1005 



THEODOSIUS I., FLAVIUS. 



THEOGNIS. 



1006 



who had no hold on the affections of the people, waa dragged forth 

 from his palace into the hands of the conqueror, who gave him up as 

 a victim to the rage of the soldiers. Victor, the son of Maximus, was 

 killed in Qaul by the hand or at the command of Arbogastes, the 

 Frank, who made himself master of Gaul (A.D. 388). 



After having thus easily and quickly terminated a war which had 

 threatened the empire with long and serious calamities, Theodosius 

 stayed for three years in Italy to regulate the state of the western 

 provinces, and it was in this period that he showed his great and 

 amiable character in the most brilliant light. He not only spared the 

 lives of the friends and relatives of Maximus, but afforded them every 

 support in their misfortunes, while, on the other hand, he restored to 

 the oppressed people of the west their lands, and gave them com- 

 pensation in money for the losses they had sustained. In the year 389 

 he entered Borne in triumph, together with his son Honorius and 

 Valentinian. 



During the period of his stay in Italy an insurrection broke out at 

 Antioch, in which the people demanded redress of several grievances, 

 especially a diminution of their heavy taxes. When these demands 

 were haughtily refused by the imperial officers, the populace destroyed 

 the statues of Theodosius, his wife Flacilla, and of his sons Arcadius 

 and Honorius. The insurrection however was soon put down, and 

 when Theodosius was informed of the occurrences, he sent Hellebricus 

 and Csesarius to inflict the most severe punishment upon the city. 

 But when messengers came soliciting a milder treatment, and assuring 

 the emperor that the people sincerely repented of their crime, he 

 granted them a general pardon. But this generous act was followed 

 by another which was as rash as it was cruel. In 390 another in- 

 surrection broke out at Thessalonica, in which Botheric, the com- 

 mander of the garrison, and several other officers, were cruelly mur- 

 dered by the people, because they refused to give up a handsome 

 boy to the unnatural lust of some dissolute favourite of the people. 

 Theodosius was at first uncertain whether he should take vengeance 

 upon the city or exercise clemency as he had done towards Antioch. 

 Eufinus induced him to do the former, and commissioners were ac- 

 cordingly sent to punish the criminal inhabitants. Theodosius however 

 soon regretted his step, and countermanded hia orders; but it was 

 too late : a general and indiscriminate massacre took place in the 

 devoted city, in which no less than 7000 lives were sacrificed to the 

 manes of Botheric. When Ambrose, the archbishop of Milan, was 

 informed of this cruel massacre, he was seized with indignation and 

 grief; and eight 'months later, when the emperor, on Christmas-day, 

 wanted to attend the service in the great church of Milan, he was 

 stopped in the porch by Ambrose, and was not admitted until he had 

 promised to do public penance for this monstrous cruelty. [AMBROSIUS, 

 ST.] It was not till after the lapse of eight months from that day that 

 the emperor, who bad performed all the acts of public penance which 

 the archbishop had imposed upon him, was restored to the communion 

 of the faithful. An edict was at the same time issued that no capital 

 punishment should henceforth be inflicted on any one till thirty days 

 after it had been pronounced. During his stay in Italy Theodosius 

 acted as a kind of guardian of the young emperor Valentinian, whom 

 he might have deprived of his empire with the greatest facility and 

 perfect impunity if he had been less magnanimous. When he left 

 Italy for Constantinople in 391, he left Valentinian in the apparently 

 secure possession of the western part of the empire. It was one of 

 the characteristic features of Theodosius to carry into effect his great 

 plans with the utmost vigour and energy, but when the object was 

 attained he sank into a state of indolence, and gave himself up to the 

 enjoyment of pleasures which, although harmless in themselves, in 

 many cases prevented him from deriving all the advantages from his 

 successful undertakings that he might have done. This was also 

 the case after his return to Constantinople. The most important 

 occurrence in the year of his arrival there was the final and total 

 abolition of paganism throughout the Roman empire. In the following 

 year (392) Valentinian was murdered at Vienna, in Gaul, by Arbo- 

 gastes, who raised Eugenius, a rhetorician, to the imperial throne, in 

 whose name he himself hoped to wield the sceptre. Theodosius, who 

 had allowed himself to be deceived by the professed faithfulness of 

 Arbogastes, was deeply moved when he heard of the fate of hi% 

 brother-in-law and of the elevation of Eugenius. But he waa at that 

 moment not prepared for a civil war, and the ambassadors of Eugenius 

 were consequently received with apparent favour, and dismissed in a 

 friendly manner. Preparations for war however, which lasted for 

 almost two years, were immediately commenced, and Stilicho and 

 Timasius were charged with recruiting and disciplining the forces. In 

 the spring of the year 894 Theodosius set out from Constantinople 

 against Eugeniu?. The armies met in Pannonia, and, after a long and 

 dubious contest, Eugenius was defeated on the banks of the Cold 

 River, near Aquileia. Eugenius was put to death, and Arbogastes in 

 despair put an end to his own life. Theodosius was now sole emperor 

 of the Roman world, and was cheerfully acknowledged by all the 

 provinces, even by those who had recently paid homage to Eugenius. 

 The empire might now look forward to a period of peace and happi- 

 ness under the administration of Theodosius. But he was suffering 

 from dropsy, and his health was rapidly declining. He died on the 

 17th of January, 395, at Milan, whence his body was conveyed to 

 Constantinople and buried there. His two sons Arcadius and Hono- 



rius had been raised to the rank of Augustus, and the father had 

 shortly before his death given to Honoriua the empire of the West, 

 while Arcadius was to occupy the throne of the East. The Roman 

 empire henceforth remained divided into the Western and the Eastern 

 empire. 



