by David Potter
The senatorial prosecutions and the tribulations of the people of Leptis Magna, which were symptomatic of a court that exercised arbitrary power, help explain an event that was not only the most extraordinary of the reign of Valentinian, but also one of the most remarkable in the entire history of Rome. Valentinian fell seriously ill in AD 367, and the two principal factions at the court, described simply by Ammianus Marcellinus as the ‘Gauls’ and ‘those with better aims’, met to decide whom they should choose as his successor in the event of the emperor’s death. There was evidently no question of consulting Valens, or even Valentinian himself. When Valentinian recovered, he punished none of those responsible but instead had his son, Gratian, declared Augustus. The bureaucracy allowed him to have his way, but it was clear from what had gone before that the government of the west felt no responsibility to the emperor in the east, nor to the dynastic principle. The situation in the east was no different.
Casting the runes
In AD 371 a group of officials consulted a bizarre prophetic device (an ancient form of ouija board) to determine who the next emperor should be. Details of the ceremony, which became well known as a result of the subsequent treason trial, suggest that the event unfolded as follows, in the words Ammianus places in the mouth of one of the participants:
‘My lords, in an unlucky moment we put together out of laurel twigs in the shape of the Delphic tripod the hapless little table before you. We consecrated it with cryptic spells and a long series of magical rites, and at last made it work. The way in which it did so … was this. It was placed in the middle of a room thoroughly fumigated with spices from Arabia, and was covered with a round dish made from the alloys of various metals. The outer rim of the dish was cunningly engraved with the twenty-four letters of the alphabet separated by accurate intervals. A man dressed in linen garments and wearing linen sandals … officiated as priest. After uttering a set prayer to invoke the divine power which presides over prophecy, he took his place above the tripod as his knowledge of the proper ritual had taught him, and set swinging a ring suspended by a very fine cotton thread which had been consecrated by a mystic formula. The ring, moving in a series of jumps over the marked spaces, came to rest on particular letters.’
The answer it gave consisted of the Greek letters theta (th), epsilon (e) and omicron (o), which the consultants understood to indicate Theodorus, a Gaulish official in Valens’ court. Even more curiously, when Theodorus was informed of his selection, Ammianus claims that he planned to tell Valens. Yet he was pre-empted by the praetorian prefect Modestus, who wanted to secure the succession for an easterner, and launched an investigation into treasonous magical practices. Many senior officials were brutally executed. Since Valens had no son yet, the matter of the succession was left open for the time being.
Valentinian, who had a ferocious temper, died of an apoplectic seizure in AD 375. Gratian stepped in as Augustus in Gaul, and his supporters immediately set about purging all of Valentinian’s former confederates. The Balkan commander Merobaudes, who was one such ally, saw the writing on the wall if he failed to interpose some new titular authority between himself and the new ruler. Indeed, he seems to have planned for just this eventuality with the collusion of Valentinian’s second wife, Justina. She had a son, also named Valentinian, and within five days of the announcement of the elder Valentinian’s death, the younger Valentinian was proclaimed Augustus, with authority over Illyricum. Gratian and Valens accepted the proclamation as a fait accompli.
Whatever Valens thought of the proclamation of Valentinian, he soon found himself beset by far more urgent problems. As Valentinian II came to power, he was engaged in a fierce struggle with the Persians over control of Armenia. As if this were not serious enough, news reached him the following year in Antioch of a massive movement of peoples north of the Balkan frontier. The Goths were coming.
Enemies at the Gate:
The Barbarian Invasions
(AD 376–411)
The Goths were not exactly an unknown quantity to the Romans. Having first arrived in the region to the north of Rome’s border along the Danube around the end of the second century AD, they took part in the extensive raids that kept much of the Roman army tied down in the 250s and 260s. During the course of the next century, they divided into two main groups, the Tervingi, who inhabited the region around the Dneister River, and the Greuthingi, who occupied the lands bordering the Danube.
