The Revolt of Gainas

A barbarian named Gainas, who had taken refuge among the Romans and risen from the lowest ranks of the army to military command, made a plan to seize the throne of the Roman Empire. With this in view he sent for his own countrymen, the Goths, to leave their homes and come into Roman territory, and he made his relatives tribunes and commanders of a thousand. Tribigild, a relative of his who commanded a large body of troops in Phrygia, started a revolt, and every person of judgment could see that the way was being prepared. On the pretext that he resented the plundering of many Phrygian cities that had been placed under his care, Gainas set out to help them. But when he arrived and a host of barbarians had been armed for war, he revealed the plan he had kept hidden till then. He plundered the cities he had been ordered to guard and was about to attack others. Then he went on into Bithynia, camped on the borders of Chalcedon, and threatened war. The cities of the East of Asia, and all those lying between these regions and around the Black Sea, were now in danger. So the emperor and his advisers judged that it would not be safe to risk anything without preparation against men who were already desperate. The emperor declared that he was ready to favor Gainas in every point, and sent to offer him whatever he might ask. [a]

Gainas demanded that two consuls named Saturninus and Aurelian, whom he suspected of being hostile to him, be handed over to him, and when they were in his power he pardoned them. Afterward he met the emperor near Chalcedon in the house of prayer where the tomb of Euphemia the martyr lies. When he and the emperor had bound themselves to each other by oaths of friendship, he laid down his arms and went to Constantinople, where an imperial edict made him general of both the infantry and the cavalry. Such success, far beyond what he deserved, was more than he could bear with moderation. Since he had succeeded so wonderfully in his first venture, against all expectation, he set out to undermine the peace of the catholic church. He was a Christian and, like the rest of the barbarians, had taken up the Arian heresy. Urged either by the leaders of that party or by his own ambition, he asked the emperor to put one of the churches of the city in the hands of the Arians. He argued that it was neither just nor fitting that he, a general of the Roman troops, should have to go outside the city walls whenever he wanted to pray. [c]

John did not sit idle when he learned of this. He gathered all the bishops then staying in the city and went with them to the palace. There he spoke at great length before the emperor and Gainas. He reproached Gainas as a foreigner and a fugitive, and reminded him that his life had been saved by the emperor’s father, to whom he had sworn loyalty, as well as to his children, to the Romans, and to the laws he was now trying to make powerless. After this speech he showed the law Theodosius had made forbidding those who did not hold the right faith to have a church within the walls. Then, turning to the emperor, John urged him to uphold the laws that had been made against heretics, and told him it would be better to lose the empire than to be guilty of impiety by betraying the house of God. So John spoke out boldly like a man, and gave no room to innovation in the churches under his care.

Gainas, however, disregarded his oaths and attacked the city. His attempt was announced beforehand by a comet that appeared directly over the city. This comet was of extraordinary size, larger, it is said, than any seen before, and it reached almost down to the earth itself. Gainas meant first to seize the stores of the bankers, hoping to gather up their enormous wealth. But word of his plan had spread, so the bankers hid their ready money and no longer set out silver on their tables in public as they usually did. Gainas then sent some of the barbarians by night to set fire to the palace. But they were not up to the task and were overcome with fear, so they turned back. For when they came near the building they imagined they saw a multitude of heavily armed men of huge size, and they went back to tell Gainas that fresh troops had just arrived. Gainas did not believe their report, for he was sure no troops had entered the city. But when others he sent to the palace for the same purpