The Revolt of Gainas the Goth

I will now tell of some remarkable things that happened at that time, in which it will be seen how divine providence stepped in by extraordinary means to save the city and the Roman empire from the gravest danger. Gainas was a barbarian by birth. But he became a Roman subject, entered military service, rose step by step from one rank to the next, and was at last appointed commander in chief of both the Roman cavalry and infantry. When he had reached this lofty position, he forgot his place and his obligations and could not restrain himself. On the contrary, as the common saying goes, he “left no stone unturned” to gain control of the Roman government. To do this he brought the Goths from their own country and gave the chief commands in the army to his relatives. Then Tribigild, one of his kinsmen, who commanded the forces in Phrygia, broke out in open revolt at Gainas’s urging and was filling the people of Phrygia with confusion and terror. Gainas managed to have the oversight of affairs in the troubled province handed to himself, and the emperor Arcadius, suspecting no harm, entrusted the matter to him. [a]

So Gainas set out at once at the head of an immense number of barbarian Goths, apparently on an expedition against Tribigild, but really intending to set up his own unjust rule. When he reached Phrygia he began to overturn everything. At once the Romans’ affairs were thrown into great alarm, not only because of the huge barbarian force Gainas had under his command, but also because the most fertile and wealthy regions of the East were threatened with ruin. In this emergency the emperor acted very prudently and tried to check the barbarian’s course by diplomacy. He sent him an embassy with instructions to calm him for the present by making every kind of concession. Gainas demanded that Saturninus and Aurelian be handed over to him. They were two of the most distinguished members of the senate, men of consular rank, whom he knew to be opposed to his ambitions. The emperor very unwillingly gave way to the needs of the crisis, and these two men, ready to die for the public good, nobly put themselves at the emperor’s disposal. So they went to meet the barbarian at a racecourse some distance from Chalcedon, resolved to endure whatever he might choose to inflict. But in fact they suffered no harm.

The usurper, pretending to be dissatisfied, advanced to Chalcedon, and the emperor Arcadius also went there to meet him. They both entered the church where the body of the martyr Euphemia lies, and there they bound themselves to each other by oath that neither would plot against the other. The emperor kept his promise, because he held an oath sacred, and for that reason he was loved by God. But Gainas soon broke it and did not turn from his original purpose. On the contrary, he was set on slaughter, plunder, and burning, not only against Constantinople but against the whole extent of the Roman empire, if by any means he could carry it out. The city was flooded with barbarians, and its inhabitants were reduced to a condition no different from that of captives. So great was the danger to the city that a comet of enormous size, reaching from heaven right down to the earth, such as had never been seen before, gave warning of it.

First Gainas most shamelessly tried to seize the silver displayed for sale in the shops. But the owners, warned beforehand by the rumor of his intention, stopped putting it out on their counters. So his thoughts turned to another plan: to send a huge body of barbarians by night to burn down the palace. Then it was plainly seen that God was watching over the city in his providence. For a multitude of angels appeared to the rebels in the form of armed men of gigantic size. The barbarians, imagining them to be a large army of brave troops, turned back in terror and left. When this was reported to Gainas, it seemed to him quite unbelievable, for he knew that the greater part of the Roman army was far away, spread out as garrisons in the cities of the East. So he sent others the next night, and again and again afterward. And since they always came back with the same report, because the angels of God always appeared in the same form, he came with a great crowd and at last saw the wonder for himself. Then, supposing that what he saw was really a body of soldiers who hid by day and foiled his plans by night, he gave up the attempt. He adopted another plan, which he thought would harm the Romans; but the outcome proved it to be greatly to their advantage.

Pretending to be possessed by a demon, he went out, as if to pray, to the church of Saint John the Apostle, seven miles from the city. With him went barbarians who carried weapons out of the city, hidden in casks and other innocent-looking coverings. When the soldiers guarding the city gates discovered them and would not let them pass, the barbarians drew their swords and killed them. A terrible uproar arose in the city, and death seemed to threaten everyone. Yet the city stayed safe at that time, because its gates were well defended everywhere. The emperor, with timely wisdom, declared Gainas a public enemy and ordered that all the barbarians still shut up in the city should be killed. So one day after the gate guards had been killed, the Romans attacked the barbarians inside the walls near the church of the Goths, for those of them who had been left in the city had taken refuge there. After killing a great number of them, they set the church on fire and burned it to the ground.

When Gainas heard of the slaughter of those of his party who had not managed to get out of the city, and saw that all his schemes had failed, he left Saint John’s church and marched quickly toward Thrace. When he reached the Chersonese, he tried to cross over from there and take Lampsacus, so that from there he might make himself master of the eastern regions. The emperor had at once sent forces in pursuit by land and by sea, and now another wonderful act of divine providence took place. The barbarians, who had no ships, hastily put rafts together and were trying to cross on them, when suddenly the Roman fleet appeared, and the west wind began to blow hard. This gave the Romans an easy passage. But the barbarians and their horses, tossed up and down on their flimsy craft by the force of the gale, were at last swallowed by the waves, and many of them were also killed by the Romans. In this way a vast number of the barbarians perished during the crossing. Gainas fled from there into Thrace, where he ran into another body of Roman troops and was killed by them, together with the barbarians who were with him. Let this brief account of Gainas be enough here.

Those who want fuller details of the events of that war should read the Gainea of Eusebius Scholasticus. He was at that time a pupil of Troilus the sophist, and having watched the war himself, he told its events in a heroic poem of four books. Because the events it describes had happened so recently, he won great fame for himself. The poet Ammonius has also very recently composed another account of the same events in verse, which he recited before the emperor in the sixteenth consulship of Theodosius the Younger, which he held with Faustus. [c]

This war was ended in the consulship of Stilicho and Aurelian. The following year the consulship was held by Fravitta, who was also a Goth by birth. He was honored by the Romans and showed them great loyalty and devotion, rendering important services in this very war, and for this reason he rose to the rank of consul. In that year, on the tenth of April, a son was born to the emperor Arcadius: the good Theodosius. [d]

But while the affairs of the state were troubled in this way, the leaders of the church did not hold back in the least from their shameful intrigues against one another, to the great disgrace of the Christian religion. For during this time the clergy stirred up riots against one another. The trouble started in Egypt, in the following way.