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The Battle of the Frigidus, also called the Battle of the Frigid River, was fought between September 5-6 394, between the army of the Eastern Emperor Theodosius I and the army of Western Roman ruler Eugenius. Image File history File links Emblem-important. ... Events September 6 - Battle of the Frigidus: The christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeats and kills the pagan usurper Eugenius and his Frankish magister militum Arbogast. ... Area: 107. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Byzantine Empire. ... Motto Senatus Populusque Romanus The Western Roman Empire in 395. ... An engraving depicting what Theodosius may have looked like, ca. ... Stilicho (right) with his wife Serena and son Eucherius Flavius Stilicho (occasionally written as Stilico) (ca. ... An 1894 photogravure of Alaric I taken from a painting by Ludwig Thiersch. ... Eugenius wearing imperial insigna, on a coin celebrateing the VIRTVS ROMANORVM, the (military) value of the Romans. Flavius Eugenius (d. ... Flavius Arbogastes (d. ... Events September 6 - Battle of the Frigidus: The christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeats and kills the pagan usurper Eugenius and his Frankish magister militum Arbogast. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Byzantine Empire. ... An engraving depicting what Theodosius may have looked like, ca. ... Motto Senatus Populusque Romanus The Western Roman Empire in 395. ... Eugenius wearing imperial insigna, on a coin celebrateing the VIRTVS ROMANORVM, the (military) value of the Romans. Flavius Eugenius (d. ...

The defeat of Eugenius and his commander, the Frankish magister militum Arbogast, put the whole empire back in the hands of a single emperor for the last time in Roman history. Most significantly, the battle was the last attempt to contest the Christianization of the empire, its outcome decided the fate of Christianity in the western Empire. This article is about the Frankish people and society. ... Magister militum (Latin for Master of the Soldiers) was a top-level command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine. ... Flavius Arbogastes (d. ...

Forebodings

Theodosius, the winner of the battle, became the last emperor of a unified Roman Empire.

The mainly Roman-pagan Roman Senate had been arguing with the Christian emperors in Constantinople and Milan for over two generations, since Constantine I had recognized Christian faith and Theodosius had made it the official religion of the State with the edict of Thessaloniki. The senators wrote letters and argued for a return to traditional Roman beliefs, often stressing the protection and good fortune the old Roman gods had bestowed Rome since her beginnings as a small city-state. For their part, the Christian emperors emphasized the primacy of Christianity, although not all did so to the same extent. This clash between the Roman world's two main religions was for the most part merely an academic debate, without threats of armed uprisings. Emperor Theodosius File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Emperor Theodosius File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... The Roman Senate (Latin: Senatus) was the main governing council of both the Roman Republic, which started in 509 BC, and the Roman Empire. ... This article is about the city before the Fall of Constantinople (1453). ... Type Anti-tank Nationality Joint France/Germany Era Cold War, modern Launch platform Individual, Vehicle Target Vehicle, Fortification History Builder MBDA, Bharat Dynamics (under license) Date of design 70s Production period since 1972 Service duration since 1972 Operators 41 countries Variants MILAN 1, MILAN 2, MILAN 2T, MILAN 3, MILAN... Head of Constantines colossal statue at Musei Capitolini Gaius Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus[1] (February 27, 272–May 22, 337), commonly known as Constantine I, Constantine the Great, or (among Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic[2] Christians) Saint Constantine, was a Roman Emperor, proclaimed Augustus by his troops on... The term Roman religion may refer to: Ancient Roman religion Imperial cult (Ancient Rome), Sol Invictus Mithraism Roman Christianity Category: ...

On May 15, 392, however, the Western Emperor Valentinian II was found dead at his residence in Vienne, Gaul. Valentinian, who for a time showed some favoritism towards the Arians, had continued the imperial policy of suppressing Pagan interests over those of the Christians. Not surprisingly, this policy had resulted in increasing tensions between the emperor and the Pagan senators. is the 135th day of the year (136th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... August 22 - Arbogast elevates Eugenius as Emperor, after assassinating Valentinian II in response to Valentinians removal of Arbogast as military leader in Gaul. ... A marble statue of Emperor Valentinian II, Aphrodisias Geyre (Aydin, Anatolia), 387–390. ... This article is about the French département. ... Gaul (Latin: ) was the name given, in ancient times, to the region of Western Europe comprising present-day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine river. ... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Relation to other religions Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Athanasius · Augustine · Constantine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas Arminius · Calvin · Luther · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Archbishop of Canterbury · Pope Coptic Pope · Ecumenical Patriarch Christianity Portal This box...

When the Eastern Emperor Theodosius heard the news of Valentinian's death, Arbogastes, who was the magister militum and de facto ruler of Western Empire, informed him that the young emperor had committed suicide. Flavius Arbogastes (d. ...

Tensions between the two halves of the empire were heightened further that summer. Arbogastes made several attempts to contact Theodosius, but apparently none got further than the ears of the Eastern praetorian prefect Rufinus. The responses that Arbogast received from Rufinus were unhelpful. Theodosius himself was slowly coming around to the belief Valentinian had been murdered, in no small part because his wife Galla was convinced her brother's death was caused by treachery. Flavius Rufinus (ca. ... Galla, daughter of Valentinian II and Justina, second wife of Theodosius I, and mother of Galla Placidia. ...

