Spartacus: History of Gladiator Revolt Leader

Spartacus was a Thracian gladiator who led a slave revolt with an army numbering in the tens of thousands. He defeated Roman forces over half a dozen times, marching his people up and down the Italian peninsula until he was killed in battle in April 71 B.C.

While Spartacus was a real person who has inspired revolutionaries and filmmakers, scholars do not have an abundant amount of information about him. Accounts from only about a dozen ancient writers survive to this day, and none of the surviving reports was written by Spartacus or one of his supporters.

 

According to the surviving sources, Spartacus was from Thrace, an area in southeast Europe that the Romans were often trying to subjugate during the first century B.C.. He appears to have served in a Roman auxiliary unit for a time, deserted and became either a bandit or insurgent against the Romans. At some point he was captured, brought to Rome and sold as a slave to a man referred to at times as “Vatia.” This man owned a gladiator school in Capua, about 120 miles (193 kilometers) southeast of Rome. While at the school, Spartacus helped organize a breakout that led to more than 70 gladiators escaping armed with knives, cleavers and other makeshift weapons they got from the kitchen.

One of the people Spartacus escaped with was his wife, a Thracian woman whose name is lost to history. The writer Plutarch, who lived in the second century A.D., wrote that she “was a prophetess who was possessed by ecstatic frenzies that were part of the worship of the god Dionysus.” After Spartacus woke up with a snake coiled around his head “she declared that this was the sign of a tremendous and fearsome power that would bring him to an unfortunate end”

 

First fight

Spartacus and his small band of escapees acquired gladiator weapons from a passing cart and made their way to Mount Vesuvius. This was more than a century before it erupted and, in Spartacus’ time, the mountain was actually covered with vines and had fertile farmland nearby.

 

On their way, Spartacus and his co-leaders, Crixus and Oenomaus, raided for supplies and recruited slaves in the countryside. Rome did not respond to Spartacus’ growing force seriously. At the time of his breakout, the Republic’s military was fighting in Spain, southeast Europe and Crete. Furthermore, a group of escaped slaves were not seen as posing a serious challenge to Roman soldiers.

 

The Romans despatched a praetor named Gaius Claudius Glaber to form an army to crush the slaves. This man, and another person named Publius Valerius, whom they despatched later, “did not command the regular citizen army of legions, but rather whatever forces they could hastily conscript on the spot,” wrote Appian, a writer who also lived in the second century A.D. (translation by Brent Shaw).

 

Glaber’s ad-hoc army didn’t even try to attack Spartacus. Instead, they blocked off the main route up Vesuvius, pitched camp and tried to starve him out. Spartacus took the initiative, having his newly liberated slaves build rope out of wild vines so they could move down the mountainside to a spot the Roman had neglected to defend. The Romans, still in camp, never saw them coming. The “slaves were able to surround them and to shock the Romans with a surprise attack. When the Romans fled, the slaves seized their camp,” Plutarch wrote. This success resulted in new recruits flocking to the force of Spartacus. “At this point, many of the herdsmen and shepherds from the surrounding regions — hard-bodied and swift-footed men — came to join the slaves.”

 

The growth of Spartacus’s force was aided by other factors. Throughout his rebellion, his army spent much of its time in rural areas and small towns, places that were poorly defended but had an abundance of slaves. Additionally, according to ancient sources, Spartacus insisted on equally dividing the spoils, something that made recruitment all the more easier.

 

In time, he even succeeded in getting non-slaves to join his rebellion. “They were able to build such a formidable force in part because many freedmen and other free commoners joined their ranks along with thousands of fugitive slaves,” writes historian Michael Parenti in an essay published in the book "Spartacus: Film and History" (Blackwell, 2006).

 

Serious opposition

Spartacus continued to ambush and defeat Roman units while freeing slaves in the countryside and gathering supplies. Back in Rome, the senate grew impatient and sent a large army led by the consuls Lucius Gellius Publicola and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus. Each man may have commanded 10,000 troops.

 

By the spring of 72 B.C., Spartacus may have had 40,000 troops, some of which stayed in south Italy with his co-leader Crixus while the remainder advanced towards the Alps under the command of Spartacus.

