting to ship it to Constantinople. Eventually, the obelisk was
cracked in transit. The white
marble base is entirely covered with
bas-reliefs documenting the Imperial
household and the engineering feat of removing it to Constantinople.
Theodosius and the imperial family are separated from the nobles among
the spectators in the
Imperial box with a cover over them as
a mark of their status. The naturalism of traditional Roman art in such
scenes gave way in these reliefs to
conceptual art: the idea of
order, decorum and respective ranking, expressed in serried ranks of
faces. This is seen as evidence of formal themes beginning to oust the
transitory details of mundane life, celebrated in Pagan
portraiture. Christianity had only just
been adopted as the new state religion.
The Forum Tauri in Constantinople was renamed and
redecorated as the
Forum of Theodosius, including a
column and a
triumphal arch in his honour.
Nicene
Christianity becomes the state religion
Theodosius promoted Nicene Trinitarianism within
Christianity and Christianity within the Empire. On 27 February 380, he
declared "Catholic Christianity" the only legitimate imperial religion,
ending state support for the traditional Roman religion.
Nicene
Creed
In the 4th century, the
Christian Church was wracked with
controversy over the divinity of
Jesus
Christ, his relationship to
God the Father, and the nature of the
Trinity. In 325,
Constantine I convened the
Council of Nicea, which asserted that
Jesus, the Son, was equal to the Father, one with the Father, and of the
same substance (homoousios in Greek). The council condemned the
teachings of the theologian
Arius: that the Son was a created being
and inferior to God the Father, and that the Father and Son were of a
similar substance (homoiousios in Greek) but not identical (see
Nontrinitarian). Despite the council's
ruling, controversy continued. By the time of Theodosius' accession,
there were still several different church factions that promoted
alternative
Christology.
Arians
While no mainstream churchmen within the Empire
explicitly adhered to
Arius (a presbyter from Alexandria,
Egypt) or his teachings, there were those who still used the
homoiousios formula, as well as those who attempted to bypass the
debate by merely saying that Jesus was like (homoios in Greek)
God the Father, without speaking of substance (ousia). All these
non-Nicenes were frequently labeled as
Arians (i.e., followers of Arius) by
their opponents, though they would not have identified themselves as
such.
The Emperor Valens had favored the group who used the
homoios formula; this
theology was prominent in much of the
East and had under the sons of Constantine the Great gained a foothold
in the West. Theodosius, on the other hand, cleaved closely to the
Nicene Creed which was the
interpretation that predominated in the West and was held by the
important
Alexandrian church.
Establishment
of Nicene Orthodoxy
On 26 November 380, two days after he had arrived in
Constantinople, Theodosius expelled the non-Nicene bishop,
Demophilus of Constantinople, and
appointed
Meletius patriarch of Antioch, and
Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the
Cappadocian Fathers from
Antioch (today in Turkey), patriarch of
Constantinople. Theodosius had just been baptized, by bishop
Acholius of Thessalonica, during a
severe illness, as was common in the early Christian world.
On 27 February 380 he,
Gratian and
Valentinian II published an edict in
order that all their subjects should profess the faith of the bishops of
Rome and Alexandria (i.e., the Nicene faith). The move was mainly a
thrust at the various beliefs that had arisen out of Arianism, but
smaller dissident sects, such as the
Macedonians, were also prohibited. The
exact text of this decree, gathered in the Codex Theodosianus
XVI.1.2, was:
It is our desire that all the various nations
which are subject to our Clemency and Moderation, should continue to
profess that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the
divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful
tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by
Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According
to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us
believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the
followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians;
but as for the others, since, in our judgment they are foolish
madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious
name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their
conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first
place the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second
the punishment of our authority which in accordance with the will of
Heaven we shall decide to inflict. (Henry
Bettenson, Documents of the Christian Church, Oxford
University Press, 1967, 2nd. (1st. 1943), p. 22).
In May 381, Theodosius summoned a new ecumenical
council at Constantinople (see
First Council of Constantinople) to
repair the schism between East and West on the basis of Nicean
orthodoxy. "The council went on to define orthodoxy, including the
mysterious Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Ghost who, though equal
to the Father, 'proceeded' from Him, whereas the Son was 'begotten' of
Him." The council also "condemned the Apollonian and Macedonian
heresies, clarified church jurisdictions according to the civil
boundaries of dioceses and ruled that Constantinople was second in
precedence to Rome."
With the
death of Valens, the Arians' protector,
his defeat probably damaged the standing of the Homoian faction.
