The Dark Ages Collection. David Hume
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that an eastern army was on its way to Italy, he was sent to Pannonia to obtain help for his master from the Huns. For this mission he was well qualified, as he had formerly lived among them as a hostage and was on friendly terms with their king.
Ardaburius had embarked at Salona, but his fleet was unfortunate, it was caught in a storm and scattered. The general himself, driven ashore near Ravenna, was captured by the soldiers of John. If the usurper had proceeded immediately against Aspar, he might have thwarted his enemies. But he did not take prompt advantage of his luck. He decided to wait for the arrival of the Hun auxiliaries whom Aetius had gone to summon to his aid.
Meanwhile Ardaburius employed the time of his captivity at Ravenna in forming connexions with the officers and ministers of the usurper and undermining their fidelity. He then succeeded in sending a message to his son, who waited uneasily and expectantly at Aquileia, bidding him advance against Ravenna without delay. Guided by a shepherd through the morasses which encompassed that city, the soldiers of Aspar entered it without opposition; some thought that the shepherd was an angel of God in disguise. John was captured and conducted to Aquileia, where Placidia doomed him to death. His right hand was cut off, and mounted on an ass he was exposed in the circus before his execution. Castinus, the Master of Soldiers, was banished.48
When all was over, Aetius arrived in Italy with 60,000 Huns; if he had come a few days sooner, the conflict would probably have had a different issue and the course of history would have been changed. At the head of this large army, Aetius was able to make terms for himself with the triumphant Empress. She was forced to pardon him and accept his services. The Huns were induced by a large donation of money to return to their homes.
Placidia then proceeded with her children to Rome, where Valentinian III was created Augustus on October 23, A.D. 425.49 Theodosius had himself started for Italy to crown his cousin with his own hand, but fell ill at Thessalonica, and empowered the Patrician Helion, the Master of Offices, to take his place. It seems certain that Valentinian’s sister Honoria was crowned Augusta, if not on the same occasion, soon afterwards.50
Ardaburius was rewarded for his successful conduct of the war by the honour of the consulship in A.D. 427. He and his son Aspar were the ablest generals Theodosius had, and their devotion to the Arian creed did not stand in the way of their promotion. Aspar received the consulship in A.D. 434, when he was again commanding an army in the interests of Placidia, this time against a foreign foe, not against a rebel;51 and we have an interesting memorial of the event in a silver disc, on which he is represented, a bearded man, with a sceptre in his left hand and a handkerchief in his raised right, presiding at the consular games.52 It was a more than ordinary honour that was paid to Aspar, for he was consul for the West, not for the East,53 and the designation may have been suggested by Placidia herself, who owed him much for his services in securing the diadem for her son.
§ 4. The Empress Eudocia
Twelve years passed, and the marriage arranged between the cousins, Valentinian and Licinia Eudoxia, was, as we saw, celebrated at Constantinople, whither the bridegroom went for the occasion (October 29, A.D. 437).54 Now, if not before, a considerable part of the Diocese of Illyricum — Dalmatia and Eastern Pannonia certainly — were transferred from the sway of Valentinian to the sway of Theodosius.55 This political transaction was part of the matrimonial arrangement, and was looked upon as the price which Placidia paid for her daughter-in-law. The new provinces were now controlled by the Praetorian Prefect of Illyricum, and his seat was transferred for some years from Thessalonica to Sirmium.56
After the departure of her daughter the Empress probably felt lonely, and she undertook, in accordance with her husband’s wishes, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to return thanks to the Deity for the marriage of their daughter.57 In this decision they seem to have been confirmed by a saintly lady of high reputation, Melania by name, a Roman of noble family, who had been forced into a repugnant marriage, and had afterwards, along with her husband, whom she converted to Christianity, taken up her abode at first in the land of Egypt, where she founded monastic houses, and then at Jerusalem. She had visited Constantinople to see her uncle Volusian, whom she converted before his death, and she exercised considerable influence with the Emperor and his household. The journey of Eudocia to Jerusalem (in spring, A.D. 438) was marked by her visit to Antioch, where she created a sensation by the elegant oration which she delivered, posing rather as one trained in Greek rhetoric and devoted to Hellenic traditions and proud of her Athenian descent, than as a pilgrim on her way to the great Christian shrine. Although there was a large element of theological bigotry both in Antioch and in Alexandria, yet in both these cities there was probably more appreciation of Hellenic style and polish than in Constantinople. The last words of Eudocia’s oration brought down the house — a quotation from Homer,
ὑμετέρης γενέης τε καὶ αἵματος εὔχομαι εἶναι
“I boast that I am of your race and blood.”58 The city that hated and mocked the Emperor Julian and his pagan Hellenism loved and fêted the Empress Eudocia with her Christian Hellenism; a golden statue was erected to her in the curia and one of bronze in the museum. Her interest in Antioch took a practical form, for she induced Theodosius to build a new basilica, restore the thermae, extend the walls, and bestow other marks of favour on the city.
Eudocia’s visit to Aelia Capitolina, as Jerusalem was called, brings to the recollection the visit of Constantine’s mother Helena, one hundred years before, and, although Christianity had lost some of its freshness in the intervening period, it must have been a strange and impressive experience for one whose youth was spent amid pagan memories in the gardens of the philosophers at Athens, who in New Rome, with its museums of ancient art and its men of many creeds, had not been entirely weaned from the ways and affections of her youth, to visit, with all the solemnity of an exalted Christian pilgrim, a city whose memories were typically opposed to Hellenism, and whose monuments were the bones and relics of saints.59 It was probably only this religious side that came under Eudocia’s notice; for Jerusalem at this period was a strange mixture of piety with gross licence. We are told by an ecclesiastical writer of the age that it was more depraved than Gomorrah; and the fact that it was a garrison town had something to do with this depravity. But it drew pilgrims from all quarters of the world.
On her return from Palestine (A.D. 439) Eudocia’s influence at Court was still powerful.60 She seems to have been on terms of intimate friendship with Cyrus of Panopolis, who held a very exceptional position. He filled at the same time the two high offices of Praetorian Prefect of the East and Prefect of the city.61 He was a poet like his fellow-townsman Nonnus though of minor rank;62 he was a student of art and architecture; and he was a “Hellene” in faith. It has been remarked that Imperial officialdom was beginning to assume in the East a more distinctly Greek complexion in the reign of Theodosius II, and Cyrus was a representative figure in this transition. He used to issue decrees in Greek, an innovation for which a writer of the following century expressly blames him.63 His prefecture was popular and long remembered at Constantinople, for he built and restored many buildings and improved the illumination of the town, so that the people enthusiastically cried on some occasions in the Hippodrome, “Constantine built the city but Cyrus renewed it.”64 He still held his offices in the autumn of A.D. 441,65 but it could not be long after this that he fell into disgrace. Perhaps his popularity made him an object of suspicion; his paganism furnished a convenient ground for accusation. He was compelled to take ecclesiastical orders and was made bishop of Cotyaeum in Phrygia. His first sermon, which his malicious congregation forced him to preach against his will, astonished and was applauded by those who heard it:
“Brethren, let the birth of God, our Saviour, Jesus Christ be honoured by silence, because the Word of God was conceived in the holy Virgin through hearing only. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”66
The friendship between Cyrus and the Empress Eudocia, who was naturally sympathetic with a highly educated pagan, suggests the conjecture that his disgrace was not unconnected with the circumstances