11 January 347 A.D. Birth of Theodosius the Great
Theodosius I, byname Theodosius the Great, in full Flavius Theodosius (born January 11, 347 ce, Cauca, Gallaecia [now Coca, Spain]—died
January 17, 395, Mediolanum [now Milan,
Italy]), Roman emperor of the East (379–392) and
then sole emperor of both East and West (392–395), who, in vigorous suppression
of paganism and Arianism, established the creed of the Council of Nicaea (325) as the universal
norm for Christian orthodoxy and directed the convening of the second general
council at Constantinople (381) to clarify the formula.
Background
and youth
Theodosius was born
in the province of Gallaecia in northwestern Spain. His father was to become the general
Flavius Theodosius; his mother’s name is unknown. His grandparents, like his
parents, were probably already Christians. Theodosius, who grew up in Spain,
did not receive an extensive education but was intellectually open-minded and
acquired a special interest in the study of history.
While on his
father’s staff, he participated in campaigns against the Picts and Scots in
Britain in 368–369, against the Alemanni in Gaul in 370, and against the Sarmatians in the Balkans in 372–373. As a
military commander in Moesia, a Roman province on the lower Danube, he defeated the Sarmatians in 374.
When his father was sentenced to death and executed as a result of political
intrigues by enemies at court, Theodosius withdrew to his Spanish estates. At
the end of 376, he married Aelia Flacilla, also a Spaniard. His first son, the
future emperor Arcadius, was born in 377, and his daughter Pulcheria in 378.
Immediately after
the catastrophic defeat of the emperor Valens, who perished at the hands of the Visigoths and other barbarians on August
9, 378, near Adrianople, the emperor Gratian unexpectedly summoned Theodosius to
his court. When Theodosius had once again proved his military ability by a
victory over the Sarmatians, Gratian proclaimed him co-emperor on January 19, 379. His dominion was to be the
Eastern part of the empire, including the provinces of Dacia (present-day Romania) and Macedonia, which had been especially infiltrated
by barbarians in the preceding few years.
Early
years as emperor
In 379 and 380
Theodosius resided chiefly in Thessalonica. He sought first to rebuild the army, the discipline of which was considerably impaired, and to consolidate
Rome’s position on the Balkan Peninsula. Military unpreparedness could not be
overcome by conscription alone, which applied only to certain classes.
Theodosius therefore directed that large numbers of Teutons, who had been barred from military
service, be accepted by the army. By 379, however, when foreigners had already
intermingled extensively with the rest of the army, both among the troops and
in all ranks of the officer corps, Theodosius did no more than many of his
predecessors to encourage this process. In contrast to the West, in
Theodosius’s provinces both Romans and Teutons were among the leading generals.
Recognizing that
the barbarians, who had invaded the provinces as early as 375, could no longer
be expelled by force and that he could count on Gratian for only limited
assistance, Theodosius sought new possibilities for coexistence. This resulted
in the friendly reception of the Visigoth Athanaric in 381 and the conclusion of a
treaty of alliance, or foedus,
with the main body of the Visigoths in the fall of 382. The Goths, who pledged
themselves to lending military assistance, were assigned territory for
settlement between the lower Danube and the Balkan mountains. Under this novel
arrangement, an entire people was settled on imperial soil while retaining its
autonomy. Theodosius may have hoped that the Goths would become integrated, as
had a group of Goths who had settled near Nicopolis in Moesia circa 350; their
leader, Bishop Ulfilas, undertook missionary work among the parties to the foedus of 382.
Some historians have
regarded Theodosius as biased in favour of the Goths. He has even been accused
of having contributed decisively, through the treaty of 382, to the downfall of
Rome. Yet, it should be noted that the policy of that treaty, which was
undertaken in the justified expectation of raising Roman military strength and
recultivating tracts of wasteland, by no means became customary. Instead, the
emperor took strict measures against further invasions by Teutonic bands and
did not permit any doubts to arise as to Roman claims of superiority over the
barbarians.
Theodosius’s
situation was complicated by the sharp antagonism that arose about 379 between
disciples of the Nicene Creed (according to which Jesus
Christ is of the same substance as God the Father) and several other Christian groups in his part of the empire.
Theodosius himself, the first emperor who did not assume the title of pontifex maximus (supreme
guardian of the old Roman cults), believed in the Nicene Creed, despite his baptism only
after a serious illness in the fall of 380.
