Goth Rock
Further tales from the early ADs
This is part two of a multi-part series. If you’re wondering why the hell you’re getting a post containing a very confused and probably inaccurate history of the 300-400 ADs, read part one.
After the death/disappearance from the historical record of Fritigern, a man named Alaric was declared king of the Visigoths. Although Visigoths at the time existed in a more-or-less autonomous state within the Roman Empire, Alaric chafed at what Roman oversight his people did have to endure. In 392, he got bored and led an expeditionary force against the armies of Eastern Emperor Theodosius to see what Visigoth chances might be in a fight. They weren’t good. Alaric was defeated. As a result, in one of those bizarre twists that happen so often in ancient history, he was made to lead a Visigoth army in the service of Theodosius against, incredibly, the Western Roman Empire.
In the West, things were a bit of a mess. For all the tangling with Goths and Huns that had plagued the East, at least Constantinople knew who its emperor was. In the West, the political climate was about what you’d expect from an empire hundreds upon hundreds of years old. During the Gothic Wars, Gratian was the emperor of note, but he hadn’t always been the only emperor. Valentinian I ascended to emperor of Rome in 364 AD. It was his idea to split the vast, unwieldy empire into two halves, anointing his brother, Valens, emperor in the East. Whilst embroiled in an uprising in Britain, Valentinian declared his son, Gratian, co-emperor. Valentinian died, it seems of pure rage, during negotiations around a conflict involving a Germanic tribe called the Quadi, in 375. This left Gratian as sole emperor in the west. Well, except for his baby half-brother.
Upon Valentinian’s death, a group of soldiers egged on by two generals, Aequitius and Maximinus (who likely feared Gratian’s own military prowess would diminish their influence) declared Gratian’s four-year-old half-brother to be the emperor, naming him Valentinian II. Wanting to avoid a dust-up with conniving officials, Gratian basically waved his hand and proclaimed, “Fine. Whatever,” allowing his step-mother and baby half-brother to install themselves in Mediolanum while he went on gallivanting from war to war, effectively still the emperor of the West. When Valens fell during the Gothic War, Gratian was emperor of a once-again unified (if only by happenstance, and then only briefly) Roman Empire. But Gratian recognized Rome was too massive for one man to rule and so anointed a chap named Theodosius emperor in the East.
Meanwhile, poor Valentinian II, with his mother Justina acting as a proxy empress, was tossed around by the winds of imperial court intrigue and religious feuds between ascendant Christians and the remnants of old Pagan Rome. On top of that, he had to contend with a would-be usurper named Magnus Maximus, the commander of the Roman legions in Britain. Magnus Maximus declared himself emperor in 383 and established his base in Gaul (later to be France) and Hispania (later…oh, you can figure that one out).
Magnus Maximus was less wary of the child-emperor and Justina than he was Gratian, the former mighty military man and grand emperor who had, Maximus felt, grown indolent and careless. In fact, a lot of people, especially soldiers, had had about enough of ol’ Gratian, who they felt, post-Gothic War, had gone a little too barbarian. He grew to favor Scythian archers as his personal guard and even dressed in Scythian attire. On top of that, a Christian leader named St. Ambrose was also causing headaches for Valentinian II while also manipulating Gratian in a bid to wipe away the vestiges of Roman Paganism.
When Maximus raised his rebellion, Gratian was in no position to defy him. The once-proud emperor fled. He didn’t get far. In Lyon, he was apprehended by forces loyal to Maximus and put to death in August, 383. Valentinian II and Justina read the writing on the wall and fled, more successfully, to the protection of Theodosius in Constantinople. To cement their alliance, Theodosius married Valentinian II’s sister, Galla. With that taken care of, Theodosius marched West to reclaim the other half of the Empire from Maximus.
It was a successful but ultimately futile campaign. Valentinian II was restored to his place as emperor. Magnus Maximus surrendered and was executed. Justina passed away. St. Ambrose found the young emperor, who set up a new seat of power in Vienne, Gaul, beyond his grasp. But Theodosius was, in effect, calling the shots for the entire Roman empire. To “watch over” the Western Emperor, Theodosius appointed his trusted general, Arbogast, who set about sidelining Valentinian II as much as possible, preventing him from gathering much in the way of honor or accolades.