 

This did not work out well for the rebels. The Roman force under Gellius caught up with Crixus, killing the leader along with many of his rebels. Gellius then proceeded to advance on Spartacus from the south while Lentulus, who was apparently ahead of Spartacus, drove in from the north. Spartacus was trapped between two armies likely equipped with better arms and armor then he had.

 

But one thing neither commander appears to have counted on was that Spartacus had built up a sizable cavalry force in the preceding months. Thracians were known to be good horseman, able to tame even wild horses. “Spartacus suddenly rushed at them and engaged them in battle. He defeated Lentulus’ legates and captured all of their supplies,” Plutarch writes. Gellius was then either defeated by Spartacus or forced to retreat. Spartacus had not only escaped the trap but had mauled the Roman army, allowing his troops to march to the Alps.

 

An Alpine mystery

After defeating another Roman force, this one led by a Roman governor named Gaius Cassius Longinus, Spartacus’s force was now free to climb the Alps and go to Gaul, Thrace or other areas not controlled by Rome.

 

However, for reasons lost to history, Spartacus chose not to do this, instead turning his force around and heading back into Italy. Why he did this is a mystery.

 

“Many theories have been proposed, but the best explanation was already hinted at in the ancient sources. Spartacus’s own men probably vetoed him,” writes Barry Strauss, a Classics professor at Cornell University, in his book The Spartacus War (Simon & Schuster, 2009). “In the past, they had never wanted to leave Italy; now success might have gone to their heads and aroused visions of Rome in flames.”

 

He notes that other factors may also have been involved. Spartacus may have received news of Roman advances in Thrace that made him doubt that he and the other Thracians in his army could return home safely.

 

“The last straw might simply have been the sight of the Alps. As anyone who has ever looked up from the plain toward the rock wall of the Italian Alps knows, the mountains are overpowering,” writes Strauss.

 

Whatever the reasons were Spartacus led his army back south, through Italy, overcoming resistance along the way, until they arrived at the Strait of Messina, in hopes that they could cross over to Sicily, an island of agriculture and slaves waiting to be liberated.

 

Betrayed by pirates

While the Strait of Messina is small, being only two miles (3.2 kilometers) wide at some points, Spartacus had several problems crossing it. He had reached the strait in the winter of 72-71 BC, a time when the weather was colder. Additionally the Roman governor of Sicily, Gaius Verres, had fortified some of the best landing spots.

 

Spartacus needed two things, good boats and good sailors, to be able to land an advance party of his troops across the strait. He turned to a group of “Cilician pirates” (as Plutarch called them) who frequented the area and, who Strauss notes, were equipped with speedy boats and navigational knowledge, things Spartacus needed to make the crossing successfully. 

 

The pirates, however, had other plans. “Although the Cilicians made an agreement with Spartacus and accepted his gifts, they deceived him and sailed away,” wrote Plutarch. Whether the pirates had been bribed by the Romans, or just didn’t want to be involved, is not known.

 

Undeterred Spartacus ordered his troops to assemble boats of their own and, while they succeeded in building a number of them, their attempt to cross the strait failed, leaving his troops stuck on the Italian mainland. This left Spartacus with no choice but to take his force north to face a Roman leader more ruthless than any he had encountered before.

 

Crassus

By the time Spartacus had reached the straits a new leader named Marcus Licinius Crassus had taken command of the Roman forces. Strauss notes that he was a wealthy individual, able to raise a large army and pay them, at least in part, out of his own pocket.

 

In his business dealings Plutarch said that he had a scheme where “he bought up the burning properties and the buildings in the neighborhood of those alight, as the owners would surrender them for a small sum of money out of fear and uncertainty.” (Translation from Roman Social History: A Sourcebook, Routledge, 2007).

 

In his military life he was even more ruthless. Among his forces were the remnants of legions belonging to Gellius and Lentulus that had been previously defeated by Spartacus. As a consequence “Crassus selected every tenth man from the consular legions by lot and had him executed,” wrote Appian. He also revived a practice called “decimation” where units that ran away from the enemy would draw lots and have a random number of soldiers killed by being clubbed or stoned to death.

 

Needless to say discipline tightened under Crassus. Still, knowing that many of Rome’s best soldiers were outside Italy, he proceeded carefully when moving against Spartacus. Rather than try and openly battle Spartacus in southern Italy he built a system of fortifications centred on the Melia Ridge in an effort to trap Spartacus and starve his troops.

