Гонорий: Рим императоры (393-423 жж.)

Roman emperor from 393 to 423

Honorius (9 September 384 – 15 August 423) was Roman emperor from 393 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla. After the death of Theodosius in 395, Honorius, under the regency of Stilicho, ruled the western half of the empire while his brother Arcadius ruled the eastern half. His reign over the Western Roman Empire was notably precarious and chaotic. In 410, Rome was sacked for the first time in almost 800 years.

Honorius was born to Emperor Theodosius I and Empress Aelia Flaccilla on 9 September 384 in Constantinople. He was the brother of Arcadius and Pulcheria. In 386, his mother died, and in 387, Theodosius married Galla who had taken a temporary refuge in Thessaloniki with her family, including her brother Valentinian II and mother Justina, away from usurper Magnus Maximus. Theodosius and Galla had a daughter, Honorius's half sister Galla Placidia. Honorius, Arcadius, and Galla Placidia were the only children of Theodosius to survive into adulthood.

After holding the consulate at the age of two in 386, Honorius was declared augustus by his father Theodosius I, and thus co ruler, on 23 January 393, after the death of Valentinian II and the usurpation of Eugenius. When Theodosius died, in January 395, Honorius and Arcadius divided the Empire, so that Honorius became Western Roman emperor at the age of ten. During the early part of his reign, Honorius depended on the military leadership of the general Stilicho, who had been appointed by Theodosius and was of mixed Vandal and Roman ancestry. To strengthen his bonds with the young emperor and to make his grandchild an imperial heir, Stilicho married his daughter Maria to Honorius. The epithalamion written for the occasion by Stilicho's court poet Claudian survives. Honorius was also influenced by the Popes of Rome. So it was that Pope Innocent I and Western bishops may have been successful in persuading Honorius to write to his brother, arguing for convening a synod in Thessalonica. At first Honorius based his capital in Milan, but when the Visigoths under King Alaric I entered Italy in 401 he moved his capital to the coastal city of Ravenna, which was protected by a ring of marshes and strong fortifications. While the new capital was easier to defend, it was poorly situated to allow Roman forces to protect Central Italy from the increasingly regular threat of barbarian incursions. It was significant that the Emperor's residence remained in Ravenna until the overthrow of Romulus Augustulus in 476. That was probably the reason why Ravenna was chosen not only as the capital of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy, but also for the seat of the Byzantine exarchs as well. By 410, Britain may have been told to look after its own affairs and expect no aid from Rome, although it has been argued that the order was sent to the people of Bruttium in Italy, not Britain. The western empire was effectively overstretched due to the massive invasion of Alans, Suebi and Vandals who, although they had been repulsed from Italy in 406, moved into Gaul on 31 December 406, Another invasion by Alaric was prevented in 408 by Stilicho when he forced the Roman Senate to pay 4,000 pounds of gold to persuade the Goths to leave Italy. Honorius, in the meantime, was at Bononia, on his way from Ravenna to Ticinum, when the news reached him of his brother's death in May 408. He at first was planning to go to Constantinople to help set up the court during the transition from Arcadius to Theodosius II. Summoned from Ravenna for advice, Stilicho advised Honorius not to go, and proceeded to go himself. In Stilicho's absence, a minister named Olympius gained the confidence of Honorius. He convinced the emperor that his father in law was conspiring with the barbarians to overthrow him. On his return to Ravenna, Honorius ordered the arrest and execution of Stilicho. With Stilicho's fall, Honorius moved against all of his former father in law's allies, killing and torturing key individuals and ordering the confiscation of the property of anyone who had borne any office while Stilicho was in command. Honorius's wife Thermantia was taken from the imperial throne and given over to her mother; Eucherius, the son of Stilicho, was put to death. The purge also massacred the families of Stilicho's foederati troops, and they defected en masse to Alaric. In October 408, Alaric returned to Italy to claim more gold and land to settle in, as feudatory vassals of the Empire, which Stilicho had promised him. The city bought him off with 5,000 lbs of gold and 30,000 lbs of silver after a short siege with Rome on the verge of famine. A palace revolution in Honorius's court led meanwhile to a change of ministers, and those hostile to the Goths were replaced by officers favorable to Alaric, who began peace negotiations. While the embassy was absent, a new change occurred at Ravenna, and Honorius disclaimed the peace which was on the verge of being concluded. The enraged Alaric returned to Rome in late 409 and forced the Senate to elect Priscus Attalus as emperor, who ratified Alaric's former treaty with Stilicho.

