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Gothic War (395–398)
The revolt of Alaric I was a military conflict between the Roman Empire and a rebel army, probably composed mainly of Goths. This war consisted a number of armed conflicts in the period between 395 and 398, interspersed with periods of negotiations and sometimes even cooperation. During this war, the western and eastern parts of the Roman Empire did not always joint together because of conflicting interests. The protagonists in this conflict were the West-Roman commander-in-chief Stilicho, the Eastern-Roman prefect Rufinus, his successor Eutropius and Alaric I. The latter was an elected Gothic military leader and monarch, and later considered one of first Visigothic kings. Sources The main contemporary sources in which this war is reported are the historian Orosius and the poet Claudianus. Other early sources are Zosimus, a historian who probably lived about half a century after Alaric's death, and Jordanes, a Romanized Goth who wrote a history of his people around 550. These ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fall Of The Western Roman Empire
The fall of the Western Roman Empire, also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome, was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided among several successor polities. The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western provinces; modern historians posit factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the army, the health and numbers of the Roman population, the strength of the economy, the competence of the emperors, the internal struggles for power, the religious changes of the period, and the efficiency of the civil administration. Increasing pressure from invading peoples outside Roman culture also contributed greatly to the collapse. Climatic changes and both endemic and epidemic disease drove many of these immediate factors. The reasons for the collapse are major subjects of the hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claudius Claudianus
Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian ( Greek: Κλαυδιανός; ), 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 entirely in hexameters or elegiac couplets, falls into three main categories: poems for Honorius, poems for Stilicho, and mythological epic. Life Claudian was born in Alexandria. He arrived in Rome in 394 and made his mark as a court poet with a eulogy of his two young patrons, Probinus and Olybrius, consuls of 395. He wrote a number of panegyrics on the consulship of his patrons, praise poems for the deeds of the general Stilicho, and invectives directed at Stilicho's rivals in the Eastern court of Arcadius. Little is known about his personal life, but it seems he was a convinced pagan: Augustine refers to him as "foreign to the name of Christ" ('' Civitas Dei'', V, 26), and Paul Orosius describes him as an "obstinate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magister Militum
(Latin for "master of soldiers"; : ) was a top-level military command used in the late Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander, the emperor remaining the supreme commander) of the empire. The office continued to exist end evolve during the early Byzantine Empire. In Greek language, Greek sources, the term is translated either as ''strategos#Byzantine use, strategos'' or as ''stratelates'' (although these terms were also used non-technically to refer to commanders of different ranks). Establishment and development of the command The office of ''magister militum'' was created in the early 4th century, most likely when the Western Roman emperor Constantine the Great defeated all other contemporary Roman emperors, which gave him control over their respective armies. Because the Praetorian Guards and their leaders, the praetorian prefect, Praetorian Prefects, had suppor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arcadius
Arcadius ( ; 377 – 1 May 408) was Roman emperor from 383 to his death in 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 eastern half of the empire from 395, when their father died, while Honorius ruled the west. In his time, he was seen as a weak ruler dominated by a series of powerful ministers and by his wife, Aelia Eudoxia.Nicholson, p. 119 Early life Arcadius was born in 377 in Hispania, the eldest son of Theodosius I and Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of Honorius. On 19 January 383, his father declared the five-year-old Arcadius an Augustus and co-ruler for the eastern half of the Empire. Ten years later a corresponding declaration made Honorius the Augustus of the western half. Arcadius passed his early years under the tutelage of the rhetorician Themistius and Arsenius Zonaras, a monk. Reign Early reign Both of Theodosius's sons were young and inexperien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honorius (emperor)
Honorius (; 9 September 384 – 15 August 423) was Roman emperor from 393 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla. After the death of Theodosius in 395, Honorius, under the regency of Stilicho, ruled the western half of the empire while his brother Arcadius ruled the eastern half. His reign over the Western Roman Empire was notably precarious and chaotic. In 410, Sack of Rome (410), Rome was sacked for the first time since the Battle of the Allia almost 800 years prior. Family Honorius was born to Emperor Theodosius I and Empress Aelia Flaccilla on 9 September 384 in Constantinople. He was the brother of Arcadius and Pulcheria (daughter of Theodosius I), Pulcheria. In 386, his mother died, and in 387, Theodosius married Galla (wife of Theodosius I), Galla who had taken a temporary refuge in Thessaloniki with her family, including her brother Valentinian II and mother Justina (empress), Justina, away from usurper Magnus Maximus. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of The Frigidus
The Battle of the Frigidus, also called the Battle of the Frigid River, was fought on 5 and 6 September 394 between the armies of the Roman emperor Theodosius the Great and the rebel ''augustus'' Eugenius (), in the eastern border of Roman Italy. Theodosius won the battle and defeated the usurpation of Eugenius and Arbogast, restoring unity to the Roman Empire. The battlefield, in the '' Claustra Alpium Iuliarum'' near the Julian Alps through which Theodosius's army had passed, was probably in the Vipava Valley – with the Frigidus River being the modern Vipava – or possibly in the valley of the Soča. Timasius, the ''magister militum'', commanded the Theodosian army with help from the ''magister utriusque militiae'' Stilicho. Arbogast, previously the ''magister militum'' under Theodosius's brother-in-law and senior co-emperor Valentinian II (), commanded Eugenius's forces. It was Arbogast who had engineered Eugenius's acclamation after Valentinian's mysterious death. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theodosius I