Over time, many Goths were recruited into the Roman army, while Constantine sponsored an effort to spread Christianity among them. The main agent of conversion was a Goth priest named Ulfilas (c. AD 311–383), who was ordained a bishop by Athanasius’ great enemy, Eusebius of Nicomedia. The effects of his missionary work were deeply ambivalent, both at the time and later. From the Roman point of view, when Athanasius’ brand of Christianity finally triumphed at the end of the century, Goths were regarded as heretics. In Ulfilas’ own time, Gothic leaders who did not convert regarded him as an agent of the imperial government and persecuted his flock. As a result, Constantius II was forced to grant Ulfilas and some of his followers permission to move into Moesia Inferior (northern Bulgaria). Otherwise, contacts between the Romans and the Goths were regulated through Roman border posts. This was an uneasy coexistence, with occasional upsurges of violence, the most recent of which had been sparked by the Goths’ alleged support for Procopius. A truce was concluded in AD 369, in which both parties agreed to maintain the status quo.
Invaders from the north
The Huns – a semi-nomadic people from the Eurasian steppes – shattered the peace. Although Roman sources describe in great detail the sudden irruption of these fearsome barbarians into northeastern Europe in the years immediately before AD 376, the truth about their appearance is probably somewhat more prosaic. As semi-nomads, the Huns would have long depended to some degree on neighbouring settled communities of Goths for their subsistence. It is not known what soured this relationship, but it is apparent that the Huns began to carry out massive raids against the Tervingi from the mid-370s onwards.
The Huns’ success was due in large part to their adoption of a devastatingly effective piece of military hardware: a powerful form of recurved bow that enabled them to take down their opponents at long range. This weapon instantly rendered useless traditional Gothic tactics that relied on spear-armed cavalry engaging in close combat. A series of defeats threw the Tervingi into political turmoil, causing many to leave their lands and seek refuge among the Greuthingi, who also now began to suffer raids from the Huns. A large number of Greuthingi decided to abandon their traditional territory and, like the Tervingi, seek refuge within the empire. As Ulfilas’ flight shows, the empire was seen as a safe haven for Goths who could no longer live as they wished north of the border. This time, however, the sheer numbers involved made old models of accommodation unworkable.
Valens saw the displaced Goths as a potential source of recruits, and hoped to regulate the flow of refugees by allowing only the Greuthingi to enter Roman territory. Although this was a perfectly measured response, it would have required a great deal more advance planning than Valens had given it to make it work. The total number of Greuthingi is thought to have been in the region of 30,000–40,000 people, some 10,000 of whom were men of fighting age. With most of Valens’ field army deployed in the east, there were not enough troops to control the situation. Moreover, even if it had been properly managed, the supply network was wholly inadequate for catering to such a huge influx of hungry people. Relations with the immigrants swiftly deteriorated and, after a botched Roman effort to seize the leaders of the Greuthingi at a banquet in AD 377, they broke down completely.
The outbreak of war with the Greuthingi opened the frontier to other tribes, and by the summer of AD 377 the number of new arrivals had swollen to around 80,000. When set against the overall population of the empire – still probably in the range of 60 million – this figure might appear negligible. Yet it represented a huge number of people co
ncentrated in one area, and it would have required close coordination on the part of the three governments of the empire to bring the situation under control. As Valens made peace with Persia, neither the government of Valentinian II nor that of Gratian sent reinforcements to help the eastern emperor. Gratian, who was at least willing to help, was held up by insurrrection among his forces on the Lower Rhine. The Balkan commander Merobaudes, who was closer, did nothing except secure his own territory against Goth incursion. In AD 378, Gratian finally advanced east. Meanwhile Valens marshalled his forces, but still hoped that a diplomatic solution might be found.
