"Never was the encouragement of the gods more sure..." ~ The elevation of Honorius as Co-Augustus, January 23, AD 393

Image of Honorius from the consular diptych of Anicius Petronius Probus, AD 406.

January 23 is the anniversary of the elevation of Honorius as Co-Augustus of the Roman Empire by his father, Theodosius the Great. He was a mere boy of nine years-old at the time. Theodosius raised him in AD 393 on the eve of his great conflict with the Western usurpers, Eugenius and Arbogast which would culminate in the Battle of the River Frigidus. After winning the battle and reunifying the empire, Theodosius soon fell ill. On his deathbed, he bequeathed the empire to his two sons, dividing it between Arcadius in the East and Honorius in the West.

Knowing that a boy of eleven could not possibly rule the Western Empire, Theodosius provided Honorius with a supremely capable protector – the half-barbarian general, Stilicho. It was well that he did so because even as he matured, Honorius proved to be among the most inept men ever to attain the imperial purple. In modern parlance, he seemed to be something of a doofus.

The late-Roman Latin poet and panegyricist, Claudian, has provided an obsequious, ridiculous, and unintentionally ironic description of the elevation of Honorius, followed by a stylized oration delivered by Theodosius to his young son offering advice. I will excerpt parts of it below, but when reading it, it is well to remember that Claudian was writing as much for Stilicho as he was for Honorius—if not more so. The poem was written as a Panegyric on the Fourth Consulship of Honorius in AD 398, a mere five years after his elevation. Honorius would have been fourteen at the time, having ruled the West in his own right for three years. Perhaps Claudian still had hope that the young prince would grow out of the indecisive fecklessness which was, no doubt, already beginning to show itself. 

First, we see that the elevation of Honorius was apparently accompanied by a strange astral phenomenon. The allusions to the pagan pantheon and heavenly omens would likely not have seemed strange to a Late Roman Christian prince like Honorius:

Thou, then Caesar, didst become emperor and wert straightway made equal with thy brother. Never was the encouragement of the gods more sure, never did heaven attend with more favoring omens. Black tempest had shrouded the light in darkness and the south wind gathered thick rain-clouds, when of a sudden, so soon as the soldiers had borne thee aloft with customary shout, Phoebus scattered the clouds and at the same moment was given to thee the sceptre, to the world light.…Even at midday did a wondering people gaze upon a bold star ('twas clear to behold) — no dulled nor stunted beams but bright as Boötes' nightly lamp. At a strange hour its brilliance lit up the sky and its fires could be clearly seen though the moon lay hid. May be it was the Queen mother's star or the return of thy grandsire's now become a god, or may be the generous sun agreed to share the heavens with all the stars that hasted to behold thee. The meaning of those signs is now unmistakable.

Then follows Theodosius’s lengthy speech as crafted by Claudian. It includes the following interesting passage which sounds almost didactic in nature as if intending to educate and overawe Claudian's audience who may not have been particularly well versed in Roman history:

“Show no scorn of thine inferiors nor seek to overstep the limits established for mankind. Pride joined thereto defaces the fairest character. They are not submissive Sabaeans whom I have handed over to thy rule, nor have I made thee lord of Armenia; I give thee not Assyria, accustomed to a woman's rule. Thou must govern Romans who have long governed the world, Romans who brooked not Tarquin's pride nor Caesar's tyranny. History still tells of our ancestors' ill deeds; the stain will never be wiped away. So long as the world lasts the monstrous excesses of the Julian house will stand condemned. Will any not have heard of Nero's murders or how Capri's foul cliffs were owned by an agèd lecher [that is, Tiberius]? The fame of Trajan will never die, not so much because, thanks to his victories on the Tigris, conquered Parthia became a Roman province, not because he brake the might of Dacia and led their chiefs in triumph up the slope of the Capitol, but because he was kindly to his country. Fail not to make such as he thine example, my son.”