 

Spartacus responded to the situation by offering Crassus a peace treaty which Crassus swiftly rejected. Perhaps seeing his own soldiers beginning to waver Spartacus stiffened their resolve by crucifying a Roman soldier where all could see. It served “as a visual demonstration to his own men of what would happen to them if they did not win,” wrote Appian. Spartacus eventually managed to break through Crassus’s trap by filling in one his trenches (allegedly with human bodies) and using his cavalry to punch through.

 

While Spartacus escaped Crassus’s trap he faced serious consequences. Ancient writers say that he lost thousands of soldiers in the break out. Furthermore a split emerged in the rebel camp. A dissident group led by Castus and Gannicus, which included many Celtic and German troops, broke away from Spartacus and set off on their own. Additionally Crassus’s force was still largely intact while another force, led by Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus, was about to land at Brundisium and a third force, led by Pompey, was on its way to Italy from Spain.

 

Spartacus’s force was now divided and increasingly surrounded and the stage was set for the final battle.

 

The end of Spartacus

 In the spring of 71 BC things fell apart for Spartacus. Castus and Gannicus were defeated by Crassus, likely sometime before April, at the Battle of Cantenna.

 

Spartacus was now isolated further. After the battle at Cantenna he received news that Lucullus’s force had landed at Brundisium, crushing the hopes the rebels had for getting out of Italy by using that port.

 

What happened next is hard to explain. Spartacus could have tried for another port, or another part of Italy. His force was not completely trapped and he likely had at least 30,000 troops able to fight.

 

But, for reasons we do not know, he decided to turn around and attack Crassus. Whether Spartacus really wanted this, or whether his men decided this for him, is not known.

 

The final battle took place in April 71 BC. Strauss says that we cannot be sure where it was fought but it was likely somewhere in the Upper Silarus Valley. Spartacus’s strategy appears to have been two-fold, use his cavalry to attack Crassus’s archers and missile throwers while Spartacus would lead his infantry in an attempt to kill Crassus himself, hoping to break up his army.

 

Crassus built trenches to block Spartacus’s cavalry prompting a wild melee when Spartacus’s men jumped in and tried to stop their construction. Eventually Spartacus lined up his men for battle and Crassus his.

 

Plutarch wrote that, just before the battle, Spartacus got off his horse, killed the beast, and told his men that “if he won the battle, he would have many fine horses that belonged to the enemy, but if he lost he would have no need of a horse.” The battle went poorly. Spartacus’s cavalry was apparently unable to reach Crassus’s missile throwers and archers. Undeterred Spartacus, at the head of his troops, and on foot, led a charge aimed at Crassus himself.

 

Spartacus is said to have hacked down two centurions in this final attempt, however it was in vain. There are varying accounts about Spartacus’s death but they all end with him being surrounded and killed. With his death his army fell apart and Crassus and the other Roman forces hunted down the remaining rebels.

 

The body of Spartacus was apparently never identified. Strauss points out that he had killed his horse before the battle and probably did not embellish his armor. “Spartacus’s final struggle might have left only the badly disfigured body of a soldier dressed in ordinary armor.”He was likely buried in a mass grave with the rest of his troops. Even if archaeologists do find it someday they likely would be unable to distinguish the famous commander from that of his troops.

 

While Spartacus’s uprising was ultimately crushed his memory lives on, more so than the Romans who fought against, or otherwise opposed, him. “Who, today, remembers Crassus? Pompey? Even Cicero is not so well remembered,” writes Strauss. On the other hand “everyone has heard of Spartacus.”

 

Irene of Athens, Byzantine empress

Introduction

 

Irene was related to the noble Greek Sarantapechos family of Athens. Although she was an orphan, her uncle or cousin Constantine Sarantapechos was a patrician and was possibly general (greek: strategos) of the theme of Hellas at the end of the 8th century. She was brought to Constantinople by Emperor Constantine V on 1 November 768 and was married to his son Leo IV on 17 December. Although she appears to have come from a noble family, there is no clear reason why she would have been chosen as Leo's bride, leading some scholars to speculate that she was selected in a bride-show, in which eligible young women were paraded before the bridegroom until one was finally selected.

