Eutropius ( el, Εὐτρόπιος; died 399) was a fourth-century

Eastern Roman The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

official who rose to prominence during the reign of emperor

Arcadius Arcadius ( grc-gre, Ἀρκάδιος ; 377 – 1 May 408) was Roman emperor from 383 to 408. He was the eldest son of the ''Augustus'' Theodosius I () and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and the brother of Honorius (). Arcadius ruled the ea ...

. He was the first

eunuch A eunuch ( ) is a male who has been castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2nd millennium ...

to become a

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throug ...

in the

Roman empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

Career

Eutropius was born in one of the Roman provinces of the middle east, either Assyria or on the border of Armenia. According to Honorius' court poet

Claudian Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian (; c. 370 – c. 404 AD), was a Latin poet associated with the court of the Roman emperor Honorius at Mediolanum (Milan), and particularly with the general Stilicho. His work, written almost ent ...

, who composed a satirical invective against Eutropius due to the latter's hostility to Claudian's patron,

Stilicho Flavius Stilicho (; c. 359 – 22 August 408) was a military commander in the Roman army who, for a time, became the most powerful man in the Western Roman Empire. He was of Vandal origins and married to Serena, the niece of emperor Theodosius ...

, Eutropius served successively as a

catamite In ancient Greece and Rome, a catamite (Latin: ''catamitus'') was a pubescent boy who was the intimate companion of an older male, usually in a pederastic relationship. It was generally a term of affection and literally means " Ganymede" in ...

, pimp, and body-servant to various Roman soldiers and nobles, before winding up among the domestic eunuchs of the imperial palace. After

Theodosius Theodosius ( Latinized from the Greek "Θεοδόσιος", Theodosios, "given by god") is a given name. It may take the form Teodósio, Teodosie, Teodosije etc. Theodosia is a feminine version of the name. Emperors of ancient Rome and Byzantium ...

' death in 395 he stood at the head of a faction opposed to the powerful Praetorian Prefect of the east, Rufinus, and successfully arranged the

marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...

of the new emperor,

, to

Aelia Eudoxia Aelia Eudoxia (; ; died 6 October 404) was a Roman empress consort by marriage to the Roman emperor Arcadius. The marriage was the source of some controversy, as it was arranged by Eutropius, one of the eunuch court officials, who was attempti ...

, the daughter of general

Bauto Flavius Bauto (died c. 385) was a Romanised Frank who served as a ''magister militum'' of the Roman Empire and imperial advisor under Valentinian II. Biography When the usurper Magnus Maximus invaded Italy in an attempt to replace Valentinian II, ...

having blocked an attempt by Arcadius' chief minister to increase his power by marrying the young and weak-willed emperor to his daughter. After Rufinus' assassination that same year, Eutropius rose in importance in the imperial court, and he soon became Arcadius' closest advisor. He also played a role in the

Gildonic War The Gildonic War ( la, Bellum Gildonicum) was a rebellion in the year 398 led by ''Comes'' Gildo against Roman emperor Honorius. The revolt was subdued by Stilicho, the ''magister militum'' of the Western Roman empire. Background Revolt of F ...

by encouraging

Gildo Gildo (died 398) was a Roman Berber general in the province of Mauretania Caesariensis. He revolted against Honorius and the Western Roman Empire ( Gildonic war), but was defeated and possibly committed suicide or was assassinated. Etymology Th ...

's revolt against Stilicho's machinations. Eutropius' ascension to power was assisted by his defeat of a Hun invasion in 398. The next year he became the first eunuch to be appointed a

Downfall and execution

During his rise to the consulship, Eutropius earned a notoriety for cruelty and greed. He may also have played a role in the assassination of his predecessor Rufinus. In 399, the year of his consulship, he sent Gaïnas, the ''

magister militum (Latin for "master of soldiers", plural ) was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander, ...

'' at the time, to quell

Tribigild Tribigild ( la, Tribigildus; grc-gre, Τριβιγίλδος; 399) was an Ostrogothic general whose rebellion against the Eastern Roman Empire precipitated a major political crisis during the reign of Emperor Arcadius. Tribigild appears in the ...

's rebellion. However, Gainas and Tribigild teamed up to persuade Arcadius to dismiss Eutropius. In the meantime, Eutropius had also been estranged from Eudoxia, the very empress he had installed, who appeared to her husband wailing with her infant daughters about the eunuch's alleged schemes against her. Moved by his subordinates' threats and compassion for his family, Arcadius exiled Eutropius. After Eutropius's fall from power, his ally

John Chrysostom John Chrysostom (; gr, Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος; 14 September 407) was an important Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his homilies, preaching and public speaking, his denunciat ...

's pleas kept him alive for a short time; he was eventually executed before the year ended. A surviving imperial edict shows that he was subjected to

damnatio memoriae is a modern Latin phrase meaning "condemnation of memory", indicating that a person is to be excluded from official accounts. Depending on the extent, it can be a case of historical negationism. There are and have been many routes to , includi ...

and his property was confiscated.Bury, J. B. ''A History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene, Vol. I'' (1889), 85-86

Notes

References

J.B. Bury John Bagnell Bury (; 16 October 1861 – 1 June 1927) was an Anglo-Irish historian, classical scholar, Medieval Roman historian and philologist. He objected to the label "Byzantinist" explicitly in the preface to the 1889 edition of his ''Lat ...

(1923)
''History of the Later Roman Empire''
see chapter

an

A full account. *

, ''in Eutropium''
Book I
* Alan Cameron and Jacqueline Long, Barbarian and Politics at the Court of Arcadius, Berkeley et Los Angeles, 1993. {{Authority control 399 deaths 4th-century Byzantine people 4th-century Roman consuls Byzantine eunuchs Emperor's slaves and freedmen Executed ancient Roman people Imperial Roman consuls People executed by the Roman Empire Year of birth unknown