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Updated: May 9, 2025
Every citizen was legally liable for the defence of local strongholds; but the use of arms was so unfamiliar, the idea of military service as a national duty was so far forgotten, that Stilicho, when the barbarians were actually in Italy, preferred the desperate measure of enlisting slaves to the obvious resource of a general call to arms.
On the death of Theodosius, his sons Arcadius and Honorius, succeeded to the empire, but not to the talents and fortune of their father; and the times became changed with the princes. Theodosius had appointed a governor to each of the three divisions of the empire, Ruffinus to the eastern, to the western Stilicho, and Gildo to the African.
They were now forced to retire from Italy, Stilicho and the emperor entered Rome, and that capital saw its last great triumph, and gloried in a revival of its magnificent ancient games. In these games the cruel combat of gladiators was shown for the last time to the blood-thirsty populace of Rome. The edict of Constantine had failed to stop these frightful sports.
We can then well understand the indignation felt at New Rome, not only by Eutropius, but probably also by men of a quite different faction, when the news arrived that Stilicho purposed to visit Constantinople to set things in order and arrange matters for Arcadius. Such officiousness was intolerable, and it was plain that the strongest protest must be made against it.
Soon from prayers he rose to threats; and one night, appearing before me with smiles, he cried out that Stilicho, whose desire was to make peace with the Goths, had suffered, for his devotion to our people, the penalty of death; that a time of ruin was approaching for us all, and that he alone whom I despised could preserve me from the anger of Rome.
The exile, or escape, of the guilty Olympius, reserved him for more vicissitudes of fortune: he experienced the adventure of an obscure and wandering life; he again rose to power; he fell a second time into disgrace; his ears were cut off; he expired under the lash; and his ignominious death afforded a grateful spectacle to the friends of Stilicho.
The empire of Rome ceased to exist in the countries beyond the Alps, those great regions which had been won by the arms of Marius and Cæsar. And now the time had come for Rome to destroy itself. The mind of the emperor was poisoned against Stilicho, the sole remaining bulwark of his power.
The celestial gift, which Achilles obtained, and Alexander envied, of a poet worthy to celebrate the actions of heroes has been enjoyed by Stilicho, in a much higher degree than might have been expected from the declining state of genius, and of art.
Three years past, and then Stilicho was duly rewarded for having saved Rome, in the approved method for every great barbarian who was fool enough to help the treacherous Roman; namely, by being murdered. Alaric rose instantly, and with him all the Gothic tribes. Down through Italy he past, almost without striking a blow.
But the whole army of Radagaisus was not destroyed. Half of it had remained in the north. These were forced by Stilicho to retreat from Italy. But Gaul lay open to their fury. That great and rich section of the empire was invaded and frightfully ravaged, and its conquerors never afterwards left its fertile fields.
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