09-17-2014, 09:33 AM
Trying to figure out Stilicho's true motives during the early part of his regency is notoriously difficult, mostly because our chief source (Claudian) is heavily biased.
In 395 A.D., Stilicho marched east to confront Alaric in the Balkans. According to Claudian, Stilicho had Alaric on the brink of defeat when the order came from Constantinople to immediately send the Eastern units of Stilicho's army back to Arcadius.
Claudian claims that the troops were so angry they spontaneously lynched Rufinus, the Eastern emperor Arcadius' regent, on the parade ground upon their return. In a way, this has a veneer of plausibility; a distant politician ordering the army to divide itself in the face of the enemy for the sake of political axe-grinding is obviously very dangerous, and would likely cause outrage among the troops. But Claudian, of course, was Stilicho's official spokesman. This was the best possible spin on an ugly situation.
Zosimus, writing about a century later, claimed that Stilicho ordered Gainas to carry out the murder of Rufinus. This seems like a bit of a stretch; as Alan Cameron has argued, if Gainas was simply Stilicho's stooge, then why didn't he invite Stilicho to exercise the regency over Arcadius that he wanted so badly after Rufinus was out of the way? I suppose there's always the possibility that Stilicho expected Gainas to be his stooge but Gainas turned out to be less pliable than Stilicho had hoped.
But another factor Cameron considers in his book on Claudian is the reliability of Stilicho's force vis-a-vis Alaric's in 395. In his later poem on the Gothic War, Claudian mentions Alaric, "who once sought to corrupt the loyalty of our troops" with gold ('nostri quondam qui militis auro | adgressus temptare fidem').
Bear in mind that the Western army had been largely destroyed in the recent revolts of Eugenius and Magnus Maximus. If Stilicho was relying on mercenaries or raw recruits to take on Alaric for the campaign of 395 and the latter attempted to bribe some of them away with gold, then Stilicho would indeed have faced an extremely perilous situation and the risk of total defeat, even capture.
It's noteworthy that this bit about bribery appears in De Bello Gothico but not In Rufinum. The latter was written while Alaric was still causing problems in the Balkans, and the loyalty of Stilicho's troops on that campaign might still have been a delicate subject. The former was written after Stilicho routed Alaric at Pollentia (402 A.D.), when Claudian was in more of a mood to brag. All's well that ends well, and so on.
There is one last detail worth mentioning. J.B. Bury, in History of the Later Roman Empire, says:
"Perhaps (Stilicho) did not yet feel quite confident in his own position; perhaps he did not feel sure of his army. But his hesitation may have been due to the fact that his wife Serena and his children were at Constantinople and could be held as hostages for his good behavior."
Is this last bit true? Bury seems to be the only guy mentioning that angle, which makes me wonder if some more-recent evidence contradicts the whereabouts of Stililcho's family at this time. But my goodness... if someone in the Eastern court was actually willing to play that card, than this conflict was deeply personal and perhaps a bit more interesting than first assumed.
In 395 A.D., Stilicho marched east to confront Alaric in the Balkans. According to Claudian, Stilicho had Alaric on the brink of defeat when the order came from Constantinople to immediately send the Eastern units of Stilicho's army back to Arcadius.
Claudian claims that the troops were so angry they spontaneously lynched Rufinus, the Eastern emperor Arcadius' regent, on the parade ground upon their return. In a way, this has a veneer of plausibility; a distant politician ordering the army to divide itself in the face of the enemy for the sake of political axe-grinding is obviously very dangerous, and would likely cause outrage among the troops. But Claudian, of course, was Stilicho's official spokesman. This was the best possible spin on an ugly situation.
Zosimus, writing about a century later, claimed that Stilicho ordered Gainas to carry out the murder of Rufinus. This seems like a bit of a stretch; as Alan Cameron has argued, if Gainas was simply Stilicho's stooge, then why didn't he invite Stilicho to exercise the regency over Arcadius that he wanted so badly after Rufinus was out of the way? I suppose there's always the possibility that Stilicho expected Gainas to be his stooge but Gainas turned out to be less pliable than Stilicho had hoped.
But another factor Cameron considers in his book on Claudian is the reliability of Stilicho's force vis-a-vis Alaric's in 395. In his later poem on the Gothic War, Claudian mentions Alaric, "who once sought to corrupt the loyalty of our troops" with gold ('nostri quondam qui militis auro | adgressus temptare fidem').
Bear in mind that the Western army had been largely destroyed in the recent revolts of Eugenius and Magnus Maximus. If Stilicho was relying on mercenaries or raw recruits to take on Alaric for the campaign of 395 and the latter attempted to bribe some of them away with gold, then Stilicho would indeed have faced an extremely perilous situation and the risk of total defeat, even capture.
It's noteworthy that this bit about bribery appears in De Bello Gothico but not In Rufinum. The latter was written while Alaric was still causing problems in the Balkans, and the loyalty of Stilicho's troops on that campaign might still have been a delicate subject. The former was written after Stilicho routed Alaric at Pollentia (402 A.D.), when Claudian was in more of a mood to brag. All's well that ends well, and so on.
There is one last detail worth mentioning. J.B. Bury, in History of the Later Roman Empire, says:
"Perhaps (Stilicho) did not yet feel quite confident in his own position; perhaps he did not feel sure of his army. But his hesitation may have been due to the fact that his wife Serena and his children were at Constantinople and could be held as hostages for his good behavior."
Is this last bit true? Bury seems to be the only guy mentioning that angle, which makes me wonder if some more-recent evidence contradicts the whereabouts of Stililcho's family at this time. But my goodness... if someone in the Eastern court was actually willing to play that card, than this conflict was deeply personal and perhaps a bit more interesting than first assumed.
