The Early Centuries - Byzantium 01 Page 14
Rufinus, he knew, planned to marry his daughter to Arcadius. Once he had become a member of the imperial family it would be but a short step to the throne itself, and Eutropius's own chances of survival would be slim. The eunuch's only hope was to find a rival candidate for the Emperor's affections; and, in default of progeny of his own, he picked on a young Frankish girl of startling beauty who, after a sophisticated upbringing in Constantinople, had exchanged her outlandish barbarian name for a more harmonious Greek one and was now known as Eudoxia. Taking advantage of Rufinus's brief absence in Antioch to supervise the execution of a distinguished official, he introduced her into the Palace and, with a skill born of long practice, quickly aroused the Emperor's interest. By the time the Praetorian Prefect returned to the capital, Arcadius and Eudoxia were betrothed. It was typical, however, of the devious character of Eutropius that he allowed no public announcement to be made of the bride's identity; and Zosimus relates with glee the colourful if somewhat improbable tale of how, on the wedding morning, an imposing procession of court officials wound its way through the streets to fetch her. Eager to catch a glimpse of their future Empress, an
1 'The wardrobe of the sovereign, the gold plate, the arrangement of the Imperial meal, the spreading of the sacred couch, the government of the corps of brilliantly attired pages, the posting of the thirty silentiarii who, in helmet and cuirass, standing before the second veil, guarded the slumbers of the sovereign, these were the momentous responsibilities which required the undivided attention of a Cabinet Minister of the Roman F.mpirc" (T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, Book I, Chap. 3).
expectant crowd had gathered outside the house of Rufinus; and great was their astonishment when the cortege marched straight past it, stopping instead at the far more modest residence of Eudoxia - who shortly afterwards appeared in full nuptial array, to be borne in state to the Palace and her waiting bridegroom.
At just about the time of the wedding - it took place on 27 April 395 -the Goths within the Empire rose again in revolt. By this time they had adopted as their leader the twenty-five-year-old Alaric, who had noted that the vast majority of the Eastern troops that had accompanied Theodosius to the West were still in Milan, and that the Eastern Empire was consequently almost defenceless. The opportunity was too good to miss: pretending fury at the appointment of Stilicho in preference to himself as magister militum after the battle of the Frigidus, in a matter of weeks he and his followers spread havoc through Moesia and Thrace, advancing to within a short distance of the walls of Constantinople itself. Here he turned back - probably bribed by Rufinus, who, disguised as a Goth, is known to have paid several visits to his camp and whose neighbouring estates remained suspiciously undevastated - and headed west again towards Macedonia and Thessaly. But although the citizens of the capital breathed again, it had been an uncomfortable moment; and Arcadius sent an urgent message to Stilicho in Milan, ordering him to bring back the eastern army with all possible speed.
Stilicho started as soon as he could, having further strengthened the eastern army with several crack contingents from the West; but instead of leading them directly back to Constantinople he marched straight down to confront Alaric in Thessaly. There he found to his irritation that the Goths had withdrawn inside a fortified stockade; and he was still trying to persuade them to come out and fight when he received another order from the Emperor. The army was to come at once to the capital; he himself however was to advance no further, but must return to the West where he belonged. The order probably came as a blow to Stilicho, who already had ambitions where the Eastern Empire was concerned; but he did as he was bid. The eastern army he placed under the command of a Gothic captain named Gainas and dispatched to Constantinople; then, taking the western elements with him, he set off for home.
