THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 134

The Western Empire's Indulgence of the Teutons

9-4. The Western Empire's Indulgence of the Teutons

How greatly political questions excited the Goths, and how passionately their national feeling would sometimes break forth is shewn by an event which occurred at Constantinople soon after 382. One day at the royal table two Gothic princes, who were specially honoured by Theodosius, gave free utterance to their opposed political convictions. Eriwulf was the leader of the national party among the Goths, which considered the destruction of the Roman Empire their ultimate object; he was an Arian by confession. Fravitta, on the other hand, was the head of that party which saw their future salvation in a close union with the Empire. He had married a Roman lady, and had remained a heathen. The quarrel between the two party leaders ended by Fravitta drawing his sword and killing his opponent just outside the palace.

The attempts of Eriwulf 's followers to take immediate revenge were met with armed resistance on the part of the imperial palace-guards. This incident doubtless helped to strengthen Fravitta's position at the Emperor's Court, whilst he had made himself impossible to the Goths.

At this time a new danger to the Empire arose from those Goths who had remained at home and had been conquered by the Huns. As early as the winter of 384 or 385 they had taken possession of Halmyris, a town to the south of the estuary of the Danube, which however they left again, only to return in the autumn of 386 to ask for admission into the Empire together with other tribes. But the magister militum Promotus, commander of the troops in Thrace, forbade them to cross the river.

He had the frontier carefully guarded, and met their attack with a ruse, cleverly conceived and successfully executed, by sending some of his men to the Ostrogoths under the pretence of betraying the Roman army to them. In reality however those soldiers of his reported to Promotus the place and time of the proposed night attack, and when the barbarians, led by Odothaeus, crossed the river, the Romans, who were posted on a large number of anchored boats, made short work of them. This time the better strategy of the Romans gained a complete victory over the Goths, To commemorate this victory the Emperor, who subsequently appeared in person on the battlefield, erected a huge column ornamented with reliefs in the quarter of the town which is called Taurus.

Meanwhile (25 Aug. 383) Gratian had been killed at Lyons at the instigation of the usurper Maximus, who had been proclaimed Emperor by the army in Britain and had found followers in Gaul. At first Theodosius pretended to accept Maximus for a colleague; but in 388 he led his army against him and defeated him at Liscia and Pettau. In the end the usurper was taken prisoner and killed at Aquileia. Theodosius now appointed Valentinian II, Gratian's youthful brother, Emperor of the West, only reserving for himself the co-regency of Italy. He then sent his experienced general Arbogast into Gaul, where the Teutons from the right bank of the Rhine had seized the occasion offered by the quarrel for the throne to extend their power beyond the frontier.

Three chiefs of the Bipuarian Pranks, Genobaudes, Marcomir, and Sunno, had indeed crossed the Rhine in the neighbourhood of Cologne and made a raid upon the Roman territory. When the Roman generals Nannienus and Quintinus went to meet the raiders at Cologne, one part of them left the borderland of the province, whilst the others continued their march into the country, till they were at last beaten back in the Carbonarian forest to the east of Tournai. Quintinus now proceeded to attack the enemy and crossed the Rhine at Novaesium (Neuss). But after pushing forward for three days into the wild and pathless regions on the right bank of the Rhine, he was decoyed into an ambush, in which almost the whole of his army perished. Thus it appeared likely that the Roman rule in the Rhenish provinces would before long be completely overthrown; for the generals Carietto and Syrus, whom Maximus had left behind, found it impossible to put a stop to the barbarian raids.

At this juncture Arbogast was sent by Theodosius to save the West. His first act was to capture Flavius Victor, the infant son of Maximus, and to have him put to death. Then he reinforced his army with those troops which Maximus had left stationed in Gaul, and which together with their generals Carietto and Syrus were easily won over to his side.

Last of all he turned against his former tribesmen, the Franks, and demanded from them the restitution of the booty and surrender of the originators of the war. When these demands were refused, he hesitated to begin war by himself. He found it difficult to come to a decision, for the fate of Quintinus's troops was still fresh in his memory. In these straits he wrote to the Emperor Valentinian II, who seems to have urged a friendly settlement of the feuds; for in the autumn of 389 Arbogast had an interview with Marcomir and Sunno. The Franks, possibly fearing the mighty Theodosius, gave hostages, and a treaty of peace was concluded which cannot have been unfavourable to the barbarians.

In this way the Western Empire shewed considerable indulgence in its treatment of the Teutons.

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