Out of political as
well as religious motives, he energetically undertook to bring about unity of
faith within the empire. His position was improved by the fact that during 379
the followers of the Nicene Creed gained ground, whereupon Theodosius on
February 28, 380, without consulting the ecclesiastical authorities, issued an
edict prescribing a creed that was to be binding on all subjects. Only persons
who believed in the consubstantiality of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
were henceforth to be considered Catholic Christians, a designation that
here appears for the first time in a document.
There is no doubt
that the principle of religious intolerance was proclaimed in this edict. When
assessing the edict, however—which should not be viewed simply as an isolated
measure—it must be remembered that to the Christians Theodosius was emperor by
the grace of God. While thus committed to defend the true faith, he by no means
carried out his stated intention by force. The creed, prescribed in 380, was
again defined at the beginning of 381 and ecclesiastically sanctioned, as it
were, by a church council summoned to Constantinople by Theodosius in the summer
of 381. That gathering is considered the second ecumenical council.
The Symbolum
Nicaeno-Constantinopolitanum (i.e., the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed [or
Symbol]), which is still used by most Christians, along with the ranking by the
council fathers of the bishop of Constantinople directly after the bishop of
Rome, can thus be traced back to Theodosius. Henceforth, the emperor’s
authority in matters of faith was to be recognized by the bishops of the East.
There is no ground, however, for speaking of a rigidly organized imperial
church controlled by the emperor.
The period when
Theodosius stayed mainly in Constantinople, dating from the end of 380
to 387, is that to which most of his measures to improve the capital may be
attributed. The plan for the Forum Tauri, the largest
public square known in antiquity, designed after the model of Trajan’s Forum in
Rome, is outstanding. It is unclear, however, to what extent the emperor
encouraged the flowering of art and literature in his time.
The
middle years
In 383 Maximus, a Spaniard who had been proclaimed
emperor by the troops in Britain, asserted himself as ruler in the Western provinces
(praefectura Galliarum).
Suspicions that Theodosius was in collusion with the usurper and thus
implicated in the death of Emperor Gratian in August 383 are unfounded.
Theodosius, who had to acknowledge the sovereignty of Gratian’s stepbrother Valentinian II, born in 371 and the nominal
ruler in Italy since the end of 375, could not interfere with Maximus, for he lacked both
sufficient military strength and secure borders. Yet, when Maximus invaded
Italy in 387 and Valentinian was forced to flee to Thessalonica, Theodosius
soon decided upon countermeasures. His decision was perhaps hastened through
the influence of Valentinian’s mother, whose daughter Galla he had married at
the end of 387, having been a widower since 386.
Theodosius’s
position by that time had become stronger. Long-standing negotiations with the
Persians over the division of power in Armenia had resulted in a treaty that
was to become the basis for a long period of peace on the eastern border.
Having ordered one army division from Egypt to Africa and sent Valentinian with a fleet to Italy, Theodosius set out
in the spring of 388 with the main body of troops to move against Maximus’s
army, which had invaded Pannonia in the Balkans. By July the enemy was defeated. When Maximus surrendered
at the end of August, he was branded as a usurper, but his followers were
generally treated with leniency.
In the same year,
Theodosius again relinquished the West to his co-emperor Valentinian but
secured his own influence by placing the Frankish general Arbogast, a man he trusted, at
Valentinian’s side as principal adviser. By remaining in Italy until the spring
of 391, where he resided mostly in Milan, Theodosius emphasized his claim to
supreme authority throughout the empire. In 389 he visited Rome, where,
accompanied by his four-year-old son Honorius, he made a triumphant entry.
In Milan,
Theodosius found in Bishop Ambrose an ecclesiastic who was intent upon
cooperating effectively with the emperor and even upon forming a friendship
with him, although Ambrose pointed out to Theodosius the limits of the power of
temporal rulers more clearly than had others. A conflict had already arisen
between them in 388 over Theodosius’s punishment of orthodox fanatics who had
set fire to a synagogue and to the shrine of a sect. As a devout Christian,
Theodosius finally acceded to the bishop’s wishes in the matter but took pains
to make him understand that he was not willing to grant the bishop greater
influence in affairs of government.