In August, AD 378, the main Goth force encamped near Adrianople (the Turkish city of Edirne, in Thrace). Valens could delay no longer, and on 9 August made his move. The battle, fought on 9 August AD 378, pitted Valens’ field army of the east, numbering between 30,000 and 40,000 men, against a Gothic force that was likely about the same size. After marching eight miles from their camp, the Romans deployed in line against the Goths, who had taken up defensive positions in front of their wagon laager. Following a parley between Valens and the Goth commanders, some units on the Roman left launched an attack on the Goths (quite possibly without orders). The Gothic cavalry, which had been away from the camp, then attacked and routed the Roman left, and subsequently encircled and destroyed the centre of the Roman force. Two-thirds of the Roman army are said to have perished. Valens was among the casualties, but his body was never found (perhaps because the Goths set fire to a farmhouse where he was taken after being wounded). This defeat changed the balance of power in the Balkans for good, as the Romans would not thereafter be able to eliminate an independent Gothic presence south of the Danube.
The Goths, after realizing that they could not take Constantinople, and heeding the famous words of one of their leaders that they should try to attack walled cities, moved on to the hitherto unravaged lands of central Bulgaria and Serbia. Gratian was in something of a quandary. As senior surviving emperor, he could simply claim sovereignty over the east, but could not be sure that the eastern bureaucracy would accept him. Instead of doing battle with the Goths, he appointed two senior military commanders, one for the eastern frontier, the other for Illyricum, a rather ill-defined title that probably comprehended authority over the idle armies of Valentinian II as well as the remnants of Valens’ forces in the Balkans. As commander in the east he selected a man with the portentous name of Shapur (evidently a Persian who had entered Roman service), while the man he chose to take military control of Illyricum was Theodosius.
Striking a deal
Theodosius was the son of the man who had been Valentinian I’s magister militum (literally ‘master of the soldiers’). This post was created in the early AD 370s, establishing a new level of command above those held by the master of infantry (magister peditum) and master of cavalry (magister equitum). Over time, it would become the most prestigious post within the military bureaucracy. Yet when Theodosius the Elder took on the role in AD 373, his position was precarious, to say the least. Dispatched to North Africa to suppress a minor revolt, he uncovered the corrupt conduct of Romanus and sent him for trial in Italy. The trial was conducted by Merobaudes, who promptly found Romanus innocent, and in addition ensured that his cronies at the court of Valentinian I charged Theodosius himself with treason. He was executed in AD 376.
It is probable that the scandalous death of the elder Theodosius sparked the violent reaction against Valentinian’s inner circle, whose members now fell from power. This event would doubtless also have had repercussions at the court of Valentinian II. Certainly, Gratian’s choice of the younger Theodosius – now in his 30s and with no experience of such a senior command – was more a message to the regime of Merobaudes than it was a threat to the Goths. Even at moments of extreme crisis, it seemed, internal bureaucratic politics were of prime importance.
Perhaps Theodosius’ chief quality was that he was a fast learner. After defeating Sarmatian raiders, he promptly allowed himself to be proclaimed emperor in January, AD 379. This may all have been part of Gratian’s plan; certainly the outcome was not unwelcome to Gratian’s retinue of officials, who lent Theodosius vital support over the next couple of years, and the young Gratian recognized Theodosius’ claim to the throne without demur. Perhaps he and his advisers felt that anyone who wanted to be Augustus in the east under the circumstances that obtained in AD 379 was welcome to the job. Theodosius knew that he needed to tread carefully, for he could not really claim the throne, or indeed show himself in Constantinople, until the problem of the Goths had been resolved. He therefore set up court at Thessalonica.
The shared experience of victory and pillage was gradually shaping the Goths who had ventured south from their original homeland into a cohesive new community. More than anything they now wanted a place that they could call home, and sought it within the bounds of the Roman empire. Theodosius was initially hostile, but after suffering a defeat at their hands in AD 380, made peace with the Goths. They were granted autonomous lands in the Balkans under the control of their own chiefs in return for service, when required, with the army of the east. Such subsidized barbarian tribes were known as foederati (‘confederates’).
