The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, 395-700 AD

THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITY

of Synesius, were raised in favour of expelling the Goths. When Gainas attacked
Constantinople in 400, his coup was put down (albeit by another Goth, Fravitta,
subsequently made consul for 401), and with it the pro-German group within
government circles was defeated. This result was extremely important for the
future of the eastern empire, for though the danger of barbarian pressure was
to recur, the infl uence of barbarian generals on the eastern government was
checked, and the east was able to avoid having to make the massive barbarian
settlements which so fragmented the western empire. The consequences for
the west were also momentous, for Alaric and his followers moved from the
Balkans to Italy, besieging Rome in 408–9, demanding enormous payments in
return for food and taking the city itself in 410.^19 The sack of Rome was an
almost unimaginable event which caused shivers to run down the spine of St
Jerome in Bethlehem and sent rich Christians fl eeing to the safety of North
Africa and asking Augustine how God could have let this happen.

Religious issues

The violence in Constantinople in 400 also had a religious side to it, and in the
case of Rome the very fact that Alaric and his Visigoths were Christian made
it doubly diffi cult for Christians such as St Augustine to explain why God had
allowed the sack of Christian Rome to happen.^20 By the middle of the fi fth cen-
tury the west was still the target of repeated barbarian assaults and settlements
(Chapter 2) and the east was threatened by the Huns; however, the east also
had other concerns. Arcadius was succeeded by his son Theodosius II (408–
50), only seven years old when his father died.^21 Theodosius II’s long reign
provided a stable period of consolidation during which the imperial court was
characterized by an extremely pious atmosphere especially connected with the
most strong-minded of his three sisters, Pulcheria, who became Augusta and
regent in 414. Pulcheria chose Theodosius’ bride – the intellectual Eudocia,
formerly named Athenaïs and allegedly of pagan Athenian origin, selected by
means of an imperial beauty-contest – and the relationship between the two
women was predictably stormy. However, Eudocia too had a strong infl uence
on the church in the east, notably through the patronage she exercised on her
visits to the Holy Land.^22 To this period belong the First Council of Ephesus
(431), at which the title Bearer of God (Greek Theotokos) was offi cially recog-
nized for the Virgin Mary, the Second Council of Ephesus (449), and that of
Chalcedon (451), when the orthodox doctrine of Christ’s two natures, divine
and human, was decreed (see below). The First Council of Ephesus and that
of Chalcedon were landmarks in the history of the church, and together they
represent an important stage in the working out of the complex implications
of the creed agreed at the fi rst ecumenical council at Nicaea (325). It is also
to the reign of Theodosius II that we owe the Theodosian Code, a massive
achievement, which aimed to collect all imperial constitutions since Constan-
tine, and which is our major source, with the later Code of Justinian (Chapter
5) for late Roman law.