Rome's Gothic Wars_ From the Third Century to Alaric - Michael Kulikowski [84]
The Usurpation of Eugenius
Back in 391, when Theodosius left the West after the suppression of Maximus, he had put Valentinian Ⅱ in nominal charge of affairs. He could hardly have done otherwise when the pretext for attacking Maximus had been to restore Valentinian to his rightful throne. But Theodosius had no intention of ceding power to the youth, and the choice of a regent was made easier by the death of Valentinian’s powerful mother Justina sometime during the campaign to restore her son’s throne. In the end, Theodosius sent Valentinian to Gaul in the care of the general Arbogast, a trusted and long-serving officer. Unfortunately, Arbogast proved incapable of handling his new charge, with tragic results for all concerned. It is difficult not to pity Valentinian, raised to the purple as an infant in a moment of panic, thereafter dominated by his half-brother Gratian and his mother Justina and disregarded by every other reigning augustus. In 391, left as western emperor by Theodosius, he imagined that the time had at last come for him to rule on his own behalf. Arbogast soon disabused him of that notion, and the young emperor’s frustration mounted. When Valentinian attempted to cashier Arbogast, the general tore up the imperial order before his very eyes – he took orders from Theodosius, not from a teenage puppet. Overcome by despair, Valentinian hanged himself. It was the best revenge he could possibly have taken. Rumours of murder were inevitable – indeed are recorded in our sources – and Theodosius could never turn a blind eye, however pleased he may have been by the extinction of the Valentinianic dynasty.[212] Knowing that he could not be restored to favour, the hitherto loyal Arbogast chose preemptive rebellion. He proclaimed a pagan grammarian and minor bureaucrat named Eugenius (r. 392–394) emperor and cast about for allies, finding them amongst the aristocracy of Rome itself. Rome still housed some of the richest and most influential men in the entire empire, many of whom hated Theodosius for his increasingly aggressive Christianity. One of them, Nicomachus Flavianus, made common cause with Arbogast, presiding with him over the usurpation and lending to it the legitimacy that his prestige automatically conferred.
Theodosius, as he had to, prepared for a second western campaign against a usurper. He left his adolescent son Arcadius behind in Constantinople in the hands of the praetorian prefect Rufinus and marched west again in 394, taking with him his younger son Honorius, now likewise raised to the rank of augustus. Flavianus and Arbogast fortified the Julian Alps between Italy and Illyricum and met Theodosius in battle at the river Frigidus on 5 September 394. The fighting was furious and Arbogast was a much better general than Theodosius. But on the second day of the battle, in what Christian writers understandably viewed as a miracle, a hard wind blew straight into the ranks of the western army, stopping their spears and arrows from reaching the Theodosian units and hampering the ability of the western troops to defend themselves. With the wind at his back, Theodosius was victorious, but the battle was more than usually bloody and Theodosius’ barbarian auxiliaries suffered tremendous losses after they were placed in the front ranks to absorb the worst of the damage.[213] Flavianus and Arbogast committed suicide in the face of their total defeat.[214]
Stilicho
Theodosius took up residence in Milan. Like Constantius thirty years before him, he had to give serious thought to how he was going to govern the empire. As events had now twice demonstrated, he could not do it alone, and nor would