Blueprint for break-up
Although the treaty of AD 382 might appear to hark back to a happier age when the emperor controlled a multi-ethnic state through careful diplomacy and overt displays of personal virtus, it was in fact a blueprint for the break-up of the Roman empire. The idea of client states and independent allies was nothing new; in the past Rome had allowed Palmyra to raise a powerful army, and fostered a variety of relationships with its subjects as a way of strengthening the empire. But this treaty was fundamentally different, inasmuch as there was now no apparatus for interaction between Rome’s confederates and the central government that was not dictated (and tainted) by the vested interests of the bureaucratic élite. In other words, instead of becoming staunch and valued allies of the Roman people or the Roman empire, the Goths were to be mere pawns in the endless internal power struggle between different parts of the Roman bureaucracy.
Another reason for the incipient dissolution of the empire was the growing gap in prosperity that opened up between the east on the one hand and the centre and west on the other. Not only did the treaty with the Goths mean that no more tax revenues would flow to the western empire from the regions they occupied, but the foregoing years of war had also done terrible damage to the empire’s infrastructure in the Balkans. Large swathes of countryside took years to recover from such depredations. By contrast, improving relations with Persia after the death of Shapur II in AD 379 meant that no such devastation was visited on the eastern empire. In consequence, there developed a substantial difference between the logistical capacity of the empire to the east of the Bosphorus and that of the empire to the west. To further exacerbate the problem, the inability of the eastern, western and central bureaucracies to unite behind a common set of objectives meant that deterioration in one area was now unlikely to be repaired through the altruistic cooperation of the others.
The interventions by Gratian, whose generals continued to help Theodosius up until the treaty of AD 382, stand as an honourable exception to the general rule that each region was left to fend for itself. Certainly, Theodosius did not reciprocate Gratian’s loyalty. In AD 383, Magnus Maximus, the commander of the British garrison, took advantage of serious discontent with Gratian’s management of affairs in Gaul by invading the province. Encouraged by Merobaudes, the Gallic army deserted Gratian, and Theodosius responded by recognizing Maximus as a member of the imperial college. It was only when Maximus launched a sudden invasion of Italy in AD 386, driving Valentinian II into exile in Theodosius’ part of the empire, that the relationship between the two men broke down. In AD 388, Theodosius invaded Maximus’ realm. Caught off guard by the speed of the invasion, Maximus was captured outside Aquileia and summarily put to death. Valentinian was restored to power, but in name only. In fact, Theodosius’ marshals be
gan to exert an iron grip over the region. Prominent among them was his magister militum, the Frankish general Arbogast (d. AD 394), who ruthlessly mopped up any remaining sympathizers of Maximus and placed Valentinian under virtual house arrest in Vienne after Theodosius returned to Constantinople. In AD 392, Valentinian tried to depose Arbogast and paid with his life.
Showdown in the west
The fact that Arbogast was not a pure-blooded Roman effectively disqualified him from taking the throne himself; no such official sanction existed, but there was enough residual anti-German sentiment in the empire to make it impossible. Instead, he selected a senator named Eugenius to play the role, thereby assuring himself of the loyal backing of the senate. In all of this, there were also unmistakable signs of tensions that had been growing in the past few years between the court and the Roman aristocracy. Eugenius and some of his most prominent supporters were Roman aristocrats, and they seem to have been thoroughly tired of taking orders from Milan – and, indeed, from Milanese figures such as its bishop, Ambrose, who seemed to them to have been excessively powerful in recent years.
Ambrose, the son of a praetorian prefect, had first asserted his power against the court in a dispute with Valentinian II about where his soldiers could pray (like other Romans, he held that Goths were not orthodox believers). After a tense standoff and the miraculous discovery of the relics of two martyrs, Ambrose got his way. A few years later he played a leading role in removing the altar of Victory from the senate (this was a pure power-play on his part, as even the bishop of Rome was willing to leave the altar in place and the majority of senators were Christians). Finally, he had quarrelled with Theodosius on two occasions, once excommunicating the emperor and forcing him to submit to ecclesiastical authority in order to be readmitted to communion. In light of this history, we need not assume that Arbogast’s well advertised hatred of the man stemmed merely from the fact that he was a pagan; rather, he was tired of Ambrose’s meddling in secular affairs.