Conflicts
with Pagans during the reign of Theodosius I
Death
of Western Roman Emperor Valentinian II
On 15 May 392,
Valentinian II was found hanged in his
residence in the town of
Vienne in
Gaul. The Frankish soldier and Pagan
Arbogast, Valentinian's protector and
magister militum, maintained that it
was suicide. Arbogast and Valentinian had frequently disputed rulership
over the Western Roman Empire, and Valentinian was also noted to have
complained of Arbogast's control over him to Theodosius. Thus when word
of his death reached Constantinople Theodosius believed, or at least
suspected, that Arbogast was lying and that he had engineered
Valentinian's demise. These suspicions were further fueled by Arbogast's
elevation of a
Eugenius, pagan official to the
position of Western Emperor, and the veiled accusations which
Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, spoke
during his funeral oration for Valentinian.
Valentinian II's death sparked a civil war between
Eugenius and Theodosius over the rulership of the west in the
Battle of the Frigidus. The resultant
eastern victory there led to the final brief unification of the Roman
Empire under Theodosius, and the ultimate irreparable division of the
empire after his death.
Proscription
of Paganism
For the first part of his rule, Theodosius seems to
have ignored the semi-official standing of the Christian bishops; in
fact he had voiced his support for the preservation of temples or pagan
statues as useful public buildings. In his early reign, Theodosius was
fairly tolerant of the pagans, for he needed the support of the
influential pagan ruling class. However he would in time stamp out the
last vestiges of paganism with great severity. His first attempt to
inhibit paganism was in 381 when he reiterated Constantine's ban on
sacrifice. In 384 he prohibited
haruspicy
on pain of death, and unlike earlier
anti-pagan prohibitions, he made non-enforcement of the law, by
Magistrates, into a crime itself.
In 388 he sent a prefect to Syria, Egypt, and Asia
Minor with the aim of breaking up pagan associations and the destruction
of their temples. The
Serapeum at Alexandria was destroyed
during this campaign. In a series of decrees called the "Theodosian
decrees" he progressively declared that those Pagan feasts that had not
yet been rendered Christian ones were now to be workdays (in 389). In
391, he reiterated the ban of
blood sacrifice and decreed "no one is
to go to the sanctuaries, walk through the temples, or raise his eyes to
statues created by the labor of man". The temples that were thus closed
could be declared "abandoned", as Bishop
Theophilus of Alexandria immediately
noted in applying for permission to demolish a site and cover it with a
Christian church, an act that must have received general sanction, for
mithraea forming crypts of
churches, and temples forming the foundations of 5th century churches
appear throughout the former Roman Empire. Theodosius participated in
actions by Christians against major Pagan sites: the destruction of the
gigantic
Serapeum of Alexandria by soldiers and
local Christian citizens in 392, according to the Christian sources
authorized by Theodosius (extirpium malum), needs to be seen
against a complicated background of less spectacular violence in the
city:
Eusebius mentions street-fighting in
Alexandria between Christians and non-Christians as early as 249, and
non-Christians had participated in the struggles for and against
Athanasius in 341 and 356. "In 363 they
killed Bishop George for repeated acts of pointed outrage, insult, and
pillage of the most sacred treasures of the city."
By decree in 391, Theodosius ended the subsidies that
had still trickled to some remnants of Greco-Roman civic Paganism too.
The
eternal fire in the Temple of
Vesta in the
Roman Forum was extinguished, and the
Vestal Virgins were disbanded. Taking
the
auspices and practicing
witchcraft were to be punished. Pagan
members of the
Senate in Rome appealed to him to
restore the
Altar of Victory in the Senate House;
he refused. After the last
Olympic Games in 393, it is believed
that Theodosius cancelled the games although there is no proof of that
in the official records of the Roman Empire, and the reckoning of dates
by
Olympiads soon came to an end. Now
Theodosius portrayed himself on his coins holding the
labarum.
The apparent change of policy that resulted in the "Theodosian
decrees" has often been credited to the increased influence of
Ambrose,
bishop of Milan. It is worth noting
that in 390 Ambrose had excommunicated Theodosius, who had recently
given orders which resulted in the
massacre of 7,000 inhabitants of
Thessalonica, in response to the
assassination of his military governor stationed in the city, and that
Theodosius performed several months of public penance. The specifics of
the decrees were superficially limited in scope, specific measures in
response to various petitions from Christians throughout his
administration.
Some modern historians question the consequences of
the laws against pagans.
Death
Theodosius died, after battling the vascular disease
oedema, in
Milan on 17 January 395. Ambrose
organized and managed Theodosius's lying in state in Milan. Ambrose
delivered a
panegyric titled De Obitu Theodosii
before
Stilicho and
Honorius in which Ambrose detailed the
suppression of heresy and paganism by Theodosius. Theodosius was finally
laid to rest in Constantinople on 8 November 395.
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