158 - An Imperial Suicide

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Hello and welcome to the History of Rome. Episode 158, An Imperial Suicide. So yeah, sorry about last week. I forgot to leave time in my schedule for an emergency appendectomy, so the show had to be tabled. I'm sure this came as a disappointment, but as many of you noted, had this been Roman times, I'd probably be dead right now, so I suppose we should all just count our blessings. I'd personally like to thank the fine people at Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas, for taking me apart and putting me back together so efficiently. And without further ado, let's get back into this thing. Though I'd like to apologize in advance for this episode being a little shorter than usual, I'm not really back to 100% strength just yet, and decided to scale back my ambitions a bit rather than pushing forward too hard, too fast.

Okay, so where the heck were we? Ah yes, Theodosius had just finished doing his penance for ordering the massacre at Thessalonica, and in the early summer 391, had decided it was time to head back to Constantinople. Left behind to govern the western provinces was the now 20-year-old Valentinian II, who had, for a few years now, technically been the senior Augustus of the empire, although he had never even once been treated as such. Even now, totally old enough to be ruling in his own right, Valentinian was still treated as the same powerless figurehead that he'd been treated as his whole life. Only now, rather than being dominated by Justina and Ambrose, a new puppet master stepped forward to take over the imperial strings, Arbogast, a Frankish general appointed by Theodosius to command the armies of the west. The general took his role as protector of the western provinces seriously, and took Valentinian's role as emperor not very seriously at all. It is possible that Justina may have been able to act as a check on Arbogast's growing power, but at some point, either just before or just after Theodosius left Milan, the empress died, leaving her son to fend for himself, and he would not fend very well at all.

The first thing Arbogast did was move the imperial court up to Trier, where he would have a better vantage point from which to survey the Rhine frontier. Various Germanic tribes, including members of Arbogast's own Frankish communities, had taken the opportunity of Maximus' revolt, and the subsequent lack of an imperial presence in the region, to raid into the Roman provinces and make off with as much as they could. Despite the general's connection to the tribes of the lower Rhine, they had overstepped the bounds of propriety, and needed to be punished. So for the rest of 391 Arbogast led a campaign against his erstwhile people, and by all accounts whipped them back into place pretty quick. This battlefield success led to Arbogast's growing sense of entitlement, and his ego began to run away with him. Although it's not like he didn't have good reason to be arrogant. Here he was, a seasoned and decorated general, personally appointed by Theodosius to run the military of the entire western empire. He had proven his loyalty, proven his worth, and probably felt like he had earned the free hand he was now assuming he had. And besides, what was his alternative, to pay attention to the opinions of some untested youth who had been dominated for the last decade by a woman and a priest?

Beyond doing whatever he felt like doing whenever he felt like doing it when it came to military matters, Arbogast started appointing his own ministers to various bureaucratic positions without consulting the emperor, and then giving those ministers the authority to overrule decisions made by Valentinian's appointed ministers. But despite his growing autonomy, at no point does it appear that Arbogast intended to overthrow the young emperor, because what would have been the point of that? The general had all the power and prestige he could ever hope for, without worrying that a strong imperial hand would check that power and prestige. I would imagine that Arbogast was quite pleased with the arrangement as it now stood. Valentinian, on the other hand, could not have been more miserable. As I mentioned, he was now twenty years old, and had every right to believe that with his mother dead, Ambrose back in Milan, and a new commander-in-chief in place, that it was time for him to assume more responsibility. But the way Arbogast was treating him made it painfully clear that that was never going to happen. Valentinian would issue orders, and they would be ignored. He would appoint ministers, and they would be overruled. He would announce a new policy, and the people would look to Arbogast to see if they really needed to follow it. Throughout 391 and into 392, the increasingly despondent Valentinian wrote letters to Theodosius complaining about his treatment, but Theodosius was likely as happy with the political arrangement in the West as Arbogast was. Ruling an empire was serious business. Nobody wanted the inexperienced Valentinian screwing things up, and so the young emperor was left to languish in his impotent isolation.

Had he played his hand a little smarter, Arbogast might have been able to maintain this dynamic more or less indefinitely. He had Theodosius' full support, and Valentinian had, well, no one's full support. But unfortunately, Arbogast lacked the silver tongue necessary to successfully pull the strings of a puppet emperor. See, you have to stroke the ego of the puppet. You have to pretend like the puppet is really in charge. You have to convince the puppet that those strings attached to its hands are just a trick of the light. Your words have to be manipulative, and your actions have to come with a veneer of servitude. But Arbogast was no sneaky courtier. He was a blunt soldier, and he had no time for such shenanigans. He was the real power in the West, not Valentinian, and he was damn well going to act like it. So the emperor was dismissed, ignored, and mocked, rather than endured, placated, and soothed, which would prove to be Arbogast's undoing.