Upset at seeing his power siphoned off to Arbogast, Valentinian II dismissed the general from his post in the Western Empire. Arbogast reacted with laughter, even going so far as to tear up the proclamation in public. Having nowhere else to turn for allies, Valentinian II reached out to that Christian firebrand, St. Ambrose. There was little Ambrose could do for the luckless young emperor, however. On May 15, 382 AD, Valentinian II was found hanged in his own residence. His good, close pal Arbogast swore it must have been suicide. No other explanation was possible, right?
If Theodosius thought that was that, he was soon to discover his Man in the West wasn’t as much his man as he assumed. Theodosius named his son, Arcadius, as emperor of the Western Empire, but crafty old Arbogast was only having that for so long. He named his own emperor, Eugenius, in open defiance of the man to whom he had once been so loyal — or at least loyal enough to hang a kid. Theodosius responded by elevating yet another person, eight-year-old Honorius, to emperor of the West. Once again, civil war seized the empire.
Among the generals who marched under the banner of Theodosius was the Visigoth king (of a sort), Alaric. At the Battle of the Frigidus River in September 394 AD, in what is now Slovenia, Eugenius was defeated and his head put on display. Arbogast, in a coincidental turn of events, committed suicide. Actual suicide; not Valentinian II “suicide.” Theodosius was once again the sole emperor of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires—but not for long. He died four months later, dividing the empire between his children, Honorius and Arcadius. Neither proved to be effective leaders. Arcadius was easily manipulated in the East; and in the West, Honorius has the honor of being known as the emperor who allowed the sacking of Rome—a sacking led by Alaric.
During the Battle of the Frigidus River, Alaric distinguished himself on the battlefield as a man of great bravery and cunning. Yet he felt he was snubbed by the Roman high command, his men used as cannon fodder (or whatever; spear fodder, I guess). When Theodosius died in 395, Alaric thought that marked the end of the Visigoths’ peace pact with Rome. He gathered a united force of Goths and marched off to lay siege to Constantinople, where a weak boy-emperor made the city ripe for the plucking.
And then, across the hills, came riding the Huns from the steppes of central Asia and far eastern Europe.
Hunnish, I’m Home!
The first major Hun push into Roman territory came in 395, when they took advantage of the fact that Roman Emperor Theodosius had most of Rome’s military might tied up in the western portion of the empire in the war against Eugenius. This enabled the Huns to sweep through swathes of Eastern Roman territory and claim it as their own. After the death of Theodosius, his son and now Eastern Roman emperor Arcadius found himself with two powerful enemies—Visigoths and Huns—throwing stuff at the walls of Constantinople as Romans squabbled amongst themselves over who was the rightful guardian of the two boy-emperors.
Alaric and his fightin’ Visigoths proved the easier of the two threats to quell. Arcadius offered them land in Thessaly. Temporarily satisfied, Alaric led his merry band on a wild stampede of pillaging across Macedonia toward their new home. A Roman general, Stilicho, was dispatched from time to time to put the kibosh on Alaric’s rowdy behavior in old Greece, but no decisive battle ever took place between the two.
Stilicho, who hailed from the Western Empire, was even declared, eventually, an enemy of the Eastern Empire, probably because he had secretly made a pact with Alaric, the man he was supposed to be fighting. Unable to best the wily Visigoth, who was still using the ol’ wagon train fortress method, in 398 AD the embattled Arcadius offered him terms for peace. Alaric was named magister militum per Illyricum — a made man. A Roman military commander. And they never had a problem with him again. Right???
As for the new kids on the block, the Huns, their frolic came to an end in 398 as well, when the eunuch Eutropius, one of the more interesting characters in a history replete with interesting characters, successfully organized a resistance composed of Romans and Goths to turn back the Huns, though no record exists of any major victory that explains the Huns’ willingness to give up the fight. Unfortunately for Rome, one thing led to another, which led to Alaric being stripped of his title in 400. Additionally, crowds in Constantinople were whipped into an anti-Goth frenzy that became a riot, and then a slaughter. By the end of it, hundreds or thousands (the figures in ancient history are never terribly precise) of Goths were dead. Aurelianus, sort of the unofficial leader in the East, forged an alliance with the Huns, who reacted to their failure to conquer Constantinople by hiring themselves out as mercenaries defending Constantinople.