For his part, Arbogast had few friends in the Eastern court, although his uncle Richomeres was chief commander of the eastern cavalry. As it appeared increasingly likely that whatever course Theodosius decided upon would be hostile towards Arbogastes, the Frank decided to make the first move. Flavius Richomeres (Richomer) was a Frank that lived in the late 4th century. ...

On August 22 of that year, Arbogast elevated Flavius Eugenius, the Western imperial court's magister scrinii, to the purple. Eugenius was a well-respected scholar of rhetoric, and a better claimant to the purple than Arbogastes himself. His ascension was backed by the Praetorian prefect of Italy, Nicomachus Flavianus the Elder, and also by many of the pagan members of the Roman Senate. However, some senators, notably Symmachus, were uneasy with this action. is the 234th day of the year (235th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Eugenius wearing imperial insigna, on a coin celebrateing the VIRTVS ROMANORVM, the (military) value of the Romans. Flavius Eugenius (d. ... Praetorian prefect (Latin Praefectus praetorio) was the constant title of a high office in the Roman state that changed fundamentally in nature. ... Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, c. ...

Eugenius on a coin. The Western ruler was taken prisoner after the battle, executed, and his head was displayed in Theodosius' camp.

After his elevation to emperor, Eugenius appointed several important pagan senators to key positions in the Western government. He also supported a movement to advance the pagan cause by granting it official recognition and by restoring important shrines such as the Altar of Victory and the temple of Venus and Rome. These actions earned Eugenius withering criticism from Ambrose and did little to endear him to Theodosius. Image File history File links Siliqua_Eugenius-_trier_RIC_0106d. ... Image File history File links Siliqua_Eugenius-_trier_RIC_0106d. ... Eugenius wearing imperial insigna, on a coin celebrateing the VIRTVS ROMANORVM, the (military) value of the Romans. Flavius Eugenius (d. ... The Altar of Victory was located in the Roman Senate House (the Curia) bearing a gold statue of the goddess Victory. ... The Temple apsis by night. ... For other uses, see Ambrose (disambiguation). ...

As a Christian, Theodosius was distressed by the pagan revival that was occurring under Eugenius's reign. In addition there was the issue of Valentinian's death, which had never been resolved to his satisfaction. Furthermore, Eugenius had removed all the high civil officers left by Theodosius when he had given the Western half of the empire to Valentinian, so that Theodosius had lost his control on the Western Roman Empire.

When a party of Western ambassadors arrived in Constantinople to request that Eugenius be acknowledged as the Western Augustus, Theodosius was noncommittal, even if he received them with presents and vague promises. Whether he had already decided on an offensive against Eugenius and Arbogast at this point is unclear. In the end, however, after declaring his two-years-old son Honorius as the western Augustus in January of 393, Theodosius finally resolved to invade the West. Augustus (plural augusti) is Latin for majestic, the increaser, or venerable. The feminine form is Augusta. ... Flavius Honorius (September 9, 384–August 15, 423) was Roman Emperor (393- 395) and then Western Roman Emperor from 395 until his death. ... Events Gao Zu succeeds Tai Zu as Emperor of the Later Qin Empire in China. ...

Theodosius prepares

Over the following year and a half Theodosius marshalled his forces for the invasion.

The Eastern armies had atrophied since the death of the emperor Valens and most of his men at Adrianople, and it fell to the generals Flavius Stilicho and Timasius both to restore discipline to the Eastern legions and to bring them back up to strength through recruitment and conscription. Solidus minted by Valens in 376. ... Combatants Eastern Roman Empire Goths Commanders Valens â€  Fritigern, Alatheus, Saphrax Strength 15,000–30,000 10,000–20,000 Casualties 10,000–20,000 Unknown The second Battle of Adrianople (August 9, 378), sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis, was fought between a Roman army led by the Roman... Stilicho (right) with his wife Serena and son Eucherius Flavius Stilicho (occasionally written as Stilico) (ca. ... The Roman Legion (from Latin , from lego, legere, legi, lectus — to collect) is a term that can apply both as a transliteration of legio (conscription or army) to the entire Roman army and also, more narrowly (and more commonly), to the heavy infantry that was the basic military unit of...

At the same time another of Theodosius's advisers, the eunuch Eutropius, was sent out from Constantinople to seek the advice and wisdom of an aged Christian monk in the Egyptian town of Lycopolis. According to the accounts of the meeting given by Claudian and Sozomen, the old monk prophesied that Theodosius would achieve a costly but decisive victory over Eugenius and Arbogastes. Eutropius (d. ... Asyut (Arabic: اسيوط ) is one of the governorates of Egypt. ... Claudius Claudianus, Anglicized as Claudian, was the court poet to the Emperor Honorius and Stilicho. ... Salminius Hermias Sozomen (c. ...

