VI. The Survival of the Empire in the east
ARCADIUS: A.D. 395-408. The year Theodosius the Great died the Asiatic provinces of the Empire were overrun by the Huns, who ravaged Syria and Asia Minor as Visigoths under Alaric devastated the Balkan peninsula. The presence of Eastern troops in Italy prevented the government from offering any effective opposition. When Stilicho came to the rescue from Italy and was holding the Visigoths in check, his rival, the praetorian prefect Rufinus, regent to the young Arcadius, induced the Emperor to order Stilicho to withdraw and send the troops of the East to Constantinople. This order resulted in the death of Rufinus, who was killed by the returning soldiery at the orders of their commander, the Goth Gainas.
The influential position of Rufinus at court devolved upon the grand chamberlain Eutropius, who had been an enemy of his predecessor. He induced Arcadius to marry Eudoxia, a daughter of a Frankish chief, instead of the daughter of Rufinus, as the latter had desired. The fall of Eutropius in turn was brought about by Gainas, now a master of the soldiers, who sought to play the role of Stilicho in the East, and by the empress Eudoxia, who chafed under the domination of the chamberlain. In 399, when Gothic troops in Phrygia revolted, Gainas held aloof, and the failure of a nominee of Eutropius to crush the movement gave Gainas the opportunity to recommend the latter’s dismissal. The plots of Eudoxia against the eunuch finally brought about his fall from power and eventually his death.
Gainas’ aspirations to become an Eastern Stilicho were not realized. He and his troops were unpopular in Constantinople because of their Arianism, and upon the removal of Eutropius preponderant influence at court fell to an antibarbarian faction supported by the empress and led by the praetorian prefect, Aurelian. A massacre of thousands of Gothic soldiers in Constantinople followed, and with the aid of a loyal Goth, Fravitta, Gainas was driven north of the Danube, where he was killed by the Huns (400). Units composed of indigenous troops were soon raised by Arcadius to replace the barbarians. This was the first step taken by the Eastern court to combat the barbarization of the army and to rely primarily on a “national” military establishment….
Four years later Arcadius died, leaving the Empire to his eight-year-old son Theodosius II.
THEODOSIUS II: A.D. 408-450
...The Persian war, which began in 421 as a result of persecutions of the Christians in Persia, was concluded victoriously the next year. A second war, following a Persian invasion in 441, ended with a Persian defeat in 442. With the Huns the Romans were not so fortunate. In 424 King Rua, the ruler of the Huns in Hungary, had extorted from the Empire the payment of an annual tribute…In 441-443 the Huns swarmed over the Balkans and defeated imperial armies. Another disastrous raid occurred in 447. The Empire could offer no resistance, and Attila even claimed to regard himself as the overlord of Theodosius…
The reign Theodosius II was important for several events. It witnessed the emergence of a new heresy, involving a dispute over the nature of Christ, called Monophysitic. The Monophysites were destined to be at the center of bitter religious disputes that plagued the East for many generations. The erection of a new city wall in 413 under the administration of Anthemius was also noteworthy. The wall stretched from the Sea of Marmora to the Golden Horn, and its circuit was much greater than that of the old wall of Constantine, which the city had outgrown. Theodosius’ wall made Constantinople virtually impregnable, and its ruins remain to this day one of the landmarks of the city….
MARCIAN: A.D. 450-456. …He refused to continue the indemnity to Attila and adhered to this policy as the latter invaded the West and subsequently died. He also permitted the Ostrogoths to settle as foederati in Pannonia (454).
LEO I: A.D. 457-474 At the death of Marcian in 457, imperial authority was conferred upon Leo, an officer of Dacian origin, who was appointed because of the support of the Alan Aspar, one of the masters of the soldiers. Aspar’s power rivaled that of Ricimer in the West. Since the breakup of the Hunnish Empire, the number of Gothic barbarians in East Roman armies had increased, a tendency the would-be barbarian kingmaker furthered. Leo was alive to the danger of becoming the puppet of a powerful general, who was unpopular and even suspected of treason when he failed to support properly the unsuccessful expedition against the Vandals. As a counterpoise to to Gothic mercenaries and foederati, the mainstay of Aspar’s power, Leo enlisted the Isaurians, warlike mountaineers of southern Anatolia, who, if they were little better than barbarians themselves, were good soldiers and imperial subjects. The emperor’s eldest daughter married Zeno, an Isaurian, who was made master of the soldiers in the East. In 470 Aspar was still strong enough to force Leo to marry his second daughter to his son Leontius and to appoint the latter Caesar, but the next year when Zeno returned to Constantinople, Aspar and his eldest son were assassinated in the palace. The second notable attempt by barbarians to take over the army of the East thus failed; thereafter indigenous elements among the officer cadres and rank and file of East Roman armies.