After the departure of the imperial army, Alaric and his followers were once again free to continue their advance unimpeded. Southward they marched through Thessaly, passing without obstruction through the historic defile of Thermopylae and emerging into Boeotia and Attica. Few towns or villages on their path escaped their attentions; the port of Piraeus was completely destroyed, and the same fate would surely have befallen Athens itself had its walls been less formidable. Zosimus tells us that Alaric's courage failed him only when he was vouchsafed a vision of the goddess Athena in full armour standing upon the ramparts while Achilles, scowling horribly, patrolled the battlements; however this may be, he was certainly regaled at a sumptuous banquet by the commander of the garrison and persuaded to come to terms. Pausing only to set fire to the great temple of Demeter at Eleusis, he and his army crossed the isthmus of Corinth into the Peloponnese, ravaging the Argolid and descending southward to sack Sparta and the rich cities of the central plain. Then, in the spring of 396, they struck to the west, meeting the sea somewhere near Pylos and swinging north again up the coast into Elis. But here a surprise awaited them: Stilicho was back, together with a new army brought by sea from Italy, Suddenly, at Pholoe on the river Alphaeus - not far from Olympia - the Goths found themselves surrounded. At last, it seemed, the magister militum had them at his mercy. But now there occurred one of those inexplicable twists of which early history is so maddeningly full, especially when contemporary records are poor or in short supply. Just as Stilicho was on the point of victory, and about to give the Goths their coup de grace, he deliberately allowed them to escape.
Why? Zosimus's claim that he was 'wasting his time with harlots and buffoons' is patently ridiculous, while Claudian's suggestion that he had received orders from Arcadius, who had come to a secret agreement with Alaric, is scarcely borne out by the facts: had such a contract existed, the Goths would hardly have continued across the Gulf of Corinth and north as far as the mountains of Epirus, pillaging and plundering as they went. Only in the following year did they finally conclude a peace treaty with the Empire. By its terms, Alaric was invested with the title of magister militum per Illyricum - a curious reward for the havoc he had caused. Obviously, he had struck some bargain at Pholoe; but it must have been with Stilicho, not with Arcadius. Later in the chapter we shall have to speculate - though that is all we can do - on the nature of this bargain; but for the moment we must wait, and let the story unfold.
And what, it may be asked, of the great army of the East, so hastily summoned home by the Emperor Arcadius? Its newly appointed commander, Gainas, led it as instructed along the Via Egnatia1 to Constantinople, halting in the Campus Martius just outside the Golden Gate, where by tradition Emperors came out to welcome their returning armies. Here on 27 November Arcadius duly appeared, accompanied by Rufinus, who - and at this point we may raise our eyebrows a little -was expecting to be made co-Emperor on that very day, and was consequently even more proud and arrogant than usual. After the review, however, he seemed to relax somewhat and began mingling with the troops, insidiously soliciting their support for his forthcoming elevation. At first he did not notice that they were slowly closing in around him; when he did so it was already too late. Suddenly, a sword flashed. Others followed, and a moment later Rufinus fell dead to the ground. His body was swiftly hacked to pieces, and his magnificent head carried on a pike through the streets. One group of soldiers, with a particularly nasty sense of the macabre, even struck off his right hand at the wrist and carried it from house to house, crying, 'Give to the insatiable!' as they pulled the tendons to make the fingers jerk open and shut.
According to Claudian one of the assassins shouted, as he struck, that he was acting on behalf of Stilicho; but there is no other evidence to suggest that the murder had been instigated by the magister militum of the West. It may equally well have originated with Eutropius, or with Gainas and his soldiers on their way to the capital, or with any combination of the three. In fact, whoever was responsible, the death of Rufinus had little effect on the conduct of affairs. Now that Eutropius alone had the Emperor's ear, corruption, peculation and the open buying and selling of offices became more widespread than ever. 'One man,' laments Claudi
an, gives his country seat for the government of Asia; another uses his wife's jewels for the purchase of Syria; yet a third buys Bithynia, and buys it too dear, by the sacrifice of the home of his fathers. In the public antechamber of Eutropius there hangs a tariff, showing the prices of the various provinces . .. The eunuch seeks to wipe out his personal ignominy in the general disgrace and, as he has sold himself, now desires to sell everything else.2
In 399 Eutropius managed to get himself nominated Consul - a step which almost certainly hastened his downfall. Although the title had long been purely honorary, it remained the highest distinction that the
The imperial highway which ran from the Adriatic across the Balkan peninsula and Thrace to Constantinople.
In Eutropium, i, 199-207. 'But,' warns Professor Bury, 'wc must make great allowance for the general prejudice existing against a person with Eutropius' physical disabilities.'
Empire could bestow, one which the Emperors themselves were proud to bear - usually more than once - during their reigns; when it was given outside the imperial family it had been invariably reserved for Romans of high birth and with long records of distinguished service behind them. To see it now assumed by an erstwhile slave and emasculated male prostitute was more than the free-born Roman population of Constantinople could stand. Ironically, matters were brought to a head not by the Senate or the Roman aristocracy but by a Goth - that same Gainas whom Stilicho had entrusted with the army of the East and whose soldiers had cut down Rufinus four years before. On his arrival in the capital his appointment as magister militum per orientem had been confirmed; thus, when in the spring of 399 a new revolt broke out among the Gothic settlers in Phrygia, Gainas was - despite his own Gothic origins - one of the two generals sent out to crush it. On his arrival, however, he secretly changed sides; and in the ensuing battle he and the rebels swiftly destroyed the Roman elements in the army and were left masters of the field. Still posing as a loyal servant of the Emperor, he then sent a message to Arcadius informing him that the insurgents were too numerous to be put down by force and that it would be necessary to come to terms with them; fortunately they were making only a few most reasonable demands which, he recommended, should be accepted without further ado. The first of these proved to be the surrender of Eutropius. Arcadius hesitated; he needed his old chamberlain and relied on him. But now another powerful voice was heard - that of the Empress Eudoxia herself.
Eudoxia is the first of that long line of Byzantine Empresses, beautiful, worldly and ambitious, whose names were to become bywords for luxury and sensuality. Widely rumoured to entertain whole strings of lovers -one of whom, a nobleman whom we know only as John, was probably to be the father of her son Theodosius - she was said to flaunt her depravity, together with her court ladies, by wearing a fringe combed down low over the forehead, the recognized trademark of a courtesan. She owed her position entirely to Eutropius; foolishly, however, he had reminded her of the fact once too often, and she was furthermore deeply jealous of his influence over her husband. In the four years since their marriage, relations between herself and Arcadius had deteriorated to the point where they no longer made any secret of their mutual loathing.
And so, reluctantly, the Emperor gave the order; and Eutropius fled in terror to seek asylum in the Church of St Sophia, flinging himself at the feet of the bishop, St John Chrysostom - who, he whimperingly pointed out, also owed his elevation to him alone. This lugubrious cleric, who had been lured by a trick to the capital in the previous year and had never wanted the see in the first place, had no more affection for his self-styled benefactor than did Eudoxia; but he could not deny the right of sanctuary. When the soldiers arrived soon afterwards to demand the surrender of the fugitive, he stood implacably before them and turned them away, while the trembling eunuch cowered beneath the high altar.
Eutropius was safe in St Sophia; unfortunately, as he well knew, he was also trapped there. On the following day - a Sunday - after a cold and uncomfortable night, he had to suffer the additional humiliation of listening to a blistering sermon of the kind that had earned the preacher his name,1 pronounced in the presence of a vast congregation but addressed to him alone, on the text: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity'.2 It was probably this homily - which must have shrivelled him up more than ever - that persuaded Eutropius to surrender himself at last, on condition that his life should be spared. He was exiled to Cyprus, but at the insistence of Gainas was shortly afterwards brought back and - on the transparently specious grounds that his physical immunity was assured only in Constantinople - tried at Chalcedon, where he was condemned and executed.
Gainas had won; but he was not long to enjoy his victory. Early in the year 400 he returned to the capital, where he tried to set up a power base as Rufinus and Eutropius had done before him; but hostile groups within the city prevented his ever acquiring a similar degree of authority, and a secret attempt to capture the imperial palace - presumably with the object of murdering its occupants and seizing the throne for himself - was foiled almost before it started. In the absence of adequate contemporary information it is impossible to establish the full story; some time towards the end of the summer, however, after six months of increasing unrest, Gainas suddenly ordered his army of Goths to prepare for departure. Suspecting that some fresh coup was being planned, the anxious populace gathered in the streets; and so highly charged was the atmosphere that fighting broke out between them and the departing barbarians. Most of the latter had already left the city; but the remainder, heavily outnumbered, fell easy victims to the anti-Gothic feeling that had been building up for years. The gates were shut to prevent their escape, and 7,000 were dead by morning - many having been burnt alive in their church near the imperial palace, in which they had taken sanctuary.
