With Empire and Faith at Stake Theodosius Fought at Frigidus
Emperor Theodosius from a mosaic.
IN 380, Emperor Theodosius the Great decreed that everyone in the Roman Empire must be a catholic Christian—as opposed to the Arian teaching that Christ was the highest created being, not a full-fledged member of the Trinity. As the first emperor raised from infancy in a Christian home, Theodosius was zealous for the faith of his childhood. For the first time, the legal code coerced people to become Christians. It infuriated pagans, Arians, and Jews alike.
Following the violent death of Theodosius’s co-emperor Valentinian II in 392, army commander Arbogast aligned himself with the disaffected pagans and placed a man named Eugenius on the imperial throne in the west. Meanwhile, Theodosius appointed his own son Honorius to the same position. Diplomacy failed to resolve the impasse. Theodosius prepared for war.
In 394, he marched to confront Arbogast. The rivals met at the foot of the Alps near an icy river known as Frigidus. Hoping to restore the glories of pagan Rome, the pagans erected statues of Jupiter and sewed the insignia of Hercules onto their clothes. If Theodosius had been defeated at Frigidus, it would have lent new life to paganism.
The armies engaged in battle on this day, 5 September 394. As the fighting went Arbogast’s way, Theodosius considered retreat. Instead, he prayed that night while Arbogast and his troops celebrated the day’s victory. In the darkness, some detachments sent by Arbogast to seize the passes behind Theodosius switched sides. Cheered by this development, Theodosius renewed the fight in the morning. Before he could engage the enemy, however, a furious wind roared down the valley from the east, right into the faces of Arbogast and his army. Such winds in that valley even today can gust up to 125 miles per hour.
Ambrose, bishop of Milan, wrote of the wind: “It tore the shields from the hands of the faithless and flung every spear and missile they cast back into the army of the sinner. Brought low by their own weapons, they gave ground to the attacking winds even before their adversaries reached them. Yet these wounds to their bodies were no more severe than those to their spirits, for they lost heart when they found that God was fighting against them.”
With the wind to his back, Theodosius easily smashed his foes. His soldiers captured and beheaded Eugenius. Arbogast fled into the mountains where he committed suicide. Theodosius made Honorius junior emperor over the western empire. It was the last time the Roman Empire was united under one authority.
Four months later, Theodosius died. In addition to defending orthodox Christianity, he had done much to ease economic hardship by lifting price controls on wheat. He also established standard weights and measures. While he was later often remembered for ordering the slaughter of seven thousand citizens of Thessalonica after they rioted against him, usually he was a merciful ruler who struggled hard to tame his hot temper.
—Dan Graves
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Read a selection from an edict by Theodosius in our daily quotes, "Imperial Edict Decrees Catholic Christianity" and read a guest post Theodosius I: Zealous for a Christian Empire