After years spent in lavish purgatory, Valentinian II had finally had enough. He was the emperor, not Arbogast, and it was time to make that point clear to everyone. In May of 392, Valentinian sent a letter to the Frankish general dismissing him from his post. But when Arbogast received the note, he laughed his head off and then sent his own note back. Dear Valentinian, Theodosius appointed me to my position, not you. You have no authority to fire me. Sit on it. Sincerely, Arbogast. Valentinian was incensed, but when he looked around he realized that there was nothing he could do about it. No one was going to go to the mat for him. No one was going to take his side against the general. He really was just a powerless figurehead. A few days later, Valentinian's body was discovered in his private bedchamber. The emperor had hanged himself. He was 21 years old and had been nothing more than a figurehead emperor for 17 years.

The suicide put Arbogast in a tight spot, since it would naturally raise eyebrows all over the empire. Suicide. Right. Suicide. Whatever you say, Arbogast. Sure must be nice to have that troublesome youth out of your way, though, right? Nudge nudge. Wink wink. However, though assassination is of course a possibility, the historical consensus seems to be that Valentinian really did hang himself. The emperor's death benefited Arbogast in no clear way, and the general's actions in the months that followed showed no indication that he had committed murder most foul. If Arbogast killed the emperor as part of a coup, it was the worst-run coup in history since he did not seize power for himself, the way that say Maximus had after killing Gratian, nor did he immediately put some hand-picked successor on the throne, the way that say Pertinax had been elevated after the murder of Commodus. If he was playing a really long con and waiting for Theodosius to announce a successor, then what? He was hoping for someone even weaker than Valentinian? I'm not sure how much weaker than Valentinian you can really get. So the consensus is that maybe Arbogast killed the emperor, but if he did, it was a really really dumb idea. Though, I suppose that's not necessarily an airtight alibi, given the infinite stupidity of man.

Word of Valentinian's death and Arbogast's protestations of innocence arrived in Constantinople at almost the same time. Theodosius was likely inclined to believe his general, but the people surrounding Theodosius had other ideas. Valentinian's sister and Theodosius' wife, Galla, refused to believe the suicide story, and raised holy hell about the need to revenge the murder of her brother. Then there was the Praetorian prefect Rufinus, who, no friend of Arbogast, did his best to control the flow of information so that the Frankish general would be painted in as bad a light as possible. For months then, the eastern court hemmed and hawed about what to do. Do we accuse Arbogast of murder and risk civil war? Let him off the hook and risk letting a man guilty of regicide walk free? Finally, in late August, Arbogast got sick of waiting for a decision, and decided that the government of the west needed an emperor. As a Frank, he knew that he personally couldn't fill the role, so Arbogast plucked up Flavius Eugenius, a former teacher of rhetoric and now second-tier imperial secretary, and hailed him Augustus of the West.

The choice of Eugenius was a surprise, but it does hint that Arbogast understood that he had probably fallen out of favor in the east, and that he needed to find some new allies if he was going to survive. Eugenius may have been a lower-ranking minister, but he had very close ties to the old Roman aristocracy, and it was likely those ties that Arbogast had his eyes on. Should the need arise, the general would now be able to raise funds from the senatorial elite, who, conveniently enough, now hated Theodosius to a man because the emperor had turned into an anti-pagan extremist following his reconciliation with Ambrose. Arbogast was not ready to break with Theodosius just yet, but clearly he was hedging his bets.

Upon his ascension, Eugenius sent ambassadors to the eastern court to ask for formal recognition. The West needed an emperor. Theodosius had not immediately provided one, so the West had been forced to take matters into its own hands. This was not about usurpation, it was about political necessity. So please ratify my elevation. Theodosius and his ministers were as non-committal with Eugenius' ambassadors as they had been with Arbogast's. It is clear that for years Theodosius had been arranging things so that his two sons would inherit the empire, and that the elevation of Eugenius was now messing those plans up. But it is also clear that Theodosius was in no position to launch yet another invasion of the West. So the emperor stalled for time.

In January 393, though, Eugenius and Arbogast were finally given an answer, though the presentation of that answer was a bit oblique. In the late 4th century, the ceremonial formality of naming consuls for each year was still hanging around, with both the eastern and western courts naming separate pairs of honorees. In the West, Eugenius named himself to one of the consul ships, and Theodosius to the other, a clear indication that he was still seeking an alliance. Theodosius, meanwhile, named himself to a consul ship in the East, but gave the other one to some random general, a clear indication that he did not share Eugenius' hopes for an alliance. To set things even deeper in stone, in mid-January Theodosius elevated his nine-year-old son Honorius to the rank of full Augustus, and announced that he intended for the boy to eventually rule the Western Empire. The emperor's other son Arcadius, now 15 or 16, had himself been elevated to the rank of Augustus back in 383, and was already acknowledged as his father's successor in the East. The elevation of Honorius, though, made it clear that Theodosius had no intention of letting anyone from outside the family into the imperial club, which meant Eugenius could never be recognized officially, which meant that Arbogast was now backing an enemy of the state, which made him an enemy of the state as well. So unless he wanted to just hand himself over for execution, that meant that Arbogast was going to have to fight for his life. Once again, the empire was on the path to civil war.

