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Updated: May 6, 2025
The triumphs of Arcadius became the subject of epic poems; and the monarch, no longer oppressed by any hostile terrors, resigned himself to the mild and absolute dominion of his wife, the fair and artful Eudoxia, who was sullied her fame by the persecution of St. John Chrysostom.
But he was not willing to leave his youthful heirs Arcadius was only eighteen without a protector, and the most natural protector was one bound to them by ties of relationship.
His conduct becomes perfectly explicable if we assume that by a secret agreement he secured Alaric's assistance for the execution of this scheme, which the preponderance of Gothic power in Illyricum and Thrace would facilitate. It was not only the European parts of Arcadius' dominions that were ravaged in 395, by the fire and sword of barbarians.
Arcadius and Honorius had been assisted by the guardian care of a parent, whose lessons were enforced by his authority and example. But the unfortunate prince, who is born in the purple, must remain a stranger to the voice of truth; and the son of Arcadius was condemned to pass his perpetual infancy encompassed only by a servile train of women and eunuchs.
For surely if any times were truly miserable for Italy and the provinces overrun by the barbarians, they were those which occurred from Arcadius and Honorius to Theodoric. Any one of such changes, by itself, without being united with others, might, with thinking of it, to say nothing of the seeing and suffering, infuse terror into the strongest minds.
The gradual discovery of the weakness of Arcadius and Honorius, and the repeated calamities of their reign, were not sufficient to obliterate the deep and early impressions of loyalty. The subjects of Rome, who still reverenced the persons, or rather the names, of their sovereigns, beheld, with equal abhorrence, the rebels who opposed, and the ministers who abused, the authority of the throne.
"And though no other foundation can be laid, save that which is laid, Jesus Christ, yet the said Roman Church, after those writings of the Old or New Testament, which we receive according to rule, does also not prohibit the following: that is, the holy Nicene Council, of three hundred and eighteen fathers, held under the emperor Constantine; the holy Council of Ephesus, in which Nestorius was condemned, with the consent of Pope Coelestine, under Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, and Arcadius, sent from Italy; the holy Council of Chalcedon, held under the emperor Marcian and Anatolius, bishop of Constantinople, in which the Nestorian and Eutychean heresies were condemned, with Dioscorus and his accomplices."
In 395 and 396 he invaded Greece, and Stilicho, the Vandal general of the Western Emperor, advanced against him. The strategy of Stilicho was masterly, and it would probably have gone hard with Alaric had not Stilicho been suddenly bidden by the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius, to withdraw his western troops.
The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire: but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals. Part I. Final Division Of The Roman Empire Between The Sons Of Theodosius. Reign Of Arcadius And Honorius Administration Of Rufinus And Stilicho. Revolt And Defeat Of Gildo In Africa.
Theodosius, the great statesman and warrior, who for some twenty years kept up by his single hand the falling empire of Rome, heard how Arsenius was at once the most pious and the most learned of his subjects; and wishing half barbarian as he was himself that his sons should be brought up, not only as scholars, but as Christians, he sent for Arsenius to his court, and made him tutor to his two young sons Honorius and Arcadius.
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