You know who didn’t take any of this well? Alaric. But rather than strike at the Eastern stronghold with its new Hun guardians, he set his sights westward, taking advantage of the fact that his old enemy Stilicho was busy with a different bunch of marauding barbarians, the Vandals. Alaric’s forces campaigned as deep into Italy as Mediolanum, then the Western capital, before Stilicho wrapped up his fight with Vandals, hired a bunch of them to be in his army, and chased Alaric away. Stilicho and Alaric poked at each other in a series of battles, including the Battle of Verona in 402, in which Alaric was handed his first major defeat, though it cost Stilicho much blood to accomplish. Even then, Alaric was able to mount a strategic retreat and regroup. Western Emperor Honorius, fearing renewed hostilities directed at Mediolanum, relocated the seat of Western Roman government to Ravenna, a more defensible city but also one isolating him from the greater portion of his Western Empire.
In yet another one of those incredible turns of events, Alaric and Stilicho eventually allied themselves with one another so they could pick on the enemy who plagued them both: the Eastern Roman Empire. In a tweak of the nose to Constantinople, Stilicho returned Alaric’s title of magister militum of the territory of Illyricum. However, before the two newly minted allies could properly prod the East, an entirely different gang of Goths came storming down, led by a warrior-king named Radagaisus. Among his many grievances against the Western Roman Empire was the expanding influence of Christianity. Radagaisus vowed to sacrifice every Christian Roman senator to the ancient gods and burn Rome to the ground.
Stilicho put Alaric on the back burner and rode off with a host of Vandals and Huns to meet this new challenge. Among the commanders of this motley Roman army was a Hun named Uldin. For the better part of half a year, Radagaisus rampaged across northern Europe until Stilicho, Uldin, and a Goth named Sarus routed Radagaisus’ forces near the city of Florentia. Radagaisus himself fled but was captured and executed in August of 406.
During this entire war, Alaric had been kicking up his heels and living the sweet life in Illyricum. In 407, Stilicho and Alaric finally got back together to plan their invasion of the East. No sooner had they done that manly “grasp each other’s forearms” handshake than yet another threat distracted Stilicho. This time it was a guy who would become known as Constantine III. As more and more “barbarians” migrated into Roman territory, some segments of the Roman population felt under pressure. The land and the infrastructure, they said, simply could not support this many people. Following the Magnum Maximus playbook, a Roman general in Britannia named Flavius Claudius Constantinus (which is too many names) took advantage of the tensions and declared himself emperor of the West and set up shop in Gaul. Loyal to him was an army of battle-hardened veterans from the British legions.
Alaric, who had just about had it with sitting in the waiting room while Stilicho took invasions from other barbarians, launched himself a mini-rampage that ended when Stilicho brokered a deal between the Visigoths and the Roman senate, a deal which angered the emperor Honorius, even though the sum Alaric demanded was a pittance by Roman standards. His hostilities against the Eastern Empire temporarily extinguished, Alaric marched off to do battle with Flavius Claudius Constantinus, aka Constantine III. Or did he?
Of course he didn’t! Because Alaric never got the tribute that was promised to him. In yet another one of those instances of awful timing that seemed to pile up during this short period in history, Arcadius died in May of 408. Set to succeed him as emperor was Theodosius II, Arcadius’s son. Like his father before him, he was too young to be an effective emperor. Honorius planned to travel east despite the ongoing skirmishes with Constantine III, but Stilicho convinced the emperor to stay put; Stilicho himself would travel to Constantinople to ensure that Theodosius II was properly enthroned.
What Stilicho didn’t anticipate was that he had amassed a good many clever enemies, and they used Stilicho’s journey to spread rumors that it was a mission of usurpation. Stilicho, the whispers maintained, planned to depose Theodosius II and name his own son Eastern Emperor. What transpired then is what is known among historians of the ancient world as “a shit show.” Officials identified as loyal to Stilicho were rounded up and executed. Honorius, sour on Stilicho anyway, was all too willing to believe the worst. When Stilicho returned to Ravenna to sort the mess out, he was arrested and abruptly executed.
No one remembered that Alaric was still on hold, awaiting his tribute. And no one realized that Stilicho, it turned out, was the one man holding the fraying strands of the Roman Empire together.
Want more unfinished bits of history that proved too lengthy for the essays in which they initially appeared?
Unfinished Labors: Fragments from an abandoned book project about Hercules movies
The Pastry War: Or, Cinco de Mayo and the most French reason ever to invade a country