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Early Life and Reign Theodosius II was born to the eastern emperor Arcadius and the empressAelia Eudoxia in April of 401. As Eudoxia had produced three girlsprior to this time, Theodosius' birth was received with considerableexcitement, both by his family and by the broader population ofConstantinople. He was baptized and crowned Augustus in January of thefollowing year to enthusiastic crowds.[[1]] Unlike his father, aboutwhose early life we know practically nothing, Theodosius' youth iswell-attested and it was spent preparing him for his future imperialduties. From what we can tell of his education, the young emperor wasnot trained to be the passive figurehead his father largely was. He began, as did most upper class youths, in the cursus of classicaleducation, with grammarians and later rhetoricians. He was apparentlybilingual and showed a thirst for learning. The young emperorparticularly enjoyed editing and correcting manuscripts. As he grewolder and succeeded his father as sole ruler of the east in 408,Theodosius was instructed in the more martial skills of horsemanship,swordplay and perhaps other military arts as well. His eldest sister,Pulcheria, who would gain great importance after the end of Anthemius'career, oversaw his moral education: orthodoxy, philanthropy andasceticism were all part of the curriculum. Pulcheria also taughtTheodosius the subtleties of being emperor: how to physically comportoneself, how to control emotion, and how to deal with ministers andaides. Given his sister's piety, it is probable that the young man wasalso kept isolated from women. Theodosius' education, in sum, wastraining for an active, involved Christian emperor.[[2]] But like his father before him and his uncle Honorius in the west,Theodosius' youth at accession meant that he would be unable to evereffectively assert himself later in his reign. The Persian King,Isdigerdes, had briefly inserted himself into Roman affairs bythreatening war if any but Theodosius succeeded his father, a planapparently devised by Arcadius. The young Augustus was quicklyaccepted, but the Praetorian Prefect, Anthemius, continued to dominatepolitical affairs as he had in the last years of Arcadius' reign.[[3]]In part due to the acceptance of Isdigerdes' role as guardian, Romeand Persia remained at peace until the Great King's death in 421. Anthemius meanwhile continued his work at mending fences with thewest. When the western generalissimo, Stilicho, was assassinated,relations between the two halves of the empire improved considerably.Honorius and Theodosius shared the consulship in 409 andConstantinople even sent 4,000 troops to help guard Ravenna andHonorius against the Visigoths.[[4]] While this gesture provedfruitless, the east and west now worked more closely than they hadsince the death of Theodosius I. Anthemius also set about making Constantinople more defensible. In413, he completed a circuit wall that enclosed most of the city andestablished a crucial water supply. Events since the 370s had provedthe hinterlands unsafe: Illyricum, Thrace and other Balkan provinceshad been repeatedly overrun by Germanic and Hunnic peoples. Indeed, asrecently as 408, the city had been threatened by a group of Huns underthe leadership of Uldin. He had been defeated, but the memory of thatand other raids spurred Anthemius' building projects.[[5]] After 414, however, Anthemius fell off the political map and we canassume that he died. It is possible, however, that Theodosiusdismissed the Prefect. If that is the case, it perhaps indicates thedegree to which new powers at court now gained influence over theemperor. The young man increasingly came under the control ofPulcheria, who began to insert herself into public life.[[6]] Whateverthe reason, by mid-414, the young woman had risen to dominate thestill underaged emperor. The Regency of Pulcheria Edward Gibbon once wrote of Pulcheria: "she alone, among all thedescendants of the great Theodosius (I), appears to have inherited anyshare of his manly spirit and abilities."[[7]] Even before she tookfull control of her younger brother, she had shown herself a powerfulforce: in 412, at the age of 15, she had convinced Theodosius todismiss the chamberlain (praepositus), Antiochus, who had beenoverseeing the imperial household since the days of Arcadius. In thefollowing year, Pulcheria had consecrated herself to perpetualvirginity and likewise exhorted her two sisters to do the same. It wasa vow she would not break, even when she married the emperor, Marcian,thirty-seven years later. More immediately, however, it gave herenormous moral authority to oversee the upbringing and education ofthe young emperor. No sooner had Anthemius disappeared than Pulcheria completed herascendancy by having herself made Augusta in July of 414. She may havegotten help from Aurelian, who was named Praetorian Prefect of theeast shortly thereafter. [[8]] With or without his help, the youngwoman's bid was successful. So that there be no question of herauthority, an official portrait in Constantinople was dedicated in thefollowing year, depicting Honorius, Theodosius II and Pulcheria. Andby denying her capacity for childbirth, she offered a new conceptionof female power in the public sphere, based on sanctity and the cultof the imperial mystique.[[9]] Her authority manifested itself in a strongly pro-orthodoxadministration. Pulcheria, in her adolescent brother's name, passedlaws against Jews, pagans and heretics. For the first time, paganswere officially banned from holding public office and serving in themilitary.