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StilichoSometimes called Flavius Stilicho. The name became a courtesy title by the late 4th century, see (; – 22 August 408) was a military commander in the Roman army who, for a time, became the most powerful man in the Western Roman Empire.Carlton Joseph Huntley Hayes (1911). "". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. 25. (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 920.Stephen Mitchell. A History of the Later Roman Empire AD 284–641. Singapore: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007, p. 89. He was partly of Vandals origins and married to Serena, the niece of emperor Theodosius I. He became guardian for the underage Honorius.Joseph Vogt. The Decline of Rome: The Metamorphosis of Ancient Civilization. Trans. Janet Sondheimer. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967, p. 179. After years of struggle against barbarian and Roman enemies, political and military disasters finally allowed his enemies in the court of Honorius to remove him from power. His fall culminated in his arrest and execution in 408.Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth eds. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, third edition. Oxford University Press, 1996 1444.
Stilicho Stilic(h)o is a given name of Germanic origin, containing the Germanic element stil(l) – meaning "calm, quiet", from Proto-Germanic * stillijaz. was the son of a Vandals cavalry officer and a provincial woman of Roman birth.Frasetto, Michael (2003). Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe: Society in Transformation. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. , p. 320. Google Books. Despite his father's origins, there is little to suggest that Stilicho considered himself anything other than a Roman, and his high rank within the empire suggests that he was probably not an Arianism like many Germanic Christians but rather a Nicene Christian like his patron Theodosius I, who declared Nicene Christianity the official religion of the empire.
Stilicho joined the Roman army and rose through the ranks during the reign of Theodosius I, who ruled the Eastern half of the Roman Empire from Constantinople, and who was to become the last emperor to rule both the eastern and western halves of the empire jointly. In 383, Theodosius sent him as a tribunus praetorianus, an office in the branch of military administrators known as the notarii, on an embassy mission to the court of the Persian King Shapur III in Ctesiphon to negotiate a peace settlement relating to the partition of Armenia.Williams, S., Friell, G. Theodosius, The Empire at Bay. 1994. p 41 Historians have a difficult time explaining exactly what led to his marriage to Serena which occurred after his return to Constantinople at the successful conclusion of peace talks.Bendle 2024, 167. Claudian claims that Theodosius awarded Stilicho with Serena’s hand because of his outstanding achievements, but as Stilicho was actually just a junior member of the embassy and not its leader, nor had he done anything else of note, this is certainly panegyrical publicity. Perhaps the varied duties of the notarii at some point placed Stilicho inside the imperial residence of Constantinople where he encountered Serena and they decided the match themselves, or maybe Theodosius saw a good outcome in tying a young, up-and-coming, half-barbarian general to the imperial household. The marriage would see the birth of a son, who was named Eucherius, and two daughters, Maria and Thermantia.
Whatever its origin, this match undoubtedly raised Stilicho's prospects. He was promoted to comes sacri stabuli and soon after to comes domesticorum in 385. It is unclear whether he participated in the campaign against Magnus Maximus or remained in Constantinople during that time. In 392 or 393, Theodosius promoted Stilicho to Magister militum and gave him command of soldiers in Thrace.Hughes, Ian, Stilicho, p. 21; Bendle 2024, 113; Codex Theodosianus, 7.9.3.
After the death of the Western emperor Valentinian II in 392, Theodosius appointed Stilicho as co-commander of the army with Timasius.Bendle 2024, 119. They were victorious over the Western army at the Battle of the Frigidus. One of his comrades during the campaign was the Visigoths warlord Alaric I, who commanded a substantial number of Gothic auxiliaries. Alaric would go on to become Stilicho's chief adversary during his later career as the head of the Western Roman armies. Stilicho distinguished himself at the Frigidus, and Theodosius, exhausted by the campaign, saw him as a man worthy of responsibility for the future safety of the empire. In several of the Claudian poems celebrating Theodosius's victories, Stilicho's participation and contribution to the campaign were highlighted.
This helped him gain popularity in the empire. The last emperor of a united Rome appointed Stilicho guardian of his son Honorius, with the rank of comes et magister utriusque militiae praesentalis (supreme commander), shortly before his death in 395.Randers-Pehrson, Justine Davis. . Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983. pp. 78–81
At the time of Theodosius's death, the field armies that had clashed at the Frigidus were still in disarray and fighting was still continuing. Claudian, Stilicho's panegyrist, makes Theodosius's spirit say "When I was raised to heaven disorder... and tumult did I leave behind me. The army was still drawing the forbidden sword in that Alpine war, and conquerors and conquered gave alternate cause for dissension. Scarce could this madness have been calmed by my vigilance, much less by a boy's rule... 'Twas then that Stilicho took my place..."De Bello Gildonico The War Against Gildo.