The Eastern army set out towards the west from Constantinople in May of 394. The re-galvanized legions were bolstered by numerous barbarian auxiliaries including over 20,000 Visigoth federates and additional forces from Syria. Theodosius himself led the army; among his commanders were his own generals Stilicho and Timasius, the Visigoth chieftain Alaric, and a Caucasian Iberian named Bacurios Hiberios. Events September 6 - Battle of the Frigidus: The christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeats and kills the pagan usurper Eugenius and his Frankish magister militum Arbogast. ... Migrations The Visigoths were one of two main branches of the Goths, an East Germanic tribe (the Ostrogoths being the other). ... An 1894 photogravure of Alaric I taken from a painting by Ludwig Thiersch. ... Ancient countries of Caucasus: Armenia, Iberia, Colchis and Albania Iberia was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli (4th century BC-5th century AD) corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia. ... Bacurios Hiberios (Bakur of Iberia. ...

Their advance through Pannonia until the Julian Alps was unopposed, and Theodosius and his officers must have had suspicions about what lay ahead when they discovered that the eastern ends of the mountain passes were undefended. Arbogast had, based on his experiences fighting against the usurper Magnus Maximus in Gaul, decided that the best strategy was to keep his forces united to defend Italy itself, and to that end he went so far as to leave the Alpine passes unguarded. Arbogast's forces consisted mainly of his fellow Franks and Gallo-Romans, plus his own Gothic auxiliaries. Magnus Maximus. ... This article covers the culture of Romanized areas of Gaul. ...

Thanks to Arbogastes's strategy of maintaining a single, relatively cohesive force, the Theodosian army passed unhindered through the Alps and descended towards the valley of the Frigidus River above Aquileia. It was in this narrow, mountainous region that they came upon the Western army's encampment in a pass near present-day Vipava, Slovenia, in the first days of September. Aquileia (Friulian Aquilee, Slovene Oglej) is an ancient Roman town of Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about 10 km from the sea, on the river Natiso (modern Natisone), the course of which has changed somewhat since Roman times. ... Area: 107. ...

The battle

Theodosius attacked almost immediately, having undertaken little to no prior reconnaissance of the field of battle. He committed his Gothic allies to action first, perhaps hoping to thin their ranks through attrition and lessen their potential threat to the Empire. The Eastern army's headlong attack resulted in heavy casualties but little gain, and the Georgian general Bacurius was among the dead.

Day's end saw Eugenius celebrating his troops' successful defense of their position while Arbogast sent out detachments to close off the mountain passes behind Theodosius's forces.

After a sleepless night, Theodosius was cheered by the news that the men Arbogast had sent to bottle him up in the valley intended to desert to his side. Buoyed by this favorable development, Theodosius's men attacked once again. This time nature was on their side as a fierce tempest — apparently the Bora, a regular occurrence in the region — blew along the valley from the east. The high winds blew clouds of dust into the faces of the Western troops (legend also says, that the fierce winds even blew the Western troops' own arrows back at them). Buffeted by the winds, Arbogast's lines broke and Theodosius gained the decisive victory that the Egyptian monk had prophesied. Bora, also known as Bura (in Croatian) or Burja (in Slovenian) is a northern to north-eastern katabatic wind in the Adriatic, Greece and Turkey. ...

In the aftermath, Eugenius was captured and brought before the emperor. His pleas for mercy went unanswered and he was beheaded. Arbogast escaped the defeat and fled into the mountains, but after a few days' wandering, he concluded escape was impossible and committed suicide.

Aftermath

It had been a costly but total victory for Theodosius, and a total loss for the pagans. The western provinces quickly submitted to Theodosius, who became the last emperor of a united empire.

Most significantly, the battle was the last attempt to contest the Christianization of the empire: its outcome decided the fate of Christianity in the western Empire. 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 - within a generation the elite pagan families of Rome would give up any serious resistance to Christianity and re-invent themselves as the papal families of Late Antiquity.^[2] Battle of the Milvian Bridge Conflict Date October 28, 312 Place Milvian Bridge (Saxa Rubra), Rome Result Defeat of Maxentius The Battle of Milvian Bridge took place on October 28, 312 between the Roman Emperors Constantine the Great and Maxentius. ... Pope John Paul II has reigned since 22 Oct 1978. ... Late Antiquity is a rough periodization (c. ...

Unfortunately, the battle also accelerated the collapse of the Roman army in the west. The legions were already losing their effectiveness, due to reorganizations and a decline in the quality of their training and discipline, and the losses at the Battle of the Frigidus weakened the western legions — whose task in defending the empire from the barbarian invaders was much harder than the eastern ones — still further. This downturn in the capabilities of the Roman soldiers meant an increasing reliance by the Western Empire on barbarian mercenaries employed as foederati, who often proved to be unreliable, or even treacherous. Foederatus early in the history of the Roman Republic identified one of the tribes bound by treaty (foedus), who were neither Roman colonies nor had they been granted Roman citizenship (civitas) but were expected to provide a contingent of fighting men when trouble arose. ...

Notes

Kenneth W. Harl is a scholar, author, classicist and numismatist. ...

References

• Roberts, Walter, "Flavius Eugenius (392-394)", De Imperatoribus Romanis