(S. Aurelius Victor, Epitome, c. 48 ; Orosius, vii, 34, 35 ; Sozomen, 

 vii. 2; Paulus Diacon., il; Compare Qibbon, JJist. of the Decline and 

 Fall, c. 26, 27, and 28.) 



THEODO'SIUS II., or the Younger, was the son of Arcadius, and 

 grandson of Theodosius the Great. He was born on tbo 10th of 

 April, A.D. 401. His father died in A.D. 408 at Constantinople, and left 

 his son, then a child seven years old, at the head of the Eastern empire. 

 There is a statement that Arcadius hi his will made Jezdegerd, king 

 of Persia, the guardian of hia son and regent of the empire during hu 

 minority. (Jornandes ' De Bell. Pers.,' L 2.) This isolated account 

 however scarcely deserves credit, and it is a fact that Anthemius, the 

 prsefectus pnetorio, from the very first assumed the government of the 

 Eastern empire in the name of the young prince, and carried it on in 

 a praiseworthy manner down to the year A.D. 414, when he voluntarily 

 resigned it to Pulcheria, the sister of Theodosius, who was only two 

 years older than her brother, and had shortly before received the title 

 of Augusta. This woman continued to exercise the sovereignty in the 

 name of her brother, not only after he had grown up to manhood and 

 down to his death, but even three years later, until she herself died. 

 During the early part of Theodoeius's life Pulcheria herself conducted 

 and superintended his education ; but the prince seemed to possess 

 no ambition, and not to aspire to the glory of a monarch : he passed his 

 whole life in a perpetual infancy, surrounded by women and eunuchs, 

 and he idled away us time in hunting, painting, carving, and making 

 elegant transcripts of sacred books. The whole government was 

 carried on in his name ; but whether its acts deserve praise or blame, 

 he can have no share in either, as he blindly acquiesced in all that his 

 sister did. She also persuaded him, in A.D. 421, to marry Eudocia 

 (before her baptism her name was Athenais), the daughter of Leontios, 

 an Athenian sophist. This woman, who was no^less distinguished 

 for her beauty than for intellectual powers, soon gave birth to a 

 daughter, Eudoxia, after which she was raised to the rank of Augusta. 

 She lived with her husband till the year A.D. 444, when, after having 

 drawn upon herself suspicion of some improper conduct, she was 

 obliged to quit the court, and withdrew to Jerusalem. 



In A.D. 421 a war broke out with Varancs, king of Persia, which was 

 successfully concluded by Ardaburius, a general of Theodosius, and a 

 peace was concluded for a hundred years, which lasted at least for 

 thirty. With this exception the long reign of Theodosius was one of 

 almost undisturbed peace. It was only during the last years of his 

 life that the European parts of the empire were harassed by Attila 

 and his Huns. [ATTILA.] The Asiatic provinces, by far the most 

 extensive, continued to enjoy a profound and permanent repose. 

 Theodosius died on the 28th July, A.D. 450. 



(Paulus Diacon., iv.; Socrates, Histor. Eccles., vii. 1, &c. Compare 

 Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall, c. 32, 33, 34.) 



The reign of Theodosius II. is memorable in the history of juris- 

 prudence through the collection of laws that was made in it, and bears 

 the name of Codex Theodosianus. This code was completed and pro- 

 mulgated as law in the Eastern empire in the year 438. 



THEODO'SIUS III., surnamed Adramytenus, emperor of Con- 

 stantinople. He succeeded Anastasius II. in the year A.D. 715, being 

 proclaimed emperor in the fleet of hia predecessor near Adramyttium 

 in Troas. He was a man of obscure birth, and accepted the throne 

 with reluctance. He is praised for his unblemished conduct, and for 

 the protection he afforded to the orthodox faith. He had not enjoyed 

 his elevation much more than one year, when Leo III., a man of 

 superior abilities, was proclaimed emperor. Theodosius willingly 

 withdrew, and spent the remainder of his life, together with his sons, 

 in a monastery. (Theophanes, Chronographia ; Georgius Cedrenus, 

 Compendium Historiarwin, ; Zouaras.) 



THEODO'TION, of Ephesus, the author of a Greek version of the 

 Old Testament, was an Ebionite, and lived in the former part of. the 

 2nd century after Christ. He is quoted by Justin Martyr, hi his 

 dialogue with Tryphon (A.D. 160), and by Irenseus (A.D.) 177.^ His 

 version appears to have been undertaken for the purpose of furnishing 

 the Ebionites with a more exact translation of the Hebrew text than 

 that of the Septuagint, and one therefore which would render them 

 more service than the Septuagint in their disputes with the Jews. It 

 agrees almost exactly with the Septuagint, except that it supplies the 

 deficiencies of that version, and omits those parts of it which are not 

 in the Hebrew text. Theodotion had not a competent knowledge of 

 Hebrew. He has retained certain Hebrew words which appear to 

 have been in use among the Ebionites. Theodotion's version of 

 Daniel waa substituted by the ancient church for the Septuagint 

 version of that book. This version occupied one column of Origen's 

 ' Hexapla.' [ORIGENES.] 



THEOGNIS, an elegiac poet of Megara, the capital of the small 

 state of Megaris, was living at the close of the 6th century B.C. ; and it 

 appears from his own writings that he lived to the date of the battle 

 of Salamis, B.C. 480. In one of those revolutions which frequently 

 occurred in the small Grecian states, the democratic body at Megara 

 overpowered the aristocratic, to which Thcognis belonged. Theognis 