But it was not a war that either side was prepared to fight just yet. Though the break between East and West became permanent in January 393, it would not be until the summer of 394 that battle would finally be joined. In the meantime, both sides prepared. Eugenius and Arbogast moved their court down to Milan to secure the passes into Italy, and make it easier to drum up support from the Roman aristocracy. Bishop Ambrose, far less sure of how he would be treated by Eugenius and Arbogast than he had been about how he was going to be treated by the last usurper to march into Milan, prudently took the opportunity to withdraw to Bologna.

Over the course of the next year, he would have further reason to fear the new regime, as Eugenius made a concerted effort to align himself with the pagan aristocracy of Italy. After canceling most of the anti-pagan laws passed by Gratian, Maximus, and Theodosius, Eugenius then granted the long-standing request that the altar of victory be put back in the Senate House, and then provided the funds necessary to reopen the great temple of Venus and Rome. Pagan senators were then appointed to key positions in the government, from which they continued to roll back the ban on paganism, reopening temples all over Italy, and celebrating every holiday, set of games, and festival that the old religious calendar demanded. Ambrose chided the emperor for giving in to the devil-worshippers, but for the moment, he had lost all his influence. For the last time in history, the pagans were ascendant.

Back in Constantinople, Theodosius would be able to make much of this pagan takeover in his pre-war propaganda. So much so, that the coming civil war will wind up being painted as a great battle between paganism and Christianity. Indeed, right up until the modern era, the Battle of the Phrygidus was presented as the bookend to the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, with Theodosius triumphantly ending the war Constantine had begun eighty years earlier. But focusing on the religious angle of the coming civil war means ignoring the fact that Arbogast and Eugenius' alliance with the pagan senate in Rome was an example of politics making strange bedfellows, rather than the logical consummation of some ideological agenda. Both Arbogast and Eugenius were Christian, and they were looking for political recognition and personal survival, not to start a religious revolution. Even the key details of the battle, which we'll get into next week, come to us mostly by way of Christian sources, who were understandably happy to play up the paganism of Theodosius' enemies in order to bathe the emperor in the righteous light of God. But we'll get more into that next week.

On a more practical level, Theodosius spent the rest of 393 preparing an army for war. An army that would wind up looking a lot like the army he had taken to face Maximus. The core of the invasion force would be Roman legionaries, but they would once again be matched by an equal number of barbarian auxiliaries. The Goths in particular would play a huge role in the coming fighting, and their forces would be led by a powerful new chief named Alaric. So yes, the sack of Rome is just around the corner. Theodosius' two leading field generals this time around would be a career officer named Timotheus, and a rising favorite in the eastern court, Stilicho, the vandal general who had open negotiations with the Sassanids prior to the war with Maximus. In the intervening years, Stilicho had risen even further in prominence, culminating with his marriage to the emperor's niece-slash-adopted daughter, Serena. Now one of the two or three most powerful men in the empire, Stilicho was put in charge of the preparations for war, and when the time came, he would be one of the ones leading them in battle.

The time for that battle finally came in the summer of 394, as Theodosius and his generals began marching west at the head of an army that at least one source claims was 60,000 men strong, although I should note that for the times, that would have been an enormous army. As they entered Illyria, the first thing Theodosius' army noticed was that the passes into Italy were completely unguarded. Having studied Maximus' failed defense of Italy, Arbogast had concluded that Maximus had erred by dividing up his forces. By stationing troops on both sides of the Alpine passes, Maximus had just made Theodosius' job easier. So Arbogast decided to abandon the eastern entrances into the Alps, and concentrate all his forces at the western exits. Theodosius could have the mountains, but when he came down into Italy, he was going to be met by a solid wall. This strategy would prove to be a sound one, and had it not been for a little bad luck, we could very well be talking about the great victory Arbogast won against the overmatched Theodosius.

Next week, we'll get into that last great battle between the pagans and the Christians. After the first day of heavy fighting, it will look like Theodosius is done for, but as we'll see, a key defection and a little divine intervention will help turn the tide in the eastern Augustus' favor. But though he would eventually win the day, Theodosius' tactics would wind up having one major unintended consequence, as Alaric and his Goths would leave the field mighty disgruntled.