Claudian goes on at length about the heroes of the Roman Republic, but then puts the following response into young Honorius’s mouth which, frankly, must have seemed absurd to his audience. One can almost hear the barbarian federate troops snickering:

"All this will I do, so God favor my attempts. The peoples and kingdoms committed to my care shall find me not unworthy of thee nor of my brother. But why should I not experience in action what thou hast taught in words? Thou goest to the wintry Alps: take me with thee. Let mine arrows pierce the tyrant's body, and the barbarians pale at my bow. Shall I allow Italy to become the prey of a ruthless bandit? Rome to serve one who is himself but a servant? Am I still such a child that neither power profaned nor just revenge for an uncle's blood shall move me? Fain would I ride through blood. Quick, give me arms. Why castest thou my youth in my teeth? Why thinkest me unequal to the combat? I am as old as was Pyrrhus when alone he o'erthrew Troy and proved himself no degenerate from his father Achilles. If I may not remain in thy camp as a prince I will come even as a soldier."

Returning to the present, Claudian declares that Theodosius’s prayers for his son have been answered in full...but not merely in the person of his son alone...

Behold now, great father, in whatsoever part of heaven thou shinest, be it the southern arch or the cold constellation of the Plough that has won the honour of thy presence; see, thy prayer has been answered; thy son now equals thee in merit, nay, a consummation still more to be desired, he surpasseth thee, thanks to the support of thy dear Stilicho whom thou thyself at thy death didst leave to guard and defend the brothers twain. For us there is nought that Stilicho is not ready to suffer, no danger to himself he is not willing to face, neither hardships of the land nor hazards of the sea.

The above excerpts were taken from here: Panegyric on the Fourth Consulship of Honorius.

There is much more to tell about the eventful but ultimately disastrous reign of Honorius, but let one anecdote recorded by Procopius in his Vandalic Wars about the sack of the city of Rome in AD 410 serve to indicate how sadly incapable he eventually proved to be:

Emperor Honorius in Ravenna received the message from one of the eunuchs, evidently a keeper of the poultry, that Rome had perished. And he cried out and said, "And yet it has just eaten from my hands!" For he had a very large cock, Rome by name; and the eunuch comprehending his words said that it was the city of Rome which had perished at the hands of Alaric, and the emperor with a sigh of relief answered quickly: "But I, my good fellow, thought that my fowl Rome had perished." So great, they say, was the folly with which this emperor was possessed. [Procopius: The Vandalic Wars, Book III, Chapter 2]

Honorius feeding his fowl in The Favorites of the Emperor Honorius
by John William Waterhouse (1883).

Eugenius takes the throne, AD 392 ~ The Really, Truly Last Pagan Emperor of Rome...Maybe

A gold solidus of Eugenius minted at Lyon ca. AD 393.
[Taken from the Dumbarton Oaks collection]

On August 22, AD 392, an unlikely man was raised to the imperial purple of the Western Roman Empire. His name was Eugenius and for most of his career up to that point, he had been an academic serving the Western imperial court. The pagan historian Zosimus, writing in the early 6th century AD, describes Eugenius’s early career and his path to power:

There was in the court a person named Eugenius, a man of learning, who was a professor and teacher of rhetoric. He had been recommended to the notice of Arbogastes by Rictomeris as a person of a kind and obliging disposition, with a desire that he would make him his familiar friend, being one who would be serviceable to him in any circumstances where the assistance of a real friend would be needful. When Rictomeris was departed to the emperor Theodosius, by daily conversation Eugenius became the sincere friend of Arbogastes, who had no secret which he did not confide to him. [Zosimus, Historia Nea, Book IV]

The Arbogastes mentioned above was a powerful Frankish general who became commander of the Western Roman armies in the 380s. As with many of the Romanized barbarians who managed to attain supreme military command, Arbogast was resentful when the Western emperor attempted to issue him a command or restrain his ambitions. In AD 392, Arbogast had a very public quarrel with Valentinian II, the reigning emperor of the West, and the tension between the two soon became untenable. When Valentinian attempted to strip him of his rank, Arbogast tore up the order, threw it at the emperor’s feet, and dared him to do anything about it. He also began to plot a future without Valentinian’s interference. Zosimus continues:

Recollecting Eugenius, therefore, at this juncture, who by his extraordinary learning and the gravity of his conversation seemed well-adapted for the management of an empire, [Arbogastes] communicated to him his designs. But finding him not pleased with the proposals, he attempted to prevail on him by all the arts he could use, and entreated him not to reject what fortune so favorably offered. Having at length persuaded him, he deemed it advisable in the first place to remove Valentinian, and thus to deliver the sole authority to Eugenius. [Zosimus, Historia Nea, Book IV]

Shortly thereafter, Valentinian II was dead. He was found strangled in his chambers. The official verdict was that he had committed suicide, though some accused Arbogast of having solicited the deed of the bedchamber eunuchs. Zosimus, for his part, claims that Arbogast himself had dealt the emperor the mortal wound. Realizing that he could not take the throne himself, Arbogast decided to elevate his friend Eugenius as emperor of the West. The two together seemed like a formidable pair, Arbogast being “brave and skillful” and Eugenius being “learned and virtuous” according to Zosimus.

A silver siliqua of Eugenius. The resemblance of the
numismatic portraits of Eugenius to those of Julian
the Apostate is striking—particularly Eugenius's beard
which was symbolic of the pagan philosophers.

One of Eugenius’s first acts was to replace all of the officers of the Western court with his own men. Many of these new officers, apparently, were pagans. Furthermore, in response to a petition submitted by Symmachus, one of the leading members of the Roman Senate and Prefect of the City of Rome, Eugenius allowed the Altar of Victory to be placed again in the Senate House at Rome. This famous pagan altar had first been removed in AD 356 at the order of Constantius II. Later replaced by Julian the Apostate, the Altar was removed again by Gratian in AD 383.

The leading Christians in Italy were deeply dismayed by this move. In a letter to Eugenius, Saint Ambrose of Milan acknowledges him as emperor, but promises to exercise the same boldness when speaking to him as he did with his predecessors on the throne. He then rebuked Eugenius for delivering favors and money to pagan officers, saying:

[W]hen your Clemency took up the reins of government it was afterwards discovered that favors of this kind had been granted to men, excellent indeed in matters of state but in religion heathens. And it may, perhaps, be said, august Emperor, that you did not make any restitution to temples, but presented gifts to men who had deserved well of you. But you know that we must constantly act in the cause of God, as is often done in the cause of liberty, also not only by priests, but also by those who are in your armies, or are reckoned in the number of those who dwell in the provinces. When you became Emperor envoys requested that you would make restitution to the temples, and you did not do it; others came a second time and you resisted, and afterwards you thought fit that this should be granted to those very persons who made the petition. [Ambrose, Letter LVII]

But was Eugenius truly a pagan emperor? Or was he merely seeking supporters among the pagan Roman nobility by granting them symbolic favors? It seems likely that he was a lukewarm Christian who was willing to seek allies wherever he could find them. Writing about 50 years after the events, the ecclesiastical historian Hermias Sozomen maintains that Eugenius “was by no means sincere in his profession of Christianity.” He then goes on to describe how Eugenius resorted to pagan fortune-tellers to determine what course of action to take. [Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, Book VII, Chapter 22]

Though Eugenius may have been a nominal Christian himself, it appears that one of his most important supporters, Virius Nicomachus Flavianus, was a very public and very outspoken pagan. Despite his religious leanings, Flavian had served as the Praetorian Prefect of Italy, Gaul and Africa under Theodosius. With the rise of Eugenius and Arbogast, Flavian switched his allegiance, possibly seeing an opening for a pagan revival, though some scholars have suggested that his motives were purely political (eg., Michele Salzman's article in the Journal of Early Christian Studies here). Regardless, Flavian seems to have influenced Eugenius to embrace the pagan elements which were still very active in Rome. The ecclesiastical historian Rufinus, writing about a decade after the events, records Flavian’s zeal for the old pagan rites:

But the pagans, who are always reviving their errors with new ones, renewed the sacrifices and bloodied Rome with horrid victims, examined sheep guts and from the divination of entrails proclaimed that victory for Eugenius was assured. Flavian, who was then prefect, engaged in this in a spirit of deep superstition and great fervor, and it was owing to his statements that they assumed that Eugenius’s victory was assured, since he had a great reputation for being wise. [Rufinus: Ecclesiastical History, Book 11.33]

Paulinus of Milan, writing in his Life of Saint Ambrose about twenty years after the events, similarly indicates that Flavian and Arbogast were the primary pagan influences on Eugenius who he portrays as a weak Christian, “forgetful of his faith.” When Eugenius arrived in Milan to prepare for the coming battle against Theodosius, Paulinus records that Ambrose had fled, “avoiding rather the sight of the sacrilegious man.” Furthermore, it seems that the churches of Milan rejected Eugenius's attempt to placate them with gifts, and refused to offer prayers for his success in the coming fight. These snubs were not appreciated—Arbogast and Flavian were particularly offended. Paulinus continues:

Click for more info.

Arbogast, Count at that time, and the Prefect Flavian had promised as they were leaving Milan, that when they should return victorious, they would make a stable in the basilica of the church of Milan and would review the clergy under arms. [Paulinus, Life of Saint Ambrose, Chapter VIII]

And so, Arbogast, Eugenius and Flavian marched off to face Theodosius at the Battle of the River Frigidus and there met their fate. Paulinus renders his verdict, saying:

When the wretched men become wickedly credulous of their demons and open their mouths in blasphemy against God, they deprive themselves of hope of victory. Moreover the cause for their disturbance was this: because the gifts of the emperor [Eugenius], who had involved himself in sacrilege, were spurned by the Church nor was the association with the Church in prayer granted him. But the Lord who is wont to protect His Church cast His judgment from heaven and transferred complete victory to the pious emperor Theodosius….Eugenius and his satellites were crushed. [Paulinus, Life of Saint Ambrose, Chapter VIII]

Thus ended what may be termed the last serious attempt at a pagan restoration of the Roman Empire. It remains unclear, however, if Eugenius himself was a pagan or if he was merely a nominal Christian adopting a position tolerant of pagan practices in an attempt to rally the pagan Roman nobility to his cause. To me, the latter seems more likely.

"Noble in person and excellent in royal manners" ~ Baptism of Desire and the suspicious death of Valentinian II

Potrait of Valentinian II from a statue originally found in Aphrodisias. 

On May 15, anno domini 392, the young Western Roman Emperor Valentinian II was found dead in the imperial residence at Vienne in southern Gaul. It is said he was hanged using his own handkerchief.

Son of the great warrior emperor, Valentinian I, the younger Valentinian had been declared emperor when he was only four years old upon the premature death of is father in AD 375, even though his half-brother, Gratian, already ruled as co-emperor in the West. Under the regency of his mother, the forceful Empress Justina, and the protection of the army, Valentinian II came to an uneasy accommodation with his brother, Gratian. An Arian, Justina dominated the early years of her son's reign while he was still a small child, and is most commonly remembered today as a bitter opponent of Saint Ambrose, archbishop of Milan.

Just as Valentinian II was coming of age, however, a rebellion arose in Britain and the usurper Maximus defeated and killed Gratian. By AD 387, Valentinian II and Justina were forced to flee to the East and seek the protection of the emperor Theodosius in Constantinople. A year later, Theodosius invaded the West and put down the rebellion, re-establishing the now 18 year old Valentinian II on the Western throne and providing him with a powerful guardian — Arbogast.

