Ivory Diptych of Stilicho's son, his wife, and the General

While still a young officer in the Emperor Theodosius’ service in Constantinople, Stilicho was sent on an embassy to the Persian court in 383, which he handled with credit. Returning, he married Theodosius’ niece and adopted daughter, Serena, in 385 and thus joined the Imperial family. He was appointed to command of the Emperor’s household troops. His successful campaigns on many fronts against the Visigoths and in Theodosius’ campaigns in Gaul against Arbogast and the false Emperor, Eugenius, resulted in his military promotion to magister utriusque militiae (essentially, chief of the Roman army). When Theodosius lay dying in Milan in 395, he gave his young son, Honorius, into Stilicho’s care. Historians argue that he also gave Stilicho guardianship over his other son, Arcadius (the young Emperor of Constantinople). This, however, was bitterly disputed by the praetorian prefect, Rufinus, who claimed guardianship of the eastern Emperor.

The Emperors

Seldom in history has a strong Emperor like Theodosius left two such lackluster sons. Arcadius, in Constantinople, was completely under the thumb of various palace functionaries, including Rufinus and, later, the eunuch Eutropius. Honorius was probably 12 at his accession; when he was 15, Stilicho arranged his marriage to his own daughter, Maria, in 398. When Theodosius died, Stilicho still had command over the bulk of the vast army assembled by Theodosius to fight Arbogast, an army envied by Rufinus in Constantinople. The deepening estrangement between Rufinus and Stilicho – and the emperors they served - led to a genuine split of the eastern and western empires into discrete, sometimes hostile, areas of influence. The day of the united Empire was over.

Alaric, king of the Goths, who had formerly served as commander of auxiliaries under Theodosius, became chief of the Visigoths upon the Emperor’s death. He and Stilicho had fought for years for Rome; now, increasingly, Stilicho would fight for Rome against Alaric.

Alaric invaded Thrace and Macedonia soon after Theodosius’ death. Stilicho, who claimed the prefecture of Illyricum for the Western Emperor (which the East disputed) went with his army to Thessaly. Just as he was to engage Alaric’s vast Gothic army, he received direct orders from Aracadius/Rufinus to send a large part of his troops to Constantinople’s service. Stilicho, who obeyed the order, thus lost his chance of destroying Alaric’s vast army, who rampaged into Greece, burning and looting. However, the troops Stilicho did send to Rufinus assassinated the minister in Constantinople, arguably, but never certainly, at Stilicho’s order.

The poet Claudian (perhaps the last great poet of the Empire) began at this time to publish lavish poems of praise for his patron, Stilicho. They provide much of the information we have about the next 8 years. The rest of the picture is eked out with the hostile commentaries of Zosimus and the monk, Orosius.

In 397 Stilicho took another army to Greece but again failed to bring Alaric to battle and withdrew to Italy. When Gildo, the County of Africa, rebelled against Rome in the same year and withheld vital grain supplies, Stilicho’s army destroyed him in a whirlwind campaign.

The Invasions of Italy

Stilicho became Consul in 400. In 401, Alaric invaded Italy directly. Stilicho scraped together troops from all over the Empire (including legions from Britain, which would never return there) and stripped the Rhine frontier of its defenders to meet the Visigoth army. On Easter Sunday, 402, he fought a massive battle against Alaric at Pollentia in northern Italy. Although he captured the Gothic camp, the victory was incomplete, as Alaric and the bulk of the army escaped. Alaric then marched toward Etruria but Stilicho, after negotiations, persuaded the Goth to withdraw from Italy. However, he returned the next year, and Stilicho’s army defeated the Visigoths near Verona in 403, driving the Goths northward from Italy.

At this point, a peculiar pattern emerges. Stilicho has now met the Visigoth king on several occasions. On none of these does Stilicho manage to destroy Alaric’s army. Yet in other campaigns against other enemies, his victories are complete. Enemies began to hint that Alaric was buying off Stilicho. The truth may, more likely, be simply that Stilicho was afraid his weakened, demoralized armies were too weak a tool to effect destruction of the Visigoths, and hesitated to risk all-out battle and the possible destruction of what power remained. It may be that an old friendship impacted his decisions. In any event, each battle somehow just missed destroying the Gothic menace, which would be remembered against Stilicho in later years.

In 405, Italy was invaded by a vast horde of Ostrogoths under Radagaisus; dropping his campaign against Alaric, Stilicho raced to Fiesole near Florence, where he easily defeated and destroyed the Ostrogothic host and its commander.

