The History of Rome - 156- Jockeying for Position

Episode Date: October 24, 2011

From 383-387 the tense quasi-partnership of Maximus, Valentinian II and Theodosius ruled the Roman Empire. During those years Bishop Ambrose and Nicean Christianity pushed themselves to dominance over their Arians rivals.

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Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome. Episode 156, Jockeying for Position. When the Emperor Gratian was overthrown and murdered by the General Magnus Maximus in 383 AD, a game of high-stakes political chess kicked off that wound up lasting for five years before Checkmate was finally declared. Along the way, the three imperial courts would use every means at their disposal to gain the upper hand, be they diplomatic, religious, or martial. Those of you who have read ahead know how the game turns out. But the five-year quasi-partnership between Maximus, Valentinian II, and Theodosius

is a fascinating little period that wound up having profound consequences for the history of the Western world, especially in the always tricky field of church-state relations. Following the execution of Gratian, which was ordered by, overzealous subordinates, I swear, Maximus advanced on Trier, took the capital without a fight, and set up an imperial court for himself. With a boy emperor reigning in Milan

and a likely ally in Theodosius reigning in Constantinople, Maximus had good reason to believe that 80% of his work was already done. All he had to do now was co-opt the weak court of Valentini and the second and request official recognition

from the strong court of Theodosius, and he would be the unchallenged ruler of the Western Empire, QED. So, rather than press on with a military offensive, Maximus chose to instead launch a diplomatic offensive. He would later consider this to be his greatest mistake. When the court in Milan got word of Gratian's death, they decided to send Bishop Ambrose north to Trier to have a chat with Maximus and field the general out.

They knew that as a devout Nicene, Maximus would be willing to listen to what the bishop had to say, rather than just dismissing him out of hand like he might some random official. And the court of Milan needed Maximus to listen to Ambrose, and then keep listening, and then keep listening, long enough to allow them to blockade the alpine passes into Italy. Ambrose played his part to perfection and stalled for time like a seasoned diplomat. At first, Maximus came out strong and demanded that young Valencius,

Valentinian come north at once as a son comes to his father, believing that the court of Milan had no backbone and that the mere threat of invasion would make them all wilt. Ambrose stalled by saying that it was crazy to expect Valentinian and his mother Justina to make such a journey with winter settling in, but maybe it would be possible in the spring. When Maximus pressed, Ambrose told the general that he did not actually have a mandate to make guarantees of that sort, and that he would have to go back to Milan to receive further instructions. Maximus would have to wait a little while for a formal answer to his demands. Not too much longer, just please be patient.

Time successfully bought, Valentinian's generals were able to position troops in the passes, and by the time Maximus realized that the whole thing had been a giant stall, it was too late. He had critically misjudged the loyalty of the Milan court to the House of Valentinian, and any chance he had at a swift and total victory was now gone. Maximus had reason to expect better treatment from Theodosius, but again he was let down. The general's envoys arrived in Constantinople and basically said, Gratian is dead, Maximus is in charge, please sign here. But when these envoys returned to Trier, they did not have with them the specifics of a power-sharing agreement between Theodosius and Maximus,

so much as they had, well, nothing at all. Theodosius just ignored their demands. Not even bothering with a response, the Eastern Augustus had decided to just sort of pretend like the whole thing hadn't happened. This left Maximus thoroughly vexed. The imperial officials down in Italy weren't supposed to be closing ranks around a 12-year-old,

and his old friend Theodosius wasn't supposed to be giving him the cold shoulder. What the hell was going on around here? Luckily for Maximus, though, everyone else was pretty much as vexed as he was. All three Imperial Power Centers had enough troops to fend off an attack from one of the others, but none of the three could muster a force large enough to overrun one of the others. So Theodosius could refuse to recognize Maximus, but he couldn't yet march into Gaul and displace him. Maximus could hold the western provinces, but he could,

couldn't yet push his way into Italy without a heavy fight. Valentinian could hold the peninsula, but he couldn't do much more beyond that. So, a stalemate set in. Sure, in the spring of 384, Theodosius marched a forced toward Illyria, but that was mostly a PR stunt to show that he was doing something about the problem of Maximus. Clearly, though, he never had any intention of crossing the mountains. But that didn't mean that Theodosius was actually doing. nothing. In fact, as the emperor headed west for his not very serious photo op, an embassy was

headed east on a very serious mission to convince the Sasanids to remain peaceful so Theodosius could turn his full attention to Maximus without worrying about his rear. The leader of this embassy? A senior staff officer of Vandal Origin, who we will all shortly come to know and love. Stillico. Meanwhile, back in Italy, Valentini and the 2nd's generals were similarly engaged in PR stunts, backed by