A Frankish general, Arbogast had little loyalty to Valentinian II and viewed him as an impediment to his own ambitions. The two soon came into conflict and Valentinian, to his chagrin, discovered who truly held the power in the West when his magister militum treated him contemptuously in public and refused to obey orders. The early 6th century pagan historian Zosimus provides a dramatic description of one such incident between the two men:

At length Valentinian, no longer able to submit to his correction, when Arbogastes was approaching him as he sat on the imperial throne, looked sternly upon him, and presented him with a writing, by which he dismissed him from his command. Arbogastes, having read it, replied, "You neither gave me the command, nor can deprive me of it;" and having said this, tore the writing to pieces, threw it down, and retired. From that period their hatred was no longer kept to themselves, but appeared in public. [Zosimus, New History, Book IV]

Such a situation could not long endure without a violent break. Writing about fifty years after the fact, the historian Hermias Sozomen provides the following summary of the events surrounding Valentinian’s death:

Click for more info.

While Theodosius was thus occupied in the wise and peaceful government of his subjects in the East, and in the service of God, intelligence was brought that Valentinian had been strangled. Some say that he was put to death by the eunuchs of the bedchamber, at the solicitation of Arbogastes, a military chief, and of certain courtiers, who were displeased because the young prince had begun to walk in the footsteps of his father, concerning the government, and contrary to the opinions approved by them. Others assert, however, that Valentinian committed the fatal deed with his own hands, because he found himself impeded in attempting deeds which are not lawful in one of his years; and on this account he did not deem it worth while to live; for although an emperor, he was not allowed to do what he wished. [Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, Book VII, Chapter 22]

Socrates Scholasticus, writing at about the same time, provides similar testimony [see Book V, Chapter 25].

Valentinian’s death was deeply lamented by his former opponent, Ambrose, the great champion of orthodoxy at Milan. This was because Valentinian had recently corresponded with the bishop and declared himself willing to throw off Arianism and accept baptism at his hands. Ambrose was preparing to journey to Vienne to accomplish this theological coup when news arrived that Valentinian was dead. Ambrose has left at least two testimonials of his grief in the form of a letter to Theodosius and a funeral oration which he offered in honor of the deceased young emperor. In his letter to the emperor, Ambrose writes:

I am filled, I confess, with bitter grief, not only because the death of Valentinian has been premature, but also because, having been trained in the faith and moulded by your teaching, he had conceived such devotion towards our God, and was so tenderly attached to myself, as to love one whom he had before persecuted, and to esteem as his father the man whom he had before repulsed as his enemy. [Ambrose of Milan, Letter 51]

Sozomen’s account also includes praise of the young emperor’s character as follows:

It is said that the boy was noble in person, and excellent in royal manners; and that, had he lived to the age of manhood, he would have shown himself worthy of holding the reins of empire, and would have surpassed his father in magnanimity and justice. But though endowed with these promising qualities, he died in the manner above related. [Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, Book VII, Chapter 22]

But perhaps most interesting aspect is Ambrose’s funeral oration for Valentinian II and the role it has played over the succeeding centuries in forming Catholic doctrine on the concept known as Baptism of Desire. This notion, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, means that those who perish prior to baptism, like Valentinian II, may receive the efficacy of the sacrament if they profess an explicit desire to receive it together with penitence for their sins and charity. In his funeral oration in honor of Valentinian II, Saint Ambrose says:

Click for more info.

But I hear that you grieve because he did not receive the sacrament of baptism. Tell me: What else is in your power other than the desire, the request? But he even had this desire for a long time, that, when he should come into Italy, he would be initiated, and recently he signified a desire to be baptized by me, and for this reason above all others he thought that I ought to be summoned. Has he not, then, the grace which he desired; has he not the grace which he requested? And because he asked, he received, and therefore is it said: 'By whatsover death the just man shall be overtaken, his soul shall be at rest.’ (Wisdom 4:7) [Taken from Deferrari: "On Emperor Valentinian" in Funeral Orations by Saint Gregory Nazianzen and Saint Ambrose of Milan]

Though accepted as a dogma of the Catholic Church, the concept of Baptism of Desire remains controversial among Christians to this day. Thus we may see the relevance of Valentinian II’s death reflected in theological debates that carry on even to the present time.

Arbogast would eventually get his comeuppance at the hands of Theodosius at the Battle of the River Frigidus a mere two years later.