A new conflict
arose in 390 when, following the murder of one of his generals in Thessalonica,
Theodosius issued an order for brutal retaliation. It was rescinded too late,
so that a horrible massacre resulted among the population there. Ambrose had
the emperor’s action condemned in a church council and bade him do public
penance. After a prolonged hesitation, Theodosius complied with the order and
was readmitted to communion at Christmas 390.
His penance should
not be construed as a victory of the church over the emperor but only as a
demonstration of the power of atonement over the penitent sinner. The claims
that arose in future centuries that the church had been placed above the
temporal power derived not from Theodosius’s act of penance but only from the
myth generated by it. Although Theodosius had gained an important ally in
Ambrose, he continued intent on preserving the emperor’s authority in the face
of Ambrose and other bishops.
While maintaining
an entirely friendly attitude toward the church, Theodosius still took care in
his legislation to see that the material interests of the state were sacrificed
only to a very limited extent to church or clergy. In addition, Theodosius
decided to enforce more strongly against the pagans the religious policy he had pursued
since 379. In February 391 he prohibited sacrifices and the visiting of
temples. Up to that time, he had basically tolerated the pagans and had
entrusted adherents of the old cults with the highest offices.
Quarrels between
his second wife, Galla, and his son Arcadius, as well as his own view of the
Eastern capital as the centre of the empire, prompted Theodosius to move his
residence back to Constantinople, where he arrived in November 391.
Victory
over pagan usurpers
A new crisis arose
for Theodosius three months after Valentinian’s death on May 15, 392. Arbogast treacherously proclaimed as emperor of the West a former rhetoric teacher,
Eugenius, who had close connections with
the pagan aristocracy of the Senate. Theodosius, who did not yet dare to risk a
civil war, delayed reception of a legation requesting recognition of Arbogast’s
puppet. On November 8, 392, he made his edicts of 391 more stringent by
completely prohibiting the worship of the pagan gods. He left no further doubts
as to his position when he elevated his son Honorius to Augustus in January 393 and thereby
demonstrated that he would no longer tolerate any emperor other than himself
and his sons. Because he still refrained from military action, his enemies
occupied Italy in the spring of 393. Led by Nicomachus Flavianus, the forces
striving to preserve the pagan cults gathered around Eugenius.
The now inevitable
struggle for power was thus at the same time a struggle that would decide
whether pagan religions would once again be tolerated within the empire
alongside Christianity. Theodosius did not set
out from Constantinople until May 394. As in 388, he made his way toward the
Danube and then the Sava with his powerful army. His force consisted largely of
barbarians and their allies, one of whose leaders was Stilicho, a Vandal who had been married
since 384 to the emperor’s niece Serena. Theodosius’s sons Arcadius and
Honorius stayed behind in the capital. Arcadius, who had been given the right
to promulgate laws independently, was supposed to direct the government in the
East.
Theodosius first
met the enemy at the Frigidus River on the eastern border of
Italy. Although Theodosius’s advance guard, composed almost entirely of
Visigoths, suffered heavy losses during an attempted breakthrough on September
5, 394, the emperor ventured to attack the following day and was victorious.
Later Christian tradition, emphasizing Theodosius’s piety and trust in God,
essentially interpreted the victory as a divine judgment: the god of the
Christians had triumphed over the old Roman gods. Following the deaths of
Eugenius, Arbogast, and Nicomachus Flavianus, Theodosius showed himself lenient
and strove to achieve the settlement between opposing forces that was necessary
to strengthen imperial unity.
Probably as a
result of the exertion of the campaign, Theodosius fell ill. He went to Milan,
where he summoned Honorius in order to present him formally as Augustus of the
West. Because Theodosius had appeared to recover, his death in January 395 was
generally unexpected. On his deathbed he had entrusted Stilicho, promoted to
generalissimo after the victory at the Frigidus, with the care of his two sons.
From Ambrose’s funeral oration, filled with praise for the Christian ruler, it
is evident that contemporaries had no doubt as to the continuing unity of the
empire, for the question of succession seemed to have been settled in the best
possible way. Yet, all too soon it was to become apparent that Theodosius had
not chosen his advisers with sufficient care and that the men who were guiding
the sickly Arcadius were unwilling to cooperate with Stilicho, who remained
loyal to the dynasty. After his death, Theodosius’s body was borne in state to
Constantinople and interred in the mausoleum erected by Constantius II.
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