 

On 14 January 771, Irene gave birth to a son, the future Constantine VI. When Constantine V died in September 775, Leo succeeded to the throne at the age of twenty-five years. Leo, though an iconoclast, pursued a policy of moderation towards iconodules, but his policies became much harsher in August 780, when a number of courtiers were punished for venerating icons. According to tradition, he discovered icons concealed among Irene's possessions and refused to share the marriage bed with her thereafter. Nevertheless, when Leo died on 8 September 780, Irene became regent for their nine-year-old son Constantine.

 

Irene's most notable act was the restoration of the veneration of icons (images of Christ or the saints). Having chosen Tarasios, one of her partisans and her former secretary, as Patriarch of Constantinople in 784, she summoned two church councils. The first of these, held in 786 at Constantinople, was frustrated by the opposition of the iconoclast soldiers. The second, convened at Nicaea in 787, formally revived the veneration of icons and reunited the Eastern church with that of Rome.

 

While this greatly improved relations with the Papacy, it did not prevent the outbreak of a war with the Franks, who took over Istria and Benevento in 788. In spite of these reverses, Irene's military efforts met with some success: in 782 her favoured courtier Staurakios subdued the Slavs of the Balkans and laid the foundations of Byzantine expansion and re-Hellenization in the area. Nevertheless, Irene was constantly harried by the Abbasids, and in 782 and 798 had to accept the terms of the respective Caliphs Al-Mahdi and Harun al-Rashid.

 

 

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Irene, (born c. 752, Athens—died Aug. 9, 803, Lesbos), Byzantine ruler and saint of the Greek Orthodox Church who was instrumental in restoring the use of icons in the Eastern Roman Empire.

 

The wife of the Byzantine emperor Leo IV, Irene became, on her husband’s death in September 780, guardian of their 10-year-old son, Constantine VI, and co-emperor with him. Later in that year she crushed what seems to have been a plot by the Iconoclasts (opposers of the use of icons) to put Leo’s half brother, Nicephorus, on the throne.

 

Irene favoured the restoration of the use of icons, which had been prohibited in 730. She had Tarasius, one of her supporters, elected patriarch of Constantinople and then summoned a general church council on the subject. When it met in Constantinople in 786, it was broken up by Iconoclast soldiers stationed in that city. Another council, which is recognized by both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches as the Seventh Ecumenical Council, met at Nicaea in 787 and restored the cult of images.

 

As Constantine approached maturity, he grew resentful of his mother’s controlling influence in the empire. An attempt to seize power was crushed by the Empress, who demanded that the military oath of fidelity should recognize her as senior ruler. Anger at the demand prompted the themes (administrative divisions) of Asia Minor to open resistance in 790. Constantine VI was proclaimed sole ruler and his mother banished from court. In January 792, however, Irene was allowed to return to court and even to resume her position as co-ruler. By skillful intrigues with the bishops and courtiers she organized a conspiracy against Constantine, who was arrested and blinded at his mother’s orders (797).

 

Irene then reigned alone as emperor (not empress) for five years. In 798 she opened diplomatic relations with the Western emperor Charlemagne, and in 802 a marriage between her and Charlemagne was reportedly contemplated. According to the contemporary Byzantine historian Theophanes, the scheme was frustrated by one of Irene’s favourites. In 802 a conspiracy of officials and generals deposed her and placed on the throne Nicephorus, the minister of finance. She was exiled, first to the island of Prinkipo (now Büyükada) and then to Lesbos.

 

Irene’s zeal in restoring icons and her patronage of monasteries ensured her a place among the saints of the Greek Orthodox Church. Her feast day is August 9th

Crusaders and Mongols: an Alliance.

Franco-Mongol relations were established in the 13th century, when the Christian Crusaders and the Mongol Empire attempted to form a Franco-Mongol alliance against various Muslim empires. Such an alliance might have seemed an obvious choice to both parties: the Mongols were sympathetic to Christianity, given the presence of many influential Nestorian Christians in the Mongol court. The Franks (Western Europeans and those in the Crusader States of the Levant, were open to the idea of support from the East, owing to the long-running legend of the mythical Prester John, an Eastern king in a magical kingdom whom many believed would one day come to the assistance of the Crusaders in the Holy Land. The Franks and Mongols shared a common enemy in the Muslims, but despite many messages, gifts, and emissaries over the course of several decades, the often-proposed alliance never came to fruition.