Rome had been under Visigothic siege since shortly after Stilicho's deposition and execution in the summer of 408. In 410, the Eastern Roman Empire sent six legions (6,000 men; due to changes in tactics, legions of this period were about 1,000 soldiers, down from the 6,000 soldier legions of the Republic era and Empire period up to late 4th century) from Ravenna to aid Honorius, but Alaric ambushed the legions on the way, and only a handful of them reached Rome. Lacking a strong general to control the by now mostly Germanic Roman army, Honorius could do little to attack Alaric's forces directly, and apparently adopted the only strategy he could in the situation: wait passively for the Visigoths to grow weary and spend the time marshalling what forces he could. This course of action appeared to be the product of Honorius's indecisive character and he suffered much criticism for it both from contemporaries and later historians. To counter Attalus, Honorius tried to negotiate with Alaric in addition to restricting grain shipments to Rome from North Africa. Attalus dispatched an army to conquer Africa and restore the grain supply to Rome, but the governor, Heraclian, who was loyal to Honorius, wiped out this force as soon as it landed on the coast. As Rome was dependent on North African grain for sustenance, the populace was faced with the prospect of famine, and they blamed Attalus for the impending calamity. Growing desperate, Attalus searched for means of pacifying the people, but found himself, in consequence of conciliatory expenditures, incapable of satisfying his debt to Alaric, and thus alienated both Romans and Goths. In turn he came out to be exploited in political terms. Confronted with the increasing unpopularity and truculence of Attalus, Alaric dethroned him in 410 and proposed to renew negotiations with Honorius. Stricken by starvation, somebody opened Rome's defenses to Alaric and the Goths poured in. The city had not been under the control of a foreign force since an invasion of Gauls some eight centuries before. The sack itself was notably mild as sacks go. For example, churches and religious statuary went unharmed. The psychological blow to the contemporary Roman world was considerably more painful. The shock of this event reverberated from Britain to Jerusalem, and inspired Augustine to write his magnum opus, The City of God.

The revolt of Constantine III in the west continued through this period. In 409, Gerontius, Constantine III's general in Hispania, rebelled against him, proclaimed Maximus Emperor, and besieged Constantine at Arles. Honorius now found himself an able commander, Constantius, who defeated Maximus and Gerontius, and then Constantine, in 411. Gaul was again a source of troubles for Honorius: just after Constantius's troops had returned to Italy, Jovinus revolted in northern Gaul, with the support of Alans, Burgundians, and the nobility of Gallic descent. Jovinus tried to negotiate with the invading Goths of Ataulf (412), but his proclamation of his brother Sebastianus as Augustus made Ataulf seek alliance with Honorius. Honorius had Ataulf defeat and execute Jovinus in 413. At the same time, Heraclianus raised the standard of revolt in North Africa, but failed during an invasion of Italy. Defeated, he fled back to Carthage and was killed. Northeastern Gaul became subject to even greater Frankish influence, while a treaty signed in 418 granted to the Visigoths southwestern Gaul, the former Gallia Aquitania. Under the influence of Constantius, Honorius issued the Edict of 418, which was designed to enable the Empire to retain a hold on the lands which were to be surrendered to the Goths. This edict relaxed the administrative bonds that connected all the Seven Provinces (The Maritime Alps, Narbonensis Prima, Narbonensis Secunda, Novempopulania, Aquitania Prima, Aquitania Secunda and Viennensis) with the central government. It removed the imperial governors and allowed the inhabitants, as a dependent federation, to conduct their own affairs, for which purpose representatives of all the towns were to meet every year in Arles. In 417, Constantius married Honorius's sister, Galla Placidia, much against her will. The year 410 also saw Honorius reply to a British plea for assistance against local barbarian incursions, called the Rescript of Honorius. Preoccupied with the Visigoths, Honorius lacked any military capability to assist the distant province. According to the sixth century Byzantine scholar Zosimus, "Honorius wrote letters to the cities in Britain, bidding them to guard themselves." This sentence is located randomly in the middle of a discussion of southern Italy; no further mention of Britain is made, which has led some modern academics to suggest that the rescript does not apply to Britain, but to Bruttium in Italy.

In his History of the Wars, Procopius mentions a likely apocryphal story where, on hearing the news that Rome had "perished", Honorius was initially shocked, thinking the news was in reference to a favourite chicken he had named "Roma". At that time they say that the Emperor Honorius in Ravenna received the message from one of the eunuchs, evidently a keeper of the poultry, that Rome had perished. And he cried out and said, 'And yet it has just eaten from my hands!' For he had a very large cock, Rome by name; and the eunuch comprehending his words said that it was the city of Rome which had perished at the hands of Alaric, and the emperor with a sigh of relief answered quickly: 'But I thought that my fowl Rome had perished.' So great, they say, was the folly with which this emperor was possessed. —Procopius, The Vandalic War (III.2.25–26)While the tale is discounted as a rumour by more recent historians like Edward Gibbon, it is useful in understanding Roman public opinion towards Honorius. Honorius was negatively assessed by some 19th and 20th century historians, including J. B. Bury. Honorius issued a decree during his reign, prohibiting men from wearing trousers in Rome. The last known gladiatorial games took place during the reign of Honorius, who banned the practice in 399 and again in 404, reportedly due to the martyrdom of a Christian monk named Telemachus while he was protesting a gladiator fight.

Doyle, Chris. Honorius: The Fight for the Roman West AD 395 423. Roman Imperial Biographies. Routledge. (2018)
Doyle, Christopher. The Endgame of Treason: Suppressing Rebellion and Usurpation in the Late Roman Empire AD 397‑411. (2014) National University of Ireland Galway. Unpublished doctoral thesis. https://aran. library. nuigalway. ie/handle/10379/4631

Kovács, Tamás. “410: Honorius, His Rooster, and the Eunuch (Procop. Vand. 1.2.25–26).” Graeco Latina Brunensia 25, no. 2 (2020): 131–48. https://doi. org/10.5817/GLB2020 2 10. Mathisen, Ralph, "Honorius (395–423 A. D.)", De Imperatoribus Romanis
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