Theodosius I ( ; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. He won two civil wars and was instrumental in establishing the Nicene Creed as the orthodox doctrine for Nicene Christianity. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule the entire Roman Empire before its administration was permanently split between the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. He ended the Gothic War (376–382) with terms disadvantageous to the empire, with the Goths remaining within Roman territory but as nominal allies with political autonomy. Born in Hispania, Theodosius was the son of a high-ranking general of the same name, Count Theodosius, under whose guidance he rose through the ranks of the Roman army. Theodosius held independent command in Moesia in 374, where he had some success against the invading Sarmatians. Not long afterwards, he was forced into retirement, and his father was executed under obscure circumstance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugenius
Eugenius (died 6 September 394) was a Western Roman emperor from 392 to 394, unrecognized by the Eastern Roman emperor Theodosius I. While Christian himself, Eugenius capitalized on the discontent in the West caused by Theodosius' religious policies targeting pagans. He renovated the pagan Temple of Venus and Roma and restored the Altar of Victory after continued petitions from the Roman Senate. Eugenius replaced Theodosius' administrators with men loyal to him. This included pagans, reviving the pagan cause. His army fought the army of Theodosius at the Battle of the Frigidus, where he was captured and executed. Life A Christian and former teacher of grammar and rhetoric, as well as ''magister scriniorum'', Eugenius had become an acquaintance of Arbogast, the ''magister militum'', after being introduced to him by Arbogast's uncle Richomeres. Arbogast was of Frankish origin and ''de facto'' ruler of the western portion of the Empire. Rise to power Three months after the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greuthungi
The Greuthungi (also spelled Greutungi) were a Goths, Gothic people who lived on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, Pontic steppe between the Dniester River, Dniester and Don river, Don rivers in what is now Ukraine, in the 3rd and the 4th centuries. They had close contacts with the Tervingi, another Gothic people, who lived west of the Dniester River. To the east of the Greuthungi, living near the Don river, were the Alans. When the Huns arrived in the European Steppe region in the late 4th century, first the Alans were forced to join them, and then a part of the Greuthungi. Alans and Goths became an important part of Attila's forces, together with other eastern European peoples. Many Greuthungi, together with some Alans and Huns, crossed the Lower Danube to join a large group of Tervingi who had entered the Roman Empire in 376. These peoples defeated an imperial army in the Battle of Adrianople in 378, and came to a settlement agreement within the Roman empire by 382 AD. The original ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tervingi
The Thervingi, Tervingi, or Teruingi (sometimes pluralised Tervings or Thervings) were a Gothic people of the plains north of the Lower Danube and west of the Dniester River in the 3rd and the 4th centuries. They had close contacts with the Greuthungi, another Gothic people from east of the Dniester, and they also had significant interactions with the Roman Empire. They were one of the main components of the large movement of Goths and other peoples over the Danube in 376, and they are seen as one of the most important ancestral groups of the Visigoths. Etymology According to a proposal made by Moritz Schönfeld in 1911, and still widely cited, the name ''Tervingi'' was probably related to the Gothic word "''triu''", equivalent to English "tree", and thus means "forest people".Wolfram, ''History of the Goths'', trans. T. J. Dunlop (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1988), p. 25. Herwig Wolfram agrees with the older position of Franz Altheim that such geographical nam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus, occasionally anglicized as Ammian ( Greek: Αμμιανός Μαρκελλίνος; born , died 400), was a Greek and Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). Written in Latin and known as the '' Res gestae'', his work chronicled the history of Rome from the accession of Emperor Nerva in 96 to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Only the sections covering the period 353 to 378 survive. Biography Ammianus was born in the East Mediterranean, possibly in Syria or Phoenicia, around 330, into a noble family of Greek origin. Since he calls himself ''Graecus'' ( Greek), he was most likely born in a Greek-speaking area of the empire. His native language was Greek, but he also knew Latin. The surviving books of his history cover the years 353 to 378. Ammianus began his career as a military officer in the Praetorian Guard, where he gained firsthand exper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flavius Julius Valens
Valens (; ; 328 – 9 August 378) was Roman emperor from 364 to 378. Following a largely unremarkable military career, he was named co-emperor by his elder brother Valentinian I, who gave him the eastern half of the Roman Empire to rule. In 378, Valens was defeated and killed at the Battle of Adrianople against the invading Goths, which astonished contemporaries and marked the beginning of barbarian encroachment into Roman territory. As emperor, Valens continually faced threats both internal and external. He defeated, after some dithering, the usurper Procopius in 366, and campaigned against the Goths across the Danube in 367 and 369. In the following years, Valens focused on the eastern frontier, where he faced the perennial threat of Persia, particularly in Armenia, as well as additional conflicts with the Saracens and Isaurians. Domestically, he inaugurated the Aqueduct of Valens in Constantinople, which was longer than all the aqueducts of Rome. In 376–77, the Gothic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