 

Contact between Europeans and Mongols began in about 1220, with occasional messages from the papacy and European monarchs to Mongol leaders such as the Great Khan, and subsequently to the Ilkhans in Mongol-conquered Persia. Communications tended to follow a recurring pattern: the Europeans asked the Mongols to convert to Western Christianity, and the Mongols responded with demands for submission and tribute. The Mongols had already conquered many Christian and Muslim nations in their advance across Asia. After destroying the Muslim Abbasid and Ayyubid dynasties, for the next few generations the Mongols fought the remaining Islamic power in the region, the Egyptian Mamluks. Hethum I, king of the Christian nation of Cilician Armenia, had submitted to the Mongols in 1247, and strongly encouraged other monarchs to engage in a Christian-Mongol alliance, but was only able to persuade his son-in-law, Prince Bohemond VI of the Crusader State of Antioch, who submitted in 1260. Other Christian leaders, such as the Crusaders of Acre, perceived the Mongols as the most significant threat in the region. The Barons of Acre therefore engaged in an unusual passive alliance with the Egyptian Mamluks, allowing Muslim forces to advance unopposed through Crusader territory to engage and defeat the Mongols at 1260's pivotal Battle of Ain Jalut.

 

European attitudes began to change in the mid-1260s, from perceiving the Mongols as enemies to be feared, to potential allies against the Muslims. The Mongols sought to capitalize on this, promising a re-conquered Jerusalem to the Europeans in return for cooperation. Attempts to cement an alliance continued through negotiations with many leaders of the Mongol Ilkhanate in Perisa, from its founder Hulagu to his descendants Abaqa, Arghun, Ghazan, and Öljaitü, but without success. The Mongols invaded Syria several times between 1281 and 1312, sometimes in attempts at joint operations with the Franks. But the considerable logistical difficulties involved meant that their forces were never able to coordinate their simultaneous arrival, and thus could not cooperate in any meaningful way. The Mongol Empire eventually dissolved into civil war, and the Egyptian Mamluks successfully recaptured all of Palestine and Syria from the Crusaders. After the Fall of Acre in 1291, the remaining Crusaders retreated to the island of Cyprus. A final attempt was made to establish a bridgehead at the small island of Ruad off the coast of Tortosa, again in an attempt by the Crusaders to coordinate military action with the Mongols, but the plan failed, and the Egyptians besieged the island. With the Fall of Ruad in 1302 or 1303, the Crusaders lost their last foothold in the Holy Land.

 

Modern historians debate whether a successful alliance between the Franks and Mongols would have shifted the balance of power in the region, and if it would have been a wise choice on the part of the Europeans. Traditionally, the Mongols tended to see outside parties as either subjects or enemies, with little room in the middle for a concept such as ally

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Pope Gregory X (1210–1276) promulgated a new crusade in liaison with the Mongols in 1274

Edward I's crusade (1269–1274)In 1269, the English Prince Edward (the future Edward I), inspired by tales of his great-uncle, Richard the Lionheart, and the second crusade of the French King Louis, started on a crusade of his own, the Ninth Crusade. The number of knights and retainers that accompanied Edward on the crusade was quite small, possibly around 230 knights, with a total complement of approximately 1,000 people, transported in a flotilla of 13 ships. Edward understood the value of an alliance with the Mongols, and upon his arrival in Acre on May 9, 1271, he immediately sent an embassy to the Mongol ruler Abaqa, requesting assistance. Abaqa answered positively to Edward's request, asking him to coordinate his activities with his general Samagar, whom he sent on an offensive against the Mamluks with 10,000 Mongols to join Edward's army. But Edward was able only to engage in some fairly ineffectual raids that did not actually achieve success in gaining new territory.[ For example, when he engaged in a raid into the Plain of Sharon, he proved unable to even take the small Mamluk fortress of Qaqun. However, Edward's military operations, limited though they were, were still of assistance in persuading the Mamluk leader Baibars to agree to a 10-year truce between the city of Acre and the Mamluks, signed in 1272. Edward's efforts were described by historian Reuven Amitai as "the nearest thing to real Mongol-Frankish military coordination that was ever to be achieved, by Edward or any other Frankish leader."