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In 396 Stilicho campaigned against the Franks and other Germanic tribes in Gaul. He used the campaign to boost the morale of the western army – which had suffered three consecutive defeats in the civil wars against Theodosius – and to recruit Germanic auxiliaries to bolster its depleted ranks.Hughes, Stilicho, pp. 93–95. The next year, in 397, Stilicho defeated Alaric's forces in Macedonia, but Alaric himself escaped into the surrounding mountains. Edward Gibbon, drawing on Zosimus, criticizes Stilicho for being overconfident in victory and indulging in luxury and women, allowing Alaric to escape.Gibbon, 245 Contemporary scholarship disagrees, and finds a variety of possible explanations, including an order from Arcadius directing him to evacuate the Eastern Empire, the unreliability of his mostly barbarian troops, the revolt of Gildo in Africa or the possibility that he simply was never as close to Alaric as Claudian suggests.Blockley, 113f. Emma Burrell. " A Re-Examination of Why Stilicho Abandoned His Pursuit of Alaric in 397." Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte. Vol. 53, No. 2 (2004): 251–256.
In late 406, Stilicho demanded the return of the eastern half of Illyricum (which had been transferred to the administrative control of Constantinople by Theodosius), threatening war if the Eastern Roman Empire resisted. The exact reasons for this are unclear, but there are several theories: 1) Stilicho wanted Illyricum as a recruiting ground for his army (recruiting troops in the western provinces proved difficult because most able bodied men were employed by the western elite which he could not afford to antagonize). 2) Stilicho feared that Italy could be invaded from Illyricum if he did not control the Diocese himself (directly or indirectly through Alaric). 3) Stilicho planned to neutralize Alaric as a threat by employing him and his battle-hardened troops in the Western Empire's defences and made him comes et magister militum per Illyricum (Stilicho and Alaric would take Illyricum from the Eastern Empire, Alaric would defend Illyricum, leaving Stilicho free to concentrate on the north). A combination of all three is also a possibility.Hughes, Stilicho, pp. 169–175.Heather, Peter, , Oxford University Press, 2007 p. 219
The destruction that occurred in Gaul and the lack of an effective response from the court in Ravenna lent support to the rebellion of Constantine III in Britain, which Stilicho proved unable to quash. As Constantine moved his forces into Gaul, Stilicho sent his subordinate Sarus to oppose him. Sarus had some initial success, winning a major victory and killing both of Constantine's magistri militum, but a relief force drove him back and saved the rebellion. Sarus withdrew and Stilicho decided to seal off the Alps to prevent Constantine from threatening Italy.J.F. Drinkwater. " The Usurpers Constantine III (407–411) and Jovinus (411–413)." Brittania. Vol. 29, (1998): 269–298.
Meanwhile, Constantine's rebellion having interrupted the negotiations between Alaric and Stilicho for the joint attack on Illyria, Alaric demanded the payment he was owed, threatening to attack Italy again if he did not receive a large amount of gold. The senate, "inspired by the courage, rather than the wisdom, of their predecessors",Gibbon, 277 as Gibbon put it, favored war with Alaric until Stilicho persuaded them to give into Alaric's demands. They were angry at Stilicho for this, and one of the most outspoken of them, Lampadius, said " Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis (This is not peace, but a pact of servitude)."
Stilicho's unsuccessful attempts to deal with Constantine, and rumors that he had earlier planned the assassination of Rufinus and that he planned to place his son on the throne following the death of emperor Arcadius (1 May 408), caused a revolt. The Roman army at Ticinum mutinied on August 13, 408, killing at least seven senior imperial officers (Zosimus 5.32). John Matthews observed that the following events "have every appearance of a thoroughly co-ordinated coup d'état organized by Stilicho's political opponents".John Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court AD 364–425, Oxford: University Press, 1990, p. 281. Stilicho retired to Ravenna, where he was taken into captivity. Stilicho did not resist and was executed on August 22, 408, as was his son, Eucherius, shortly afterwards.
Without a strong general like Stilicho, Honorius could do little to break the siege, and adopted a passive strategy trying to wait out Alaric, hoping to regather his forces to defeat the Visigoths in the meantime. What followed was two years of political and military manoeuvering, Alaric, king of the Goths, attempting to secure a permanent peace treaty and rights to settle within Roman territory. He besieged Rome three times without attacking while the Roman army of Italy watched helplessly, but only after a fourth failed attempt at a deal was Alaric's siege a success. After months under siege the people of Rome were dying of hunger and some were resorting to cannibalism. Then, the Gothic army broke through the gates and sacked the city in August of 410. Many historians argue that the removal of Stilicho was the main catalyst leading to this monumental event, the first barbarian capture of Rome in nearly eight centuries and a part of the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
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