serious behind-the-scenes diplomacy. The Milan court decided that some Alamani near the border with Rhea posed too great a threat to the empire to be ignored, and so an army was sent into the mountainous province to conduct exercises and make sure the Germans didn't

get any funny ideas. But up in Trier, Maximus took those exercises for what he believed they were, which was a show of force directed at him, and he sent envoys down to Milan protesting that these troops were coming dangerously close to violating what he now considered to be his airspace. To which Valentinian's report replied, Hey, those Germans threaten both of us, so quit being so paranoid. This back and forth wound up opening the door for a normalization of relations. Valentinian in the end agreed to stay out of Gaul, Britain, and Spain, while Maximus agreed to leave Italy alone for now, and they both agreed to keep an eye on the frontier and defend the empire from mutual barbarian enemies.

It is tough to say through all of this what degree of recognition Maximus managed to win for himself. But from here on out, he does seem to have moved beyond unrecognized usurper and into a more official Augustus status. But whether this was de facto or de jour or whether or not Theodosius recognized it remains, at least to me, an open question. Whichever it was, the three sides made no aggressive moves over the next four years, and everyone seemed temporarily satisfied with the power-sharing agreement. But that did not mean that they stopped trying to position themselves for an inevitable showdown. and one of the key flanks everyone was trying to shore up was the religious flank,

with Ambrose of Milan once again right smack dab in the middle of everything. At first, it seems a little weird that the emperors would choose this, of all moments, to begin taking extreme religious positions that undermine social stability. But when viewed in the larger political context, it does begin to make some sense. Both Maximus and Theodosius knew that Ambrose was a huge powerbroker in Milan, so much of a power broker that he could be seen as something of a kingmaker. With the bishop's support, Maximus might just be able to carry off the West. With the bishop's support, Theodosius might just be able to intertwine the Valentinian and Theodotian families

to the point that they became indistinguishable, which meant that Theodosius' sons would be in line to inherit a few. at the empire. So, playing to an audience of one, Maximus and Theodosius began to go back and forth in a game of who could be the stronger, more radical defender of the Nicene Creed. Of course, in virtue of having been in power for five years already, Theodosius had a head start. I didn't want to get sidetracked into this when discussing the Gothic War, but in the middle of the conflict, Theodosius decided to stake out a position in the Great Christian War

between the Aryans and the Nicians. By this point in history, the battle lines between the two sides had been drawn, very roughly drawn, between the Latin-speaking West and the Greek-speaking East. In the West, a Nicene majority lorded over an Aryan minority, while in the East these roles were reversed. This meant that when he came to power, Theodosius, born in Spain and a devout Nicene, found himself ruling over the half of the empire that believed the opposite of what he believed. So what did he do? Did he keep religion from becoming a divisive issue by downplaying the doctrinal differences between himself and his subjects?

Well, you'd think so, but instead he did the other thing. In early 380, with the Gothic war raging all around him, Theodosius became sick, so sick that he feared for his life and requested a formal baptist. After this baptism, the emperor suddenly recovered, and it was hard not to draw a connection between the two events. Fueled by a religious certainty that now bordered on fanaticism, when Theodosius entered Constantinople for the first time later in the year, one of the first things he did was deposed the Aryan bishop of the capital city.

He then promulgated a famous edict, stating flatly that the emperor considered Nicene Christian to be the only form of Christianity. Everything else would be considered false and heretical and be against the law. Through the end of the war with the Goths and into the period of stalemate with Maximus, Theodosius endorsed and then backed a systematic program to remove Aryan clergymen from church offices and replace them with Niceneas. This, as you can imagine, did not go over too well with the locals. But for the time being, there was very little they could do.

It was one thing to fight the Niceneans when they were just a collection of rival priests. It was quite another to fight them when they were backed by imperial agents who had, you know, like swords and stuff. Oddly enough, though, Theodosius' religious zeal did not yet extend to paganism, which he treated with a fair degree of tolerance throughout this period. Blood sacrifices were out of the question, of course. but other than that, the remaining pagans in the east did not have to deal with the same kind of treatment doled out by Gratian in the West. That tolerance would eventually be dropped by Theodosius as a part of his general

Make Nice with Ambrose program, following the unpleasantries at Thessalonica in 390, but for now, Theodosius generally left pagans alone. When Maximus came to power in 383 then, he could see that he had some catching up to do if he was going to be perceived by Ambrose as the true great defender of the Nicene Creed. Now, the main reason it was so important to be seen as a staunch Nicene, was because at that moment, the powerful Ambrose was technically backing an Aryan court. The Empress Justina was an Aryan, and as a result, her young son Valentinian was, too.

