Theodosius in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities
Surnamed The Great, Roman emperor of the East, A.D. 378-395.
He was the son of the general Theodosius who restored
Britain to the Empire, and was beheaded at Carthage in the
reign of Valens (A.D. 376). The future emperor was born in
Spain about A.D. 346. He received a good education; and he
learned the art of war under his own father, whom he
accompanied in his British campaigns. During his father's
lifetime he was raised to the rank of Duke (dux) of Moesia,
where he defeated the Sarmatians (374 A.D.) and saved the
province. On the death of his father he retired before court
intrigues to his native country. He acquired a considerable
military reputation in the lifetime of his father; and after
the death of Valens, who fell in battle against the Goths,
he was proclaimed emperor of the East by Gratian, who felt
himself unable to sustain the burden of the Empire. The
Roman Empire in the East was then in a critical position;
for the Romans were disheartened by the bloody defeat which
they had sustained, and the Goths were insolent in their
victory. Theodosius, however, showed himself equal to the
difficult position in which he was placed; he gained two
signal victories over the Goths, and concluded a peace with
the barbarians in 382.
In the following year (383 A.D.) Maximus assumed the
imperial purple in Britain, and invaded Gaul with a powerful
army. In the war which followed Gratian was slain; and
Theodosius, who did not consider it prudent to enter into a
contest with Maximus, acknowledged the latter emperor of the
countries of Spain, Gaul, and Britain, but he secured to
Valentinian, the brother of Gratian, Italy, Africa, and
western Illyricum. But when Maximus expelled Valentinian
from Italy in 387, Theodosius espoused the cause of the
latter, and marched into the West at the head of a powerful
army. After defeating Maximus in Pannonia, Theodosius
pursued him across the Alps to Aquileia. Here Maximus was
surrendered by his own soldiers to Theodosius and was put to
death. Theodosius spent the winter at Milan, and in the
following year (389 A.D.) he entered Rome in triumph,
accompanied by Valentinian and his own son Honorius. Two
events in the life of Theodosius about this time may be
mentioned as evidence of his uncertain character and his
savage temper. In 387 a riot took place at Antioch, in which
the statues of the emperor, of his father, and of his wife
were thrown down; but these idle demonstrations were quickly
suppressed by an armed force. When Theodosius heard of these
riots, he degraded Antioch from the rank of a city, stripped
it of its possessions and privileges, and reduced it to the
condition of a village dependent on Laodicea. But in
consequence of the intercession of Antioch and the Senate of
Constantinople, he pardoned the city, and all who had taken
part in the riot. The other event is an eternal brand of
infamy on the name of Theodosius. In 390, while the emperor
was at Milan, a serious riot broke out at Thessalonica, in
which the imperial officer and several of his troops were
murdered. Theodosius resolved to take the most signal
vengeance upon the whole city. An army of barbarians was
sent to Thessalonica; the people were invited to the games
of the Circus; and as soon as the place was full, the
soldiers received the signal for massacre. For three hours
the spectators were indiscriminately exposed to the fury of
the soldiers, and 7000 of them, or, as some accounts say,
more than twice that number, paid the penalty of the
insurrection. St. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, represented
to Theodosius his crime in a letter, and told him that
penitence alone could efface his guilt. Accordingly, when
the emperor proceeded to perform his devotions in the usual
manner in the great church of Milan, the archbishop stopped
him at the door, and demanded an acknowledgment of his
guilt. The conscience-struck Theodosius humbled himself
before the church, which has recorded his penance as one of
its greatest victories. He laid aside the insignia of
imperial power; in the posture of a suppliant in the church
of Milan he asked pardon for his great sin before all the
congregation; and, after eight months, the emperor was
restored to communion with the Church.
Theodosius spent three years in Italy, during which he
established Valentinian II. on the throne of the West. He
returned to Constantinople towards the latter end of 391.
Valentinian was slain in 392 by Arbogastes, who raised
Eugenius to the Empire of the West. This involved Theodosius
in a new war; but it ended in the defeat and death both of
Eugenius and Arbogastes in 394. Theodosius died at Milan,
four months after the defeat of Eugenius, on the 17th of
January, 395. His two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, had
already been elevated to the rank of Augusti, and it was
arranged that the Empire should be divided between them,
Arcadius having the East, and Honorius the West. Theodosius
was a firm Catholic, and a fierce opponent and persecutor of
the Arians and all heretics. It was in his reign also that
the formal destruction of paganism took place; and we still
possess a large number of the laws of Theodosius,
prohibiting the exercise of the pagan religion, and
forbidding the heathen worship under severe penalties, in
some cases extending to death.
Link: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0062:alphabetic+letter%3DT:entry+group%3D6:entry%3Dtheodosius-harpers