The Final Years

Stilicho appears never to have abandoned his dream to unite the armies of east and west through possession of Illyricum. Arcadius had bought off Alaric some years before by giving him provisional title to a portion of Illyricum. Stilicho now sought alliance with Alaric with a plan to move jointly to control that vast connecting region between the eastern and western empires. Before his campaign could be developed, he heard of two new catastrophes; the revolt of Constantine in Britain and his usurpation of armies in Gaul, and a massive invasion of Gaul by Alans, Sueves, and Vandals, who broke through the weakened Rhine frontiers. At this time of multiple crises, Alaric advanced into the province of Noricum (roughly, central Austria) and demanded pay for his army, which had stood ready to assist Stilicho in Illyricum. Desperately, Stilicho harangued the Senate in Rome into paying off Alaric with 4,000 pounds of gold. The Senate and Stilicho’s many enemies detested the bribe; one brave senator warned that ”Non est ista pax sed pactio servitutis” (that is no peace, but a mere selling of yourselves into slavery). But, with Gaul in flames in two directions and his armies on the verge of mutiny after years of struggle, Stilicho may have felt he could handle only one war at a time. This action would, however, do more than any other to turn many supporters against him.

The Murder of Stilicho

In 408, it might have seemed that Stilicho’s position was secure. The hostile Eastern Emperor, Arcadius, had died in the same year. Stilicho’s daughter, Maria, Empress of the West, had died, but his younger daughter, Thermantia, had married the widowed Honorius, thus continuing his family connections. Alaric appeared, at least for the moment, to be conciliated. And yet Stilicho was in great danger. The strong man of the Empire for nearly 10 years, he had enemies in its every corner. His soldiers were resentful, hating his harsh discipline and stands against army looting. Stilicho had managed to offend both the pagans in Rome (by a perceived lack of respect for their ancient temples) as well as vituperative Christian Trinitarians. Centered largely in Constantinople, the orthodox claimed that Stilicho’s faith was corrupt; it was even hinted that his young son, Eucherius, was an actual pagan. Many Romans felt he had betrayed them by the payment to Alaric, believing the Roman armies of the west were still the invincible tool of the past.

Most dangerous of all, while Honorarius rested in his new palace in Ravenna, he fell under the influence of Olympius, a minister preferred by Stilicho, who now intended to replace him. Apparently, Stilicho hoped to travel to Constantinople to settle the affairs of Aracadius’ son, the new young Emperor Theodosius. Some sources claim Stilicho hoped Alaric could, with his army, stop Constantine’s destruction in France while Stilicho traveled east. But although Stilicho had been meticulous in not promoting his own son, Eucherius, to more than modest rank, Olympius put about the rumor that Stilicho intended to displace Theodosius when he reached Constantinople, and crown his own son Emperor instead.

At this critical point, thousands of Stilicho’s troops mutinied in Ticinum and began to terrorize the Emperor Honorius as well as murder every known partisan of Stilicho’s. His own generals began to turn upon him, and he was forced to flee with a handful of loyalists to Ravenna.

The final act found Stilicho in sanctuary in a Christian Church. Approached by Honorius’ soldiers, he was assured under oath that the Emperor intended merely to place him under arrest. Once outside sanctuary, the soldiers revealed that a second letter from Honorius intended his immediate death. Although yet surrounded by his household troops and supporters, who wished to fight against his executioners, Stilicho forbade further bloodshed and, without a struggle, was beheaded on the Emperor’s orders in August 23, 408.

Within months Stilicho’s son was murdered, his wife and daughter in penury, his followers’ lands and titles confiscated to the state. His armies, breaking through all discipline, began an unchecked slaughter of barbarian and Gothic hostages throughout Italy, which resulted in perhaps 30,000 formerly loyal auxiliary troops, enraged, deserting to join Alaric. Honorius, without either strong or disinterested counsel, began the disastrous course of hesitations and fumbling diplomacy which led, less than two years after Stilicho’s murder, to the sack of Rome by the victorious Alaric.

From the conflicting sources and peculiar actions of Flavius Stilicho, perhaps Hodgkin’s summation is as just as any: “This man remained faithful to his emperor, and was the great defence of Rome.”

Sources

The Barbarian Invasions of the Roman Empire by Thomas Hodkin, Volume I, The Visigothic Invasion , and works cited therein, including: Claudius Claudian (In Rufinum; De Bello Gildico; De Secundo Consulatu Stilichonis; De Bello Getico); Zosimus, History

The Oxford Classical Dictionary, Third Ed.