As we'll see in a second, this led to all kinds of nasty little despair. between the imperial family and the bishop. And because the majority of the population in Milan was Nicene, this meant that it would be pretty easy for Ambrose to use these disputes to drive a huge wedge between the imperial family and the citizens of Milan if he were so inclined. Maximus figured that if he could prove his Nicene bona fides, eventually Ambrose might get sick of supporting those damned heretics in the imperial palace and throw his weight behind the Nicaean usurper up in Trier. In an effort to win over Ambrose's support, a Maximus decided to

do Theodosius's Nicene extremism won better. But there weren't really any Aryan clergy he could expel from office, since his provinces didn't really have too many Aryan clergymen. But there were heretical communities out there just waiting to be persecuted. But without patronage to cut off or lands to confiscate, there was really only one method of persecution left. Sometime between 384 and 386, a bishop from the Iberian Peninsula named Prisilian wound up in a heated theological fight with the mainstream Nicenean surrounding him. After most of his allies in the church were deposed, Prisillian wound up appealing directly to Maximus for aid. To the great surprise of the heretical bishop, Maximus decided to hear the appeal, and then deny the appeal, and then hand down a little divine justice. Prisilian and six of his followers were arrested and then beheaded.

It was the first recorded case of an execution on charges of heresy and history, though technically I think he was brought up on charges of practicing magic. And it was also the first recorded case of the state handing down a death sentence to resolve a church dispute. But though it earned him an ignoble place in history, the move kind of backfired on me. Maximus, as Ambrose harshly condemned the executions. Because it was wrong to kill over doctrinal disputes? Well, no. Ambrose opposed the executions on the grounds that Maximus had strayed out of his jurisdiction. Church matters should be solved by the church. Maximus had no right to interfere.

The business with Prisilian just so happened to occur right after Ambrose's second trip to Trier in 385, when he went to see about retrieving Gratian's body so that it could be properly buried. But this time around, Ambrose had been met by a slightly more hostile version of Maximus. Yes, he was courting the Niceneans generally, and yes, he badly wanted Ambrose's support specifically. But that did not stop the general from taking the opportunity to angrily come down on Ambrose for bargaining in bad faith the last time around. convinced that the bishop stalling had cost him his best chance at total victory. Maximus refused to release Gratian's body, and Ambrose wound up heading home empty-handed.

It is entirely possible that fallout from this summit was behind Ambrose's later condemnation of the execution of Prisilian, though Ambrose did not really need an ulterior motive to argue that emperors had no business messing with church affairs. his belief in that principle is well documented. Part of that well documentation became shortly thereafter in 386, and is the famous incident at the portion basilica. During his years as bishop, Ambrose so completely put his Nicene stamp on Milan that by the mid-380s, the Aryan minority in the city, including the Empress Justina and the Emperor Valentini in the second, literally had no place to worship.

Ambrose allowed not a single church in the city to preach anything resembling that heretical Aryan nonsense. This, of course, greatly annoyed the Empress, and so in 386 she asked for a small measure of consideration. She asked Ambrose to give the Aryans one church in the city center and one church out in the suburbs, so that her and her doctrinal brethren could worship in peace. Ambrose, of course, flatly refused. So what if the request was coming directly from the emperor? Aryanism was heresy and wasn't going to get a platform so long as Ambrose was Bishop of Milan. So then a Praetorian prefect came round to talk sensibly with Ambrose and said, look,

maybe just give her the one in the suburbs, the so-called Portian Basilica. That would be all right, wouldn't it? But again, Ambrose refused. This annoyed the Empress so much, the jihad Valentinian order a contingent of house guards down to the basilica in question to just take it by force. These guards entered the church and began hanging up Aryan decorations in preparation for an Aryan Easter service when word got out of what was happening. Pretty soon Ambrose's Nicaan congregation showed up at the scene and began violently agitating against the occupation of the church. Then a small group of them pushed their way in, pushed out the guards.

guards and blockaded the door. So now we have a full-blown situation. Ambrose himself stayed away from the scene, but made it known that he fully supported the expulsion of the Arians. Various imperial officials, knowing full well that Ambrose could put a stop to it all if he wanted to, came around to broker a deal, but the bishop refused to compromise. Eventually, with a hostile mob overwhelming the outnumbered imperial troops, Justina relented and ordered her men to withdraw. The bishop of Milan had just stared down the empress and won. I imagine that his success on that day bolstered his confidence to the point that when the time came, he felt no fear about getting into a staring contest with an emperor, and not a boy emperor

like Valentini and the second or a malleable young emperor like Gratian, but a fully established soldier emperor like Theodosius, who had just won a civil war, making him the last sole ruler of the Roman Empire. There is a Spanish word for what Ambrose had, and that word is Cajonis. While these religious controversies swirled, the three imperial centers of the empire continued to maneuver around one another politically. Maximus kept working toward full recognition, Valentinian II, or at least the high officials of his court, kept working to maintain their independence in the face not only of the threat

posed by Maximus in the north, but also the threat by Theodosius. At any moment, the Eastern Augustus might decide to step in and declare himself the protector of Valentinian II, which would be nothing more than a polite way of saying that Valentinian's days as an independent emperor were over. In the East, meanwhile, Theodosius kept working methodically to ensure the Stimony, and ability and safety of his provinces so that he could go face down Maximus properly. He had not yet answered definitively the question of recognition of Maximus or Civil War with Maximus, but it was pretty clear that he wanted Civil War with Maximus.

In 386, though, Maximus's hope that Theodosius would wind up choosing recognition was raised by the appearance on the north bank of the Danube of an armed force of Gertungai Goths. In a scene eerily reminiscent of the events of 376, the Gertungai were demanding that they be allowed to settle in Roman territory, just as their cousins had been allowed to settle a few years before. With said cousins already causing formidable administrative and security headaches for Theodosius, though, the thought of even more Goth settling in the empire drove the emperor to Fitz. He was over dealing with Goths, so completely over the Goths. And so he came up with a rather brutal solution. The Gertungai petitioners were told that they would indeed be allowed to settle in the empire. But once they were in their rafts and crossing over the river, surprise, the Imperial Fleet manning the Danube suddenly attacked.

The Goths were surrounded and then. slaughtered. So completely over dealing with Goths. In 387, Maximus's hope for recognition was dashed for good, when Roman ambassadors returned from a final round of talks with the Sassanids treaty in hand. I haven't been able to find a good way to slip this bit in yet, so I'm just going to sort of wedge it in right now. But the Persian king, the Roman ambassadors dealt with now, was Shepur III. Rather than that old, implacable and enemy of the Romans, Shapur II. Sadly, Shapur the Great finally died in 379 AD after a remarkable 70-year reign over his empire,

which you'd think would be some kind of record, but history is apparently full of monarchs who reigned for 70-plus years, Louis XIV and his 72 years running France among them. The record for longest-verified reign, because I know you're just dying for me to tell you, you this, goes to Sabusa the 2nd, King of Swaziland, who reigned 82 years, 254 days between 1890 and 1982. The record for longest unverified reign goes to the Egyptian Pepi II, an old kingdom pharaoh who reigned 94 years between 2278 and 2184 BC. Good job, guys.

Anyway, I note the. passing of Shapur II, because, man, that guy has been an on-again, off-again, bogeyman of the Romans since he was first provoked by Constantine the Great, way back in 336. He rightfully deserves his place in the pantheon of all-time great enemies of the Roman Empire, and may he rest in peace. So the ambassadors returned with a bad deal for Rome, but a good deal for Theodosius right at that moment. The Romans agreed to cede four-fifths of Armenia to sassanid control in exchange for peace. The deal may have been a crappy one, but it gave Theodosius the peace he wanted,

and it broke the imperial stalemate that had defined the empire for five years. Theodosius was now free to move on Maximus, and everyone knew it, which changed the whole equation. As soon as he found out about the deal, Maximus knew he could no longer afford to sit back and hope for a peaceful resolution. So, near the end of 387, he mobilized his forces and drove them south into Italy, blowing through the garrisons protecting the alpine passes. Valentinian's advisors determined that Maximus's army was too strong and coming too fast for

them to fight back, so they packed up and fled for the protection of Theodosius' court. There was still a lingering fear that Theodosius might take this opportunity to essentially depose young Valentinian, but that was a risk they were going to have to take. Next week, we will see that their fears were misguided. Far from wanting to depose Valentinian, Theodosius will demand that the two emperors be bound together even closer than ever. Yes, Theodosius had his eye on the next generation and wanted to ensure a clear path for his own sons to inherit the empire.

But for now, he really would be the protector that Valentinian. needed. Right now, it was time for war with Maximus.