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Theodosian Dynasty - 378-457

Diocletian's artificial experiment of two Augusti and two Caesars had been proved a failure, leading to twenty years of disastrous civil wars; and when Constantine the Great destroyed his last rival and restored domestic peace, be ruled for the rest of bis life with undivided sway. But he had three sons, and this led to a new partition of the Empire after his death, and to more domestic wars, Constans first annexing the share of Constantine II (340) and becoming sole ruler of the west, to be in turn destroyed by Constantius II, who in 350 remained sole sovereign of the Empire. Having no children, he was succeeded by his cousin, Julian the Apostate. This period was marked by wars against the Germans, who were pressing on the Rhine and Danish frontiers, and against Persia. Julian lost his life in the eastern struggle, which was then terminated by a disadvantageous peace.

But the German danger grew graver, and the battle of Adrianople, in which the Visigoths, who had crossed the Danube in consequence of the coming of the Huns, won a great victory, and the emperor Valens perished (378), announced that the question between Roman and Teuton had entered on a new stage. By the year 378 the disorganisation of the Empire after the battle of Hadrianople was complete, and Gratian wisely concluded that he, a lad of nineteen, was not able, in the unaided, to bring it to a close. He looked around him for a colleague, and recognised with the frankness of his noble nature that there was no man so suitable for the post as one whom his family had deeply wronged, the late Duke of Moesia, Theodosius.

Theodosius the Great saved the situation for the time by his Gothic pacification. The efforts of a series of exceptionally able and hard-working rulers preserved the Empire intact throughout the 4th century, but the dangers which they weathered were fatal to their weaker successors. On the death of Theodosius the decisive moment came for the expansion of the Germans, and they took the tide at the flood. There were three elements in the situation. Besides the Teutonic peoples beyond the frontier there were dependent people who had settled within the Empire (as Visigoths in Mocsia, Vandals in Pannonia), and further there were the semi-Romanized Germans in the service of the Empire, some of whom had risen to leading positions (like Merobaudes and Stilicho). A Germanization of the Empire, or part of it, in some shape was inevitable, but, if the rulers of the 5th century had been men of the same stamp as the rulers of the 4th, the process might have assumed a different form.

The sons of Theodosius were both incapable; and in their reigns the future of the state which was divided between them was decided. The dualism between the east (under Arcadius) and the west (under Honorious) developed under the rule of these brothers into antagonism verging on hostility. The German danger was averted in the east, but it led in a few years to the loss of many of the western provinces, and at the end of ninety years the immediate authority of the Roman Emperor did not extend west of the Adriatic. The reign of Honorius saw the abandonment of Britain, the establishment of the Visigotbic kingdom in Aquitaine, the occupation of a great part of Spain by Vandals and Sueves (Suebi). Under Valentinian III. the Vandals founded their kingdom in North Africa, the Visigoths shared Spain with the Sueves, the Burgundian kingdom was founded in S.E. Gaul. The last Roman possession in Gaul passed to the Franks in 486).

It is significant that the chief defender of the Empire against the Germans who were dismembering it were men of German race. Stilicho, who defended Italy against Alaric, Aetius, whose great work was to protect the imperial possessions in Gaul, and Ricimer. It was also a German, Fravitta, who played a decisive part in suppressing a formidable Gothic movement which menaced the throne of Arcadius in 390-400. It was characteristic of this transformation of Europe that the Germans, who were imbued with a profound reverence for the Empire and its prestige, founded their kingdoms on Roman soil in the first instance as "federates" of the Emperor, on the basis of formal contracts, defining their relations to the native provincials; they seized their dominions not as conquerors, but as subjects. The double position of Alaric himself, as both king of the Visigoths and a magistcr miiitum of the Empire is significant of the situation.

The development of events was complicated by the sudden growth of the transient empire of the Huns in central Europe, forming a third great power, which, reaching from the Rhine to the Caucasus, from the Danube to the Baltic, might be compared in the extent of its nominal supremacy, but in nothing else, to the empires of Rome and Persia. The Huns, whose first appearance had precipitated the Germans on the Empire, now retarded for some years the process of German expansion, while they failed in their own attacks upon the Empire. On Attila's death (453) his realm collapsed, and his German vassals (Ostrogoths, etc.) founded important kingdoms on its ruins.

After the death of Valentinian III, the worst of his house, the Theodosian dynasty expired in the west, and the authority of the western emperors who succeeded him in rapid succession reached little beyond Italy. For most of this period of twenty years the general Ricimer, of German birth, held the scales of power in that peninsula, setting up and pulling down emperors. After his death the western throne was no longer tenable. First there was a usurpation; the general Orestes set up bis child-son Romulus Augustulus against the legitimate Augustus, Julius Nepos, who was acknowledged by the eastern emperor; but this temporary government was overthrown (476) by a Germanic military revolution headed by Odoacer, who appropriated part of the soil to his German soldiers and founded an Italian kingdom under the nominal supremacy of the emperor at Constantinople, who, however unwilling, recognized his position (after the death of Julius Nepos).

The escape of the eastern provinces from the fate of the western illustrates the fact that the strength of the Empire lay in the east. These provinces were more populous and presented greater obstacles to the invaders, who followed the line of least resistance. But it was of immense importance that throughout this period the Empire was able to preserve a practically unbroken peace with its great eastern rival. The struggle with Persia, terminated in 364 by the peace of Jovian, was not renewed till the beginning of the 6th century. It was of greater importance that the rulers pursued a discreet and moderate policy, both in financial administration and in foreign affairs; and the result was that at the end of a hundred years the diminished Empire was strong and consolidated.

Theodosius II was a weak prince, but his government was ably conducted by Anthemius, by his sister Pulcheria and by the eunuch Chrysaphius. His reign was important for the Armenian question. Theodosius I. had committed the error of consenting to a division of this buffer state in the Roman and Persian spheres of influence, Persia having much the larger. The Sassanid government tried to suppress the use of the Greek language. But the government of Theodosius II officially supported the enterprise of translating the Bible into Armenian (Mesrob had just invented the Armenian alphabet), and this initiated the production of an abundant literature of translations from the Greek, which secured the perpetual connexion of Armenia with European culture, and not with Oriental. This reign is also distinguished by the building of the great landwalls of Constantinople, by the foundation of a university there and by the collection of the imperial laws in the Codex Theodosianus, which is a mine of material for the social condition of the Empire. It reveals the decline of municipal liberty, the decay of the middle classes in the West, the evils of the oppressive fiscal system and an appalling paralysis of Roman administration which had once been so efficient; it shows how the best-intentioned emperors were unable to control the governors and check their corruption; and discloses a disorganization which facilitated the dismemberment, of the Empire by the barbarians.

In the reign of Zeno it seemed probable that an Ostrogothic kingdom would be established in the Balkan peninsula, but the danger was diverted to Italy. The kingdom which Theodoric founded there was, in its constitutional aspect, a continuation of Odoacer's regime. He, like Odoaccr and Alaric, held the double position of a German king and a Roman official. He was magister militum as well as rex. His powers were defined by capitulations which were arranged with the emperor Anastasius and loyally observed. The right of legislation was reserved to the emperor, and Theodoric never claimed it; but for all practical purposes he was independent.