Eugenius Pagan Revival More Potential than Julian?

Eugenius Pagan Revival More Potential than Julian?

During Emperor Eugenius' two year rule the Western Roman Empire saw a brief Pagan revival. Under the influence of his Pagan general Arbogast, Eugenius restored the Alter of Victory and rededicated the Temple of Venus and Rome. He also appointed prominent Pagan Virius Nicomachus Flavianus as Praetorian Prefect of Italy and other Pagan senators to other important posts. Eugenius was ultimately defeated at the Battle of Frigidus River by Theodosius.

So lets instead Eugenius have defeat and kill Theodosius. What are the effects? Does this scenario have more potential than the revival attempted by Julian?

It had been a costly but total victory for Theodosius, and a total loss for Eugenius. The western provinces quickly submitted to Theodosius. A mere four months later he died, leaving the government in the hands of his young children Honorius and Arcadius.

Most significantly, the battle has often been seen as the last attempt to contest the Christianization of the empire. According to Rufinus, the battle is on a par with the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in importance, for it was seen not only as a victory in a civil war, but a vindication of the Christian God and the triumph of Christianity[9] – within a generation the elite pagan families of Rome would give up any serious resistance to Christianity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Frigidus
 
Theodosius is now dead, so there will be no one able to apply the edict of Thessalonika to the western empire. We have just avoided the closing/destruction of pagan temple and the forced conversion of the western population. The senate will remain mostly a pagan institution, probably it will also gain back some prestige. However it would be interesting to see what happen to the east: would Arcadius be able to keep the power or would he be deposed by Eugenius or a new usurper from the east? what about the gothic foederati, are they eliminated along with the roman army at frigidus? Also since Arbogast was a frank, the franks could now become the dominant element inside the western roman army. The chance of a complete revival of paganism would be (in my opinion) the same as during the reign of Julian since only 30 years has passed from his death. Probably this paganism will be less "intellectual" and "philosophical" and closer to the religious beliefs of the inhabitants outside the cities.
 
Have you considered an East-West split?

Yeah that could be the best result for Eugenius. I don't think he would have as much success taking over the East and spreading Paganism. He would need to come to an agreement with teenage Arcadius or whoever ends up control the east.
 
They took 10k casualties in OTL victory, I imagine in the event of a defeat they would be effectively eliminated as a fighting force.
Than you could solve one problem of the empire. The question is how long the civil war will last after Theodosius' death and what will be the relationship between the new eastern emperor and Eugenius? A defeated east will still be a thorn in the side if hostile to the west, especially if the two empire follow different religious path
 
I also thought about a split. Maybe more than two parts, so the chance that paganism is reintroduced in one part is bigger.
 

Philip

Donor
Many years ago I sketched out an outline of a timeline that split the empire between Theo and Eugenius. Augustine of Hippo, after a stint as a Manichean, embraced a manichean influenced neo-platonic version of Roman paganism. He befriended Symmachus. (I may have even married off their children or grandchildren.) Augustine's masterworks Against the Christians and City of the Gods provided the philosophical basis while Symmachus provided the prestige to secure paganism among the aristocracy. Eugenius built on this to establish a separate character for the Western Empire.
 
As I understand it, the extent to any pagan revivalism among Eugenius's supporters was returning to the pre-Gratian, pre-Theodosian status quo.
That would be a nice first step compared to OTL. Later the situation could stabilize to allow multiple faiths inside the empire, alternatively an excessively eastern christian emperor could prompt the west to adopt the same opposite measure in their part of the empire. To really predict the religious future of the empire we should know who is the successor of both Theodosius in the East and Eugenius in the West.
 
I think we ought to tread carefully on this subject, considering the possible influence of pro-Theodosian propaganda.
Nevertheless, a victory for Eugenius and Arbogast at the Frigidus could have led to the Franks becoming an important force in imperial politics from there on in, earlier than IOTL. Although further butterflies are, from where i stand, hard to predict.
Stilicho, having organized the Theodosian army, would obviously be punished, unless he betrays his patron (which is implausible given his character).
 
I would say he had a different potential. Most rural areas outside Asia Minor and Egypt we're probably majority pagan and they were probably the majority in the cities in the west.