 

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In 1299/1300, the Mongols engaged in battles for cities in Syria, and engaged in raids as far south as Gaza.

There has been much discussion among historians as to why the Franco-Mongol alliance never became a reality and why, despite all the diplomatic contacts, it stayed a chimera or fantasy. Many reasons have been proposed: one was that the Mongols at that stage in their empire were not entirely focused on expanding to the West. By the late 13th century, the Mongol leaders were several generations removed from the great Genghis Khan, and internal disruption was brewing. The original nomadic Mongols from the day of Genghis had become more settled, and had turned into administrators instead of conquerors. Battles were springing up that were Mongol against Mongol, which took troops away from the front in Syria. There was also confusion within Europe as to the differences between the Mongols of the Ilkhanate in the Holy Land, and the Mongols of the Golden Horde, who were attacking Eastern Europe in Hungary and Poland. Within the Mongol Empire, the Ilkhanids and the Golden Horde considered each other enemies, but it took time for Western observers to be able to distinguish between the different parts of the Mongol Empire  From the Mongol side, there were also concerns as to just how much clout the Franks could have brought to bear, especially as there was decreased interest in Europe in pursuing the Crusades. Court historians of Mongol Persias made no mention whatsoever of the communications between the Ilkhans and the Christian West, and barely mentioned the Franks at all. The communications were evidently not seen as important by the Mongols, and may have even been considered embarrassing. The Mongol leader Ghazan, a converted Muslim since 1295, might not have wanted to be perceived as trying to gain the assistance of infidels against his fellow Muslims in Egypt. When Mongol historians did make notes of foreign territories, the areas were usually categorized as either "enemies", "conquered", or "in rebellion". The Franks, in that context, were listed in the same category as the Egyptians, in that they were enemies to be conquered. The idea of "ally" was foreign to the Mongols.

 

Some European monarchs responded positively to Mongol inquiries, but became vague and evasive when asked to actually commit troops and resources. Logistics also became more complex – the Egyptian Mamluks were genuinely concerned about the threat of another wave of Crusader forces, so each time the Mamluks captured another castle or port, instead of occupying it, they systematically destroyed it so that it could never be used again. This both made it more difficult for the Crusaders to plan military operations, and increased the expense of those operations. Monarchs in Western Europe often gave lip service to the idea of going on crusade, as a way of making an emotional appeal to their subjects, but in reality they would take years to prepare, and sometimes never actually left for Outremer. Internal wars in Europe, such as the War of the Vespers, were also distracting attention, and making it less likely for European nobles to want to commit their military to the Crusades, when they were more needed at home.

 

Another concern among the Europeans about the long-term goals of the Mongols. The early Mongol diplomacy had been not a simple offer of cooperation, but straightforward demands for submission. It was only in later communications that the Mongol diplomats started to adopt a more conciliatory tone; but they still used language that more implied command than entreaty. Even the Armenian historian Hayton of Corycus, the most enthusiastic advocate of Western-Mongol collaboration, freely admitted that the Mongol leadership was not inclined to listen to European advice. His recommendation was that even if working together, European armies and Mongol armies should avoid contact because of the Mongol arrogance. European leaders were aware that the Mongols would not have been content to stop at the Holy Land, but were on a clear quest for world domination. If the Mongols had achieved a successful alliance with the West and destroyed the Mamluk Sultanate, there is little doubt that the Mongols would have then proceeded to conquer Africa. There, no strong state could have stood in their way until Morocco and the Islamic caliphates in the Maghreb of northwest Africa. The Mongols would have turned upon the Franks of Cyprus and the Byzantines.

 

And lastly, there was not much support among the general populace in Europe for a Mongol alliance. Writers in Europe were creating "recovery" literature with their ideas about how best to recover the Holy Land, but few mentioned the Mongols as a genuine possibility. In 1306, when Pope Clement V asked the leaders of the military orders, Jacques de Molay and Fulk de Villaret, to present their proposals for how the Crusades should proceed, neither of them factored in any kind of a Mongol alliance. A few later proposals talked briefly about the Mongols as being a force that could invade Syria and keep the Mamluks distracted, but not as a force that could be counted on for cooperation.

