Two Roman generals: Flavius Stilicho and Flavius Aetius Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Culbertson, James Thomas, 1944- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 25/09/2021 12:02:06 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/317966 TWO ROMAN GENERALS: FLAVIUS STILICHO AND , FLAVIUS AETIUS by James T. Culbertson A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 6 6 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfill­ ment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowl­ edgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the majob department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the inter­ ests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below: T . W . PARKER Date Professor of History TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ............................... ............. .. iv PART ONE: TWO ROMAN GENERALS -CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION .............. 2 II. THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE ^ . 4 III. EARLY CAREER OF STILICHO ............ 11 IV. STILICHO'S DOMINANCE IN THE ROMAN WORLD . 18 V. DOWNFALL AND DEATH OF STILICHO .............. 31 VI. INTERIM PERIOD (4o8-423) 43 VII. EARLY CAREER OF AETIUS . 54 VIII. AETIUS ' DOMINANCE IN THE WEST . 6? IX. DEATH OF AETIUS ............................. 83 X. COLLAPSE IN THE WEST (455-476) .............. 88 PART TWO: MEN AND MEASURES XI. A MILITARY PROBLEM ............... 93 XII. THE STRUGGLE WITH 'BARBARIANS"................ 10 4 XIII. THE PLACE OF THE SENATE ....................... 122 XIV. THE PLACE OF THE EMPEROR ................ 135 XV. CONCLUSION AND EVALUATION .......... l4l SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ....... ................ l48 iii ABSTRACT This thesis examines and compares the careers and policies of two fifth century Roman generals of barbarian ancestry« After tracing in detail the lives and actions of the two leaders in the proper setting of the confused, climactic, final period (A„D„ 378-476) of the Western Roman Empire, the writer attempts to show that Stilicho and Aetius acted in response to the demands of contemporary military, political, and social problems in the West, as well as within the framework of established Roman policies ° Their efforts to settle and pacify barbarian invaders in the West, to practice religious toleration, and to establish a satisfactory balance of power between the Senate and the Emperor, represent the inclination of the practical Roman military mind to seek a stable basis for the preservation of the Empirep Faced with probably inevitable barbarian invasions and civil discord, the two generals tried for a military and political settlement which might have preserved the Western Empire as a limited monarchy» Their barbarian ancestry led them to accept the Teutonic invaders of the West as part of the Imperial system, but did not cause them to betray the Empire; their deaths and the collapse of their system were key steps in the fall of the Western Roman Empire• XV PART ONE TWO ROMAN GENERALS 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This master’s thesis is a continuation and expan­ sion of a paper entitled nFlavius Stilicho^ Master of the Soldiers, !t submitted in May, 1 9 6 5 ^ as the writer’s Senior Honors Thesis at the University of Arizona« The present paper examines the careers and policies of Flavius Stilicho and Flavius Aetius, the two most prominent political and military leaders of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century A «D„ Utilizing the principal original sources and the major secondary works on the period together with a few of the varied new thoughts or hypotheses of recent students of the Later Roman Empire, this thesis discusses (1) the significance of Stilicho and Aetius with regard to the so-called nbarbarizationn of army, government, and society in the Late Empire; (2) their probable policies as the dominant Roman leaders in their time; and (3 ) the importance of their deaths as factors in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire« These matters will be dealt with in the context of the problems and events of late Roman history» Specifically, the writer will attempt to demonstrate that Aetius and Stilicho acted under the influence of Roman policies established in earlier centuries 5 as well as in response to the exigencies of their own period, and that their barbarian ancestry did not lead them to betray the interests of their fellow Romans. Because of the limited scope and fragmentary nature of many of the source materials on late Roman history, some of the original sources pertinent to a study of the careers of Stilicho and Aetius are not available in the University of Arizona Library. In the case of these sources, the writer has been obliged to rely on the citations, and to some extent the interpretations, offered in the principal secondary works on the Later Roman Empire. CHAPTER II THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE On August 9, AoDo 378, a hot summer day, Visigothlc horsemen smashed Roman legions into the dust near the city of Adrianople, in Thrace northwest of Constantinople. Valens, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, died with many of his officers and men; and with them the greatness of the Roman infantryman passed away forever. Wryly surveying the Battle of Adrianople after an interval of many centuries, modern historians have decided that the defeat resulted on a great increase of the importance of the Roman cavalry.^ In earlier centuries Adrianople might indeed have had no greater consequences than a shift in Roman military tactics. After all, Roman troops had been decisively defeated before, even by the barbarians, and indeed these very Visigoths had crossed the Imperial frontier only to escape from the scourge of the Huns, and with Valens f explicit permission. Rome had survived the Gauls, the Cimbri, and Hannibal; surely Rome would survive this recent disaster. 1 . John Bo Bury, The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 192871 p. 59 o 4 Yet in fact Adrianople was a blow from which the Empire never recovered. Roman officials had received the Visigoths as guests«, then cheated and plundered them, Roman justice could no longer punish such men, and the Roman Army was unable to salvage victory in the war which 2 followed. Decay had set in. The story of the decline of the Empire is a familiar one. The impoverishment of the Western Empire, the rise of great landowners, the declining fortunes of colon! (peasants) and curiales (middle class), the barbari- zation of culture, the flow of gold to the East, the tendency to natural economy, and the depletion of popula- tion have all been pointed out by recent historians.3 The rise of the Roman cavalry, it seems, was a prelude to the age of the mounted, armored knight. The cost of military defense,of the Empire was becoming prohibitive. While the emperors spent heavily, declining population vacated many lands on the frontier, and the ranks of the Army had to be filled up with "barbarians^ from the frontiers and beyond. Many of these outsiders 2. Ferdinand Lot, The End of the Ancient World and the Beginnings of the Middle Ages (New York: Harper & Brothers, I96I ), p « 195° 3« William Carroll Bark, Origins of the Medieval World (Garden City, N. Y .: Doubleday and Company, Inc., I9 6 0 ), pp. 4l-93 passim. 6 settled inside the borders which had previously been held against them« The idea of Empire was still strong, but it was a dream of the old Empire of Augustus and the Antonines« The k practice of Empire was slipping« The senatores still sat in the Senate, but they were now a class of aristocratic landowners, and they used the higher offices of the bureauc­ racy in the West to line their own pockets and protect their own interests= 5 They did not regard the Germanic ^barbar­ ians tl as a serious threat to those interests, and so would not provide troops for service against them, since devasta­ tion of the great estates might result, and in any case a too-powerful Imperial Army could be used to bring the senatores under close Imperial control. But these aristocrats failed to keep the peace in their own areas, so that wandering bands of soldiers, deserters from the Imperial Army, were always causing trouble. Perhaps these highwaymen were an important cause of the depopulation of the cities in the West. Certainly neither they nor the 4. J. M . Wallace-Hadrill, The Barbarian West, 400- 1000 (Rev. ed.; London: Hutchinson and Co., Ltd., 1957) 9 pp. 10 -1 1 . 5. George R. Monks, "The Administration of the Privy Purse: An Inquiry into Official Corruption and the Fall of the Roman Empire," Speculum, XXXII (1957), 748-79 passim. 6 . Emil Lucki, "The Role of the Large Landholders in the Loss of Roman Gaul," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, XX (i9 6 0 ), 89-98 . limitanei ? the frontier troops who had degenerated into a sort of local militia9 were particularly efficient in keeping order or maintaining the great fortresses along the Rhine and Danube.