1 Chrysostom, literally 'the golden-mouthed'.
2 St John Chrysostom, Homily to Eutropius, Oeuvres, Vol. I, p. 3 j.
Gainas himself, with what was left of his army, wandered rather hopelessly through Thrace before attempting to cross the Hellespont into Asia, where he sustained still heavier losses at the hands of a loyalist army that awaited him on the other side. He then struggled northward again towards the Danube, eventually falling captive to the Hunnish King Uldin, who cut off his head and sent it as a present to Arcadius. Yet another adventurer, seeking to turn the growing confusion in the Empire to his own advantage, had paid the price of his temerity.
The fourth century had been a fateful one indeed for the Roman Empire. It had seen the birth of a new capital on the Bosphorus - a capital which, although not yet the sole focus of a united political state, was steadily growing in size and importance while the world of the Western Mediterranean subsided into increasing anarchy; and it had seen the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Emperor and his subjects. It ended, however, on a note of bathos: in the West with silence and inertia in the face of the barbarian menace, in the East with a whimper - the only possible description for the reactions of the most feckless Emperor yet to occupy the throne of Constantinople as he watched successive strong men meet their variously violent deaths, while his own vicious and domineering wife insulted and humiliated him in public, holding him up to ridicule as a fool, an incompetent and a cuckold. The new century, on the other hand, began with a bang. In the early summer of 401, Alaric the Goth invaded Italy.
The greatest of all the Gothic leaders - and the only one whose name was to reverberate down the halls of history - Alaric effortlessly dominates the early years of the fifth century. When it opened, he was still only some thirty years old, having been chief of the Visigoths since the age of twenty-five. In this capacity he had left friends and enemies alike in no doubt of his mettle, speading terror from the walls of Constantinople to the southern Peloponnese; but, by the obvious readiness with which he had accepted the title of magister militum when it had been offered him, he had also shown something else: that he was not fundamentally hostile to the Roman Empire. The truth, indeed, was quite the contrary:
Alaric fought not to overthrow the Empire, but to establish a permanent home for his people within it, in such a way that they might enjoy their own local autonomy while he, as their chieftain, would be granted high imperial rank. If only the Western Emperor and the Roman Senate could have understood this simple fact, they might still have averted the final catastrophe. By their lack of comprehension they made it inevitable.
To any intelligent observer, the only surprising thing about Alaric's invasion was that he had delayed it so long. It was, after all, four years since he had withdrawn with his army into Illyricum, and he was obviously not going to remain there for ever. In those four years the Empire might have been expected to take some measures to avert the coming onslaught; it was typical of Honorius - whose only interest at this time seems to have been the raising of poultry - that nothing of any kind had been done. Thus, as news of the invasion spread, blind panic spread with it. Claudian lists a whole succession of portents and prophecies, prodigious hailstorms, an eclipse of the moon and even a comet, ending with the appearance of two wolves which suddenly started up under the Emperor's horse while he was reviewing his cavalry and whose stomachs were subsequently found to contain human hands. Slowly and, it seemed, irresistibly, the huge Gothic host lumbered down the valley of the Isonzo, their wives and families trailing behind: as so often with the barbarian invaders, this was not just an army but an entire nation on the march. Not pausing to besiege either Aquileia or Ravenna, the two greatest cities of north-east Italy (Venice was still only a cluster of desolate sandbanks in the lagoon) they headed west towards Milan, the young Emperor fleeing before them to Asti in Piedmont; and it was just a few miles from that city that they found the Roman army awaiting them, the familiar figure of Stilicho at its head.