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CHAPTER Introduction This Is the Last Chapter in the Res Gestae

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CHAPTER Introduction This Is the Last Chapter in the Res Gestae CHAPTER 10 Introduction This is the last chapter in the Res Gestae exclusively devoted to events in the West. It is a coda following the death of Valentinian I, the real conclusion of Amm.’s narrative about the western half of the empire. As such it might be compared to the second half of Book 25, which deals with the short reign of Jovian, after Julian had fallen in battle. The central event in this short chapter is the elevation of Valentinian’s four-year old son, who had the same name as his father, to the rank of Augustus. The death of an emperor, especially when it had not been foreseen, often led to a political crisis, which was only resolved when a successor had rmly taken the reins of power in his hands. In this case there was a successor at hand in the person of Valentinian’s son Gratian, now sixteen years old, made co-Augustus by his father eight years before and residing in Trier. However, the military and civilian leaders, who had participated in Valentinian’s cam- paign against the Quadi, decided otherwise and hurriedly chose the infant Valentinian II as his father’s successor. According to Ammianus they acted out of fear for the Gallic troops, brought over to Illyricum for the Quadian campaign, who had a reputation for wilfulness and a tendency to push for- ward one of their own as a candidate for the throne. Merobaudes, one of Valentinian’s generals, tricked the Gallic troops into believing that Valen- tinian had given orders that they should return to the Rhine border under his command. He also sent his colleague Sebastianus away, whose popular- ity with the soldiers made him a risk factor. After these measures had been taken, Merobaudes and his unnamed col- leagues had the young Valentinian II brought over from the villa Murocincta, where he was staying with his mother Iustina, to the army camp at Brige- tio, where they declared him Augustus in the traditional manner. They did worry whether Gratian would take ofence at this, because he, like his uncle Valens in Antioch, had not been consulted. However, their worries were unfounded, because Gratian accepted the nomination and took the young Augustus under his wings. This is how Ammianus describes the succession, but recent scholarship has called his presentation of the events into question. Ammianus seems to be reticent about the details of the afair, and to have glossed over the 196 commentary problems caused for the senior Augustus Valens and his younger colleague Gratian by the succession of Valentinian II. It is striking that Ammianus uses many passive verb forms, thus avoiding to have to name those responsible for the procedures, except Merobaudes, who was a German, and therefore could not be a candidate himself. A plausible explanation for Amm.’s some- what super cial and anodyne version of events would be that he wrote it before 392, when Valentinian II was still in power. 10.1 Post conclamata imperatoris suprema corpusque curatum ad sepulturam, ut missum Constantinopolim inter divorum reliquias humaretur Cf. 26.1.3 about Jovian: corpore curato defuncti missoque Constantinopolim, ut inter Augustorum reliquias conderetur. There is a note on conclamare ‘to call the name of the dead’ ad 21.15.4 (p. 235) supremis cum gemitu conclamatis. For corpus curare in the sense of ‘to embalm’ see ad 25.5.1 (p. 170). Like his predecessors Constantius (21.16.20, p. 277), Julian (25.10.5, p. 319 + Johnson, 2008) and Jovian (26.1.3, p. 17) Valentinian was transferred to Constantinople. It took more than a year before his body arrived in the eastern capital on 28 December 376; Consul. Constant. a. 376 et ipso anno introivit corpus Aug. Valentiniani Constantinopolim die V k. Ian. The actual burial only took place in 382; Consul. Constant. a. 382 Theodosius Aug. corpus Aug. Valentiniani in sarcofago deposuit die VIIII kal. Mar.; Marcell. a. 382. Valentinian was given his nal resting place between his predecessors, i.e. in the Church of the Holy Apostles, as is stated by Leo Gramm. Chron. p. 96 Bonn ἐτέθη ἐν τῷ ναῷ τῶν ἁγίων ἀποστόλων. See further Johnson, 1991. The words inter divorum reliquias suggest that Valentinian too was to be consecrated. See on this matter ad 25.4.1 (pp. 114–115), where it is observed that Amm. does not explicitly mention the consecration of any of the ve emperors whose death he reports. The main evidence that the practice of dei cation of (Christian) emperors continued in the fourth century is provided by Eutropius. According to him Constantine was o cially dei ed after his death: inter divos meruit referri (10.8.2) ; cf. Aur. Vict. Caes. 41.5 pro conditoreseudeohabitus.A solidus of the rst Christian emperor, issued after his death, depicts the emperor’s ascension to heaven and designates him as divus (DIVUS CONSTANTINUS AUG PATER AUGG); RIC 7, 447 Nr. 1. See for Constantine’s dei cation Alföldi, 1969, 117–118; Jones, 1980, 1052; Clauss, 1999, 203–205; Kolb, 2001, 253–254. Also about Constantius II Eutropius writes meruitque inter divos referri (10.15.2). The same author reports about Julian: inter divos relatus est (10.16.2) and about Jovian: benignitate principum, qui ei successerunt, inter divos relatus est (10.18.2). For dei cation of fourth-century emperors in general see Clauss, 1999, 196–215..
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