 

Flavius Stilicho and Emperor Honorius- The last decades of the Roman Empire

Flavius Stilicho (died 408) was a Roman general of Vandal origin who maintained the territorial integrity of the Western Roman Empire during the reign of the emperor Honorius.

 

The father of Stilicho was from the German tribe of the Vandals but served with distinction as a cavalry officer in the Roman army. Stilicho's mother was Roman. His early career included both diplomatic and military experience. He was sent on a mission to Sapor III, king of the Sassanian Persians, to arrange for the partition of Armenia (383 or 387). His early military exploits included victories over the Visigoths, Bastarnae (ca. 391), and Franks (395). He held various military offices, and after Emperor Theodosius defeated the rebel Eugenius (394), he promoted Stilicho to the rank of master of infantry and cavalry for Italy. The Emperor further showed appreciation for the ability of Stilicho by marrying him to his niece Serena. On his deathbed Theodosius appointed Stilicho guardian of his two sons, Honorius, who would rule in the West, and Arcadius, who would rule in the East. Thus Theodosius left them in the hands of a talented man whose barbarian ancestry would prevent him from aspiring to become emperor. But the very division of power further weakened the empire, already staggering under severe barbarian pressures on the frontier.

 

Honorius was too young and incompetent to manage the empire, and the responsibility fell heavily upon Stilicho. His problems were enormous. Virtually no region of the frontier was secure, and one area could be defended only by withdrawing troops from another, exposing that area in turn to barbarian assaults. Thus in 406, when Stilicho defeated an invasion of Italy by the German Radagaisus, he was forced to draw troops from the Rhine and British frontiers, leaving those open to invasion.

 

Foreign problems were compounded by domestic revolt. In 398, Gildas, the governor of North Africa, revolted and cut off the vital grain supply for the city of Rome. Stilicho raised grain from Gaul and Spain and marshaled forces which defeated Gildas and restored Africa to the empire.

 

However, the major rival to Stilicho was Alaric the Goth. Four times in his career, Stilicho faced Alaric. He was about to crush Alaric when he was called back by order of the emperor Arcadius. In 397 he confronted Alaric in Greece but was forced to make peace when Gildas revolted. In 402 Alaric invaded Italy. Stilicho checked him in battle (April 6) but negotiated peace rather than crushing him. In 403 Alaric again invaded Italy and was defeated by Stilicho near Verona. This time also, Stilicho did not eliminate his rival.

 

The failure of Stilicho to annihilate Alaric was the result of other challenges. The first derived from his being semibarbarian and therefore suspect by the still-powerful Italian nobility. Stilicho tried to appeal to that group. He slowed down such antipagan acts of the emperors as temple closings and even restored the altar of victory, a symbol of the old Roman paganism, to the Senate house. He also reduced the burdens of taxation and military recruiting which were levied on the Italian upper classes. These gestures were not successful in winning support, and toward the end of his career he took a more antipagan stance. In 407 he proposed a law which confiscated all pagan property and destroyed all pagan altars. With animosity toward him strong among the Romans, Stilicho needed the potentially powerful assistance that Alaric's forces could provide.

 

A second area of concern was the Eastern Empire. This was largely independent of Stilicho's control, and in fact, with Arcadius coming under the control of Stilicho's archenemy Rufinus, it became actually hostile. The major area of contention was Illyria, which was a buffer zone between the two parts of the empire and also an important recruiting ground for soldiers. Stilicho arranged the murder of Rufinus but even then did not succeed in dominating the East. After the death of Arcadius, Stilicho had plans for seizing the Eastern throne for Honorius, but his own fall prevented that. Again, Alaric and his Goths, who generally were settled close to the border of the two empires, could be extremely useful as friends of Stilicho against the Eastern emperors.

 

During the first decade of the 5th century, the power of Stilicho seemed secure. The Emperor had married two of Stilicho's daughters in succession. He had been consul four times. However, trouble continued. A rival, Constantine, led a revolt in Britain and rapidly seized control of Gaul. The Italians were hostile toward the Vandal. Factions in the court led by a palace official, Olympus, were turning Honorius away from him. Finally Stilicho was arrested and on Aug. 22, 408, was executed. For 40 years no barbarians held a comparable high place in the Western Roman Empire.