Eugenius Murders Valentinian the Younger, and Theodosius Defeats Him

In the Western regions there was a grammarian named Eugenius who, after teaching the Latin language for some time, left his school and entered service at the palace, where he was made chief secretary to the emperor. He was a man of considerable eloquence, and because of this he was treated with more distinction than others. But he could not bear his good fortune with moderation. He took as his partner Arbogast, a native of Galatia Minor, who then commanded a division of the army, a man harsh in manner and very bloodthirsty, and he resolved to seize the throne. So the two of them agreed to murder the emperor Valentinian, and they corrupted the eunuchs of the imperial bedchamber. These men, tempted by promises of promotion, strangled the emperor in his sleep. Eugenius at once took supreme power in the Western parts of the empire and behaved as one might expect a usurper to behave. [a]

When the emperor Theodosius learned of these things, he was deeply distressed, because his defeat of Maximus had only opened the way for fresh troubles. He therefore gathered his forces. On the tenth of January, in his own third consulship, which he held with Abundantius, he proclaimed his son Honorius Augustus. Then he again set out in great haste for the West, leaving both his sons at Constantinople invested with imperial authority. As he marched against Eugenius, a very great number of the barbarians from beyond the Danube offered their services and followed him on this campaign. After a rapid march he arrived in the provinces of Gaul with a large army, and there Eugenius was waiting for him, also at the head of an immense body of troops.

So a battle was fought near the river Frigidus, about thirty-six miles from Aquileia. Where the Romans fought against their own countrymen, the outcome was in doubt; but where the emperor Theodosius’s barbarian auxiliaries were engaged, the forces of Eugenius had much the better of it. When the emperor saw the barbarians dying, he threw himself on the ground in great anguish and called on God for help in this crisis. Nor was his request ignored. Bacurius, his chief officer, was filled with a sudden and extraordinary courage. He rushed with his vanguard to the place where the barbarians were hardest pressed, broke through the enemy’s ranks, and put to flight those who a little before had themselves been pursuing. Another marvelous thing also happened. A violent wind suddenly arose, which turned back on themselves the javelins thrown by the soldiers of Eugenius, and at the same time drove those hurled by the imperial forces against their enemies with greater force. So powerful was the emperor’s prayer.

When the struggle had turned in this way, the usurper threw himself at the emperor’s feet and begged for his life. But as he lay there at the emperor’s feet, a prostrate suppliant, he was beheaded by the soldiers, on the sixth of September, in the third consulship of Arcadius and the second of Honorius. Arbogast, who had been the chief cause of so much harm, fled for two days after the battle, and seeing no chance of escape, killed himself with his own sword.