But most importantly, the Pagans had finally woken up to the fact they were facing an existential threat, had been percecuted much more harshly than the Christians were.

On the other side, the Christians with a living memory of living beside Pagans and treating others with respect was gone. There were also probably more genuine Christians as opposed to ass kissers who went along whatever the Emperor wanted. They had become entrenched.

If it were up Pagan revival it would be a mass movement led at first by the Roman Aristocracy and not easily beheaded by the loss of an Emperor Julian. Instead of a nice set of reforms meant to turn the empire gradually away from Christianity, it would be a pitched religious civil war which the Pagans may indeed come out on top of, but it would be a victory of bishops ripped apart in the streets and cities burned and thousands killed.

And after that "victory" the Germans and Persians would eat much larger chunks of what had been the Roman world and if anything survived it wouldn't last as long as Byzantium did.
 
And after that "victory" the Germans and Persians would eat much larger chunks of what had been the Roman world and if anything survived it wouldn't last as long as Byzantium did.
A different Frigidus probably mean no Alaric, no Honorius, no purge of the army and a lot of other negative events that happened to the WRE. The persian during the V century were mostly passive and unless a catastrophe happens I don't see why they would change attitute toward the romans. If the romans can reduce the time dedicated to killing each other than the barbarian will probably fail their attempts to invade and destroy the west.
 
A different Frigidus probably mean no Alaric, no Honorius, no purge of the army and a lot of other negative events that happened to the WRE. The persian during the V century were mostly passive and unless a catastrophe happens I don't see why they would change attitute toward the romans. If the romans can reduce the time dedicated to killing each other than the barbarian will probably fail their attempts to invade and destroy the west.

Would the Persians stay passive if the there is a civil war that is above and beyond the typical Civil War but a too the death struggle? If you avoid a purge but have multiple Frigidus as the West tries to conquer the East and both faiths feel they are in a "too the death struggle" which I outlined.

Ir would be different disasters and I think, worse.
 
Would the Persians stay passive if the there is a civil war that is above and beyond the typical Civil War but a too the death struggle? If you avoid a purge but have multiple Frigidus as the West tries to conquer the East and both faiths feel they are in a "too the death struggle" which I outlined.

Ir would be different disasters and I think, worse.
That's why I said unless a catastrophe happens to the romans. However why would the "christian resistance" be worse than the OTL pagan resistance? After Frigidus the pagans accepted their defeat. In an alternate Frigidus were the christians are the losers, their champion is dead and his successor is a young boy who historically didn't leave a great mark on history, why would the christian be able to assemble armies after armies?
 
TBH I suspect it wouldn't make much difference in the long term. Whilst Eugenius may have drawn on Rome's pagan heritage to try and get the Senators on-side (though the degree to which he did so may well have been exaggerated in later sources), there's no real evidence that his religious policies led to any popular upsurge of support, so even if the Empire was still majority-pagan (which is difficult to be sure of, given that paganus was a pretty loosely-defined term, so when sources talk of churchmen visiting the pagani of a region, it's often unclear whether we're meant to imagine missionary efforts towards non-Christians or catechisation programmes for uneducated Christians, or indeed a bit of both), it doesn't seem that many people were champing at the bit to put those upstart Christians in their place. Even among the Senators, their paganism often seems to have been a matter of upholding the mos maiorum rather than particularly strong religious conviction, and there's no evidence that any significant number wanted to revive the Julianic policies, much less take them further. So whilst a victorious Eugenius TL would probably see Christianity making slower inroads among the Roman elite, I doubt that any large-scale rollback of Christianity would be on the cards, at least in the short to medium-long term.
 
This might be a silly question, but could Ovid's Metamorphoses provide the basis for a pagan holy book (whether in a Julian or Eugenius scenario)?

Many years ago I sketched out an outline of a timeline that split the empire between Theo and Eugenius. Augustine of Hippo, after a stint as a Manichean, embraced a manichean influenced neo-platonic version of Roman paganism. He befriended Symmachus. (I may have even married off their children or grandchildren.) Augustine's masterworks Against the Christians and City of the Gods provided the philosophical basis while Symmachus provided the prestige to secure paganism among the aristocracy. Eugenius built on this to establish a separate character for the Western Empire.
That sounds like a fascinating premise. Do you still have this outline?
 
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