[[10]] This would set an important precedent in the followingcentury for ostracizing other undesirables. Her movements against Jewsand their religion were particularly onerous: one early constitutionordered an end to the building of synagogues and the destruction ofexisting ones in places where there would be little or noresistance.[[11]] It was also under Pulcheria's stewardship that themurder of the popular pagan philosopher, Hypatia, occurred inAlexandria at the hands of Christians, encouraged, no less, by thearchbishop, Cyril. Her order was brutal and barbaric, but the imperialcourt let it go unpunished. To what degree this decision representedTheodosius' acceptance is difficult to establish, but clearly he didnot strenuously object to this pro-active policy of assertingChristianity as the proper belief of the empire. Apart from educating Theodosius in the arts of statecraft and heavilyimbuing him with Christian morals, Pulcheria made it her business tofind her younger brother an appropriate spouse. Such arrangementswould have normally been carried out by a mother or father, but sincethey were both deceased, the job fell to the eldest sibling.Traditionally, Pulcheria was thought to have picked an appropriatewife for her younger brother. The chosen girl, Athenaïs, was young,intelligent, and well-educated by her philosopher father. She herselfwas a poet of some repute. Although poor, Athenaïs converted toChristianity, took the name Aelia Eudocia, and married the youngemperor in June of 421.[[12]] Recent scholarship has suggested,however, that Eudocia was less the choice of Pulcheria than she wasthe candidate of many of the disenfranchised aristocrats of theeastern empire.[[13]] Indeed, the two women's subsequent disagreementsand Eudocia's eventual disgrace implied that there was considerablecompetition for prestige and authority. Pulcheria's most visible influence on state policy came during theecumenical council held at Ephesus in the summer of 431. Trying tosettle once and for all christological issues surrounding God'snature, the council condemned the Nestorian controversy, which hadpresumed that Christ had two separate persons -- one human, one divine-- in his incarnation. Pulcheria engineered opposition againstNestorius (who was the patriarch of Constantinople at the time), notso much because of his objection to the Nicene creed, but because ofhis rejection of the increasingly important Mother of God (Theotokos)movement. Nicaea was upheld, Nestorius was deposed and exiled, andNestorianism was declared heresy. Pulcheria had used Cyril ofAlexandria and other bishops to gain control of the religious debatein the capital and the eastern Empire. In other areas of government, Pulcheria's hand rested more lightly.Military affairs and administrative changes were for the most partleft to the experts. Helion, for example, was made Master of Offices(magister officiorum) and held the post for thirteen years.Nevertheless, even after the emperor's majority, the Augusta'spresence was always felt: we know little of Helion's magistracy otherthan he seems to have been a competent minister. Nor did her power ebbafter her brother's death: it was Pulcheria, after all, who lentlegitimacy through marriage to Theodosius' successor, Marcian. The only real threat to her dominance over Theodosius came in theperson of the emperor's wife. Aelia Eudocia had at first tried tobuild a faction of loyal officials around her, including her uncleAsclepiodotus, and sought to pursue more moderate religiouspolicies.[[14]] She also apparently bore the emperor three children,although only Licinia Eudoxia survived.[[15]] But such power provedtransitory and slowly Pulcheria came back to the fore with herpersecution of the Nestorians. The marriage of Licinia to ValentinianIII in 437 only reinforced the struggle: Pulcheria gained by virtue ofher own Theodosian blood, but Eudocia also gained as mother of thebride. In the late 430s, the two struggled directly for dominance over theemperor's favor. As with Pulcheria's rise to power, the augustae chosethe religious sphere to assert their control. The emperor's sisteroversaw the return of John Chrysostom's relics to Constantinople andlobbied for the passage of new strict anti-pagan and anti-Jewishlegislation.[[16]] As a means of reasserting her own standing, Eudociawent to the Holy Land on pilgrimage with the famous ascetic, Melaniathe Younger, and returned in 439 with important relics and enormousprestige. With the help of the sword-bearer (spatharius), Chrysaphius,she sought to have Pulcheria removed from court. While this plot hadsome limited success, the eunuch soon turned on Eudocia and engineeredher fall through rumors of adultery. Theodosius' wife once again leftthe capital, this time permanently. In the late 440s, she eventuallytook up the monophysitic cause.[[17]] Thus, Pulcheria may have won thestruggle, bust she had lost the prize: Theodosius was no longer underher influence. Foreign Relations Theodosius' foreign policies centered around three axes: relationswith the Persians, the encroachment of the Hun confederation under Ruaand later Attila, and the precarious balance of power in theMediterranean. In all three areas, the emperor and his ministersshowed themselves to be occasionally adept, but for the most partunable to deal effectively with the rapid changes occurring aroundthem. Persian relations were good for the first years of Theodosius' reign.Isdigerdes' sponsorship of the emperor at his accession and hisapparently moderate attitudes towards Christianity assured amicabilitybetween the two empires until the Great King's death in 421.[[18]] Butwith his death and the accession of his son, Vararanes V, hostilitiesbroke out again. The new king allegedly began a persecution ofChristians, and some Roman citizens were harassed. The king embarkedupon a campaign against Rome's eastern territories, but was veryquickly defeated by several able generals, including one Germanicofficer, Ardabur. Having been defeated on all fronts, the Persians andRome signed the One-Hundred-Year Peace, which was supposed torecognize each nation's borders and keep them largelydemilitarized.[[19]] Despite several infractions of that peace,including one in 440-441 with the accession of Isdigerdes II, thetreaty remained largely unviolated for the rest of the fifth century.Not until 502 did a major confrontation between Rome and Persia eruptinto war. Of much greater concern were the steppe-dwellers of central Asia, theHuns. As nomadic horsemen, they rarely recognized central authorityand thus had not represented a concerted threat to Rome's security.But under Rua, who successfully united the smaller tribes under hisrule, they were able to directly affect the overall state of theEmpire. Early in Theodosius' reign, a large contingency of Huns underUldin had attacked Thrace. Although defeated, this first major sojourninto imperial territory presaged things to come. Despite repeatedattempts to fortify the Balkan hinterlands against incursions offoreign invaders, the court at Constantinople found it politicallyexpedient to deal with Hun aggression more directly; thus sometime inthe mid-420s, the first annual indemnity, amounting to 350 pounds ofgold, was paid to Rua. Shortly thereafter, Rua died and was replaced by his even more ablenephew, Attila (and Attila's brother, Bleda), who immediately demandedthe doubling of the annual tribute to 700 pounds of gold and forcedTheodosius' government to sign a treaty that was highly advantageousto the Huns. In 441, while Theodosius was engaged in campaigns againstthe Persians and the Vandals in the west, Attila made new demands onthe government. When they were refused, the king plundered and sackedcities along the Danube. The Roman army was defeated and in 443, aneven more humiliating treaty and tribute was forced upon the court.Now the annual tribute stood at 2,100 pounds of gold, with anadditional punitive payment of 6,000 pounds due immediately. In 448,the demands were again raised and met by the Empire. By the time ofTheodosius' death, the eastern empire's resources were nearexhaustion. For fifteen years, then, Constantinople had been forced into a policyof accommodation. Many in the government had been responsible foraccepting the extortion, although many more opposed any payments atall. In 449, Chrysaphius -- now chamberlain (praepositus) and ineffective control of the eastern empire -- plotted Attila'smurder.[[20]] Although it failed and created even greater attempts toplease the Huns, it represented the first serious attempt to opposeHunnic hegemony. Since the eunuch had probably been one of the mainarchitects of appeasement, his plot no doubt signified the degree ofdesperation felt in the empire. Despite these threats from the east, however, western affairsdominated Theodosius' foreign policy. Strong ties remained betweenTheodosius and his uncle, Honorius, and later his cousin, ValentinianIII. When Honorius died in 423 and a pretender, Ioannes, tried toassume the purple in Ravenna, Theodosius sent a force under Ardabur toforce recognition of his cousin, Valentinian. Galla Placidia's regencyfor the six-year-old emperor assured Theodosian legitimacy. Theodosiuseven recognized posthumously Constantius III (Galla Placidia'shusband) as Augustus. The two emperors would eventually share fourconsulships together. Nor was the east's support strictly symbolic. On two occasions,Theodosius sent large forces to aid the west against Vandalincursions. The first was an army in 431, led by Ardabur's son, Aspar,in an attempt to stop King Gaeseric's advance into the Africanprovinces. Along with the count of Africa, Boniface, Roman forces werebadly beaten and retreated to Carthage. The defeat emboldened theVandals to take most of the rest of North Africa by 439. Gaeseric's successes led to attacks on Sicily and the Italian coast.They laid siege to Palermo and may have taken Lilybaeum.[[21]]Theodosius once again sent a large naval force against the Vandals in441, with several initial successes. But perhaps through Gaeseric'sdiplomacy, the Persians chose at this time to attack Rome's easternborders. Attila, too, saw the opportunity for aggression. Theodosiuswas forced to conclude a hasty treaty in 442. The agreement recognizedthe Vandals' holdings as a separate, independent kingdom in formerlyRoman territory. This was symbolically a significant event: beforethis time, Germanic peoples had accepted settlement in Roman territoryas official allies (foederati) of the empire. The treaty made manifestto all that Rome was no longer master of its own domain. In all these dealings, Theodosius and his ministers did the best theycould to deal with a series of crises happening throughout Europe andwestern Asia. The eastern half of the Roman Empire was able to weatherthem, the west was not. In sum, to survive, the government inConstantinople was forced to redefine its place in the world. Legal and Administrative Programs It was during the reign of Theodosius that the first great pandect ofRoman law was published, with direct participation from the emperorhimself. In the age since Diocletian, when the last comprehensive lawcode had been issued, a large number of general constitutions had beenpublished by both eastern and western emperors. Many were no longersalient to modern-day concerns, and many more were unworkable orcontradictory. There was an additional problem of harmonizing the lawcodes of the east and the west, and creating a process by which eachhalf of the empire could recognize one another's laws. In March of 429, Theodosius set up a commission to take all existinglaws from the late third century onward and arrange them in such a wayas to present a completely new and current code of jurisprudence.Theodosius seemed less interested in getting rid of potentialconflicts than he was in providing completeness and creating a trulycomprehensive law.[[22]] After six years, an initial edition wascompleted in 435, but was not published. A new commission wasappointed, headed by a lawyer from Antioch, Antiochus Chuzon, toimprove the language and create a system by which the code could befurther emended and enlarged. In February of 438, the CodexTheodosianus was published and presented to the Senates in Rome andConstantinople, which both received the work with apparent enthusiasm.Consistent with his desire to make the code an expandable document,Theodosius himself issued several supplementary laws (novellae). The code had enormous influence, both in itself and in future legalhistory. It proved to be the basis for the emperor Justinian's muchmore ambitious judicial reforms in the following century. TheVisigothic king, Alaric II, also incorporated large parts ofTheodosius' work into the Lex Romana Visigothorum in 507. The code isprobably the only major accomplishment during Theodosiusí reign thatcan be directly attributed to his influence. The emperor's administrative reforms were also aggressive, althoughtheir results were mixed. In the 420s and 430s the emperor and hisministers, perhaps because of fiscal pressures, enacted fiscalpolicies that attempted to bring more revenue into the imperialcoffers. One such policy was a much more forceful collection of rentson imperial lands granted to lessees, another discontinued theextensive tax exemptions held on large tracts of land, and stillanother attempted levy wealthy taxpayers in gold coin.[[23]] In thelast case, the levies were in direct response to the increasingmonetary demands of the Huns. The emperor also tried to cut down onthe sale of offices, which was a ubiquitous problem at all levels ofgovernment.[[24]] Subsequent legislation of the same sort in thefollowing centuries suggests that such measures were not altogethersuccessful. These fiscal policies went hand-in-hand with Theodosius' legal work.Theodosius moved towards greater administrative control by reservingthe issuance of grant deeds of imperial lands to the very highest ofoffices.[[25]] Such moves were part of a broader centralization ofauthority in the eastern Rome and helped create the apparatus of theByzantine state. Final Years and Assessment On July 28, 450, Theodosius II fell from his horse in an accident anddied shortly thereafter. On his deathbed, he purportedly named Marcianas his successor.[[26]] Whether or not this was the case, Marcian wascrowned emperor less than a month later in the hippodrome. The emperor's death could not have come at a more confusing time.Since the emperor had produced no male issue, there was no clear heirto the throne. From his immediate family, only his sister, Pulcheria,survived in the eastern Empire. Moreover, following the attemptedassassination of Attila, both Romans and Huns were deeply suspiciousof one another. The past twenty years of Hun extortion had alsodrained the imperial treasury. In the west, despite strong support forValentinian, Theodosius was unable to keep the Vandals fromconsolidating their gains in the Mediterranean. Gaeseric was willingand able to take up further wars when opportunity presented. Finally, the religious victories of orthodox Christians weretemporarily thrown into disarray by Theodosius II himself. Calling ageneral council at Ephesus in 449, usually called the Robber Councilor Latrocinium, it favored the christological stance of Eutyches andhis supporters. He argued the monophysitic position that Christ hadonly one nature and it was divine. Matters were made worse by thedeposition and subsequent death of Constantinople's patriarch,Flavian. The decision to support his beliefs caused widespread dissentin Constantinople, insulted and alienated the west in the person ofPope Leo I, and represented the first major split between eastern andwestern Christendom. In the end, Theodosius II had a small enough legacy given the lengthof his reign aside from his legal initiatives. His studied and visiblepiety would become a model for future emperors, and his Theodosianblood kept civil wars practically non-existent. For that, the eastenjoyed considerable internal stability. But his reign also marked theclear shrinking of Rome's empire and its influence. Future emperorswere forced to deal with a western empire politically disintegratingand a Mediterranean that was no longer mare nostrum ("our sea"). Muchof the following fifty years helped to create the empire of Byzantium.Theodosius II's quiescence helped in no small part.
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