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Ambrose and Stilicho: Politics in the Post-Theodosian World

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Ambrose and Stilicho: Politics in the Post-Theodosian World AMBROSE AND STILICHO: POLITICS IN THE POST-THEODOSIAN WORLD by CHRISTOPHER R. COTTEN (Under the Direction of Dr. James C. Anderson, Jr.) ABSTRACT The Roman emperor Theodosius I died in January of AD 395, leaving his two young sons to succeed him. Into the power vacuum created by this situation stepped Flavius Stilicho, claiming that Theodosius, on his deathbed, had appointed him to be the regent for the two young princes and had left him in charge of the combined armies of the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire. To support this assertion, Stilicho claimed the backing of Ambrose, bishop of Milan. This thesis investigates Stilicho’s claim of Ambrose’s support, as well as the larger question of what kind of relationship existed between Ambrose and Stilicho in the years from 395 to 397, when Ambrose died. Through an extended analysis of Ambrose’s De obitu Theodosii, Paulinus of Milan’s Vita Sancti Ambrosii and other relevant texts, this thesis attempts to flesh out what can be known or reasonably surmised on this question. INDEX WORDS: Ambrose, Stilicho, Theodosius, Paulinus of Milan, hagiography, funeral oration AMBROSE AND STILICHO: POLITICS IN THE POST-THEODOSIAN WORLD by CHRISTOPHER R. COTTEN B.A., Furman University, 2001 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2007 © 2007 Christopher R. Cotten All Rights Reserved AMBROSE AND STILICHO: POLITICS IN THE POST-THEODOSIAN WORLD by CHRISTOPHER R. COTTEN Major Professor: James C. Anderson, Jr. Committee: Robert R. Harris Erika T. Hermanowicz Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia August 2007 DEDICATION Ad uxorem meam. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, many thanks to the members of my committee, Drs. James Anderson, Erika Hermanowicz and Robert Harris, for their patience and unfailing support throughout what has been a very long process. Thanks are also in order to friends here at Georgia – Stephen Dmetruk, Joseph Pennington, Sarah Traut and Randy Fields – for advice and encouragement in many long hours of conversation both in and out of the department. Thanks also to all the members of the East Broad Street Church of Christ, in Athens, for welcoming us into their midst during our time in Athens. And, finally, I am most grateful to my wife, Hannah, for her loving support with this project and with all else. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.........................................................................................................v CHAPTER 1 Introduction ...............................................................................................................1 2 Approaches to the Question .......................................................................................4 Men of Power........................................................................................................5 Barbarian Rhetoric ..............................................................................................10 Struggle...............................................................................................................11 The Politics of Catholic Orthodoxy......................................................................13 3 Ambrose and the Fate of the Empire ........................................................................19 Ambrose and the Fate of the Empire: Honorius, Stilicho and the Roman Army ...20 Ambrose and Theodosius: The Construction of a Relationship ............................27 Ambrose and Honorius: The Role of the Bishop in the Post-Theodosian Empire .44 Conclusions.........................................................................................................48 4 Ambrose and Stilicho in Paulinus of Milan ..............................................................50 The Historical Setting..........................................................................................51 The Literary Setting.............................................................................................67 Ambrose and Stilicho in (and out of) the Vita Ambrosii .......................................79 Conclusions.........................................................................................................90 5 Conclusion...............................................................................................................93 vi BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................................................................................................97 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Much of the scholarship regarding Ambrose has centered around his relationship with various emperors: Gratian, Valentinian II and, especially, Theodosius. No biography of Ambrose, or any of those emperors, fails to spend a significant amount of time on the relationship between bishop and emperor.1 This approach has a long historical pedigree that can be traced back to the mediaeval popes who took Ambrose’s excommunication of Theodosius as inspiration for their own confrontations with various European kings.2 Given the great degree of interest in Ambrose’s political relationships, it comes as something of a surprise that so little attention has been paid to the bishop’s relationship with Theodosius’ successor, the Vandal general Flavius Stilicho. Even the most recent critical biography of Ambrose treats their relationship, spread over the last three years of Ambrose’s life, as something of an afterthought, especially in comparison with how much space is given to the other, previously mentioned, relationships.3 We know that some sort of connection existed between the two men: during the early months of 395, Stilicho claimed the endorsement of Ambrose in his bid to become the regent for Theodosius’ two young sons. What kind of relationship allowed an upstart general to make such a bold claim? Modern scholarship is remarkably silent on this question. This situation with respect to the state of scholarship was the genesis of this thesis, which constitutes an initial attempt to rectify the imbalance. It approaches the problem of Stilicho and 1 See, e.g. F. Homes Dudden, The Life and Times of St. Ambrose, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935). 2 For example, there is the story of Henry IV standing before the gates of Gregory VII’s palace at Canossa in the winter of 1077. Gregory seems to have explicitly had the story of Ambrose and Theodosius in mind as an exemplum. (Maurice Keen, The Penguin History of Medieval Europe [London and Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991], pp. 77-80. Consider, also, van Dyck’s painting of the confrontation between Ambrose and Theodosius (Anthony Van Dyck, The Emperor Theodosius is forbidden by Saint Ambrose to enter Milan Cathedral, oil on canvas, ca. 1620, The National Gallery, London. This can be accessed online at http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk ). 3 Neil McLynn, Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). Ambrose’s relationship via an examination of the direct textual evidence for a relationship: Ambrose’s funeral oration for Theodosius (the De obitu Theodosii), Paulinus of Milan’s Vita Sancti Ambrosii and a few scattered references elsewhere. The period in question stretches from Stilicho’s accession to power in the early months of 395 to Ambrose’s death at Easter 397, but the texts that I will examine allow me to delve deeply into imperial politics in the period from 395 to ca. 425. The texts can say a number of things about Stilicho and Ambrose as individuals and political associates. But they also teach the careful reader lessons about the nature of late Roman political rhetoric and the realities of political interaction in the Roman West in the momentous years after the death of the emperor Theodosius, a time when the western half of the empire faced unique challenges and met with disasters that would undermine its very existence. Furthermore, close examination of these texts allows important questions to be asked about the nature of late Roman historiography and biography and the construction of the individual in these and other works. The limitations of these texts as source material will be apparent: layers of rhetoric and polemical interest make it difficult, if not impossible, to get very close to the “historical” Ambrose or the “historical” Stilicho. It could even be said that they tell us much more about their authors (Ambrose and Paulinus) than their subjects. Conceding these limitations, these texts can provide answers to some significant and worthwhile questions – even if those were not the questions that the reader (or this writer) was originally asking. Looking ahead, chapter two sets the scene of the opening months of 395 and discusses certain important themes that will recur in the texts under examination – themes that will serve as guideposts in navigating the textual evidence. Chapter three analyzes the De obitu Theodosii, a text that captures a critical moment in the relationship between these two men, as the reader will see. Finally, chapter four focuses on Paulinus of Milan’s Vita Sancti Ambrosii, which includes a 2 number of important incidents involving Stilicho and Ambrose. After examining these texts, I will conclude by bringing together all of the relevant information and I hope to be able to say some important and useful things about the relationship between these men and suggest some directions for further investigation. 3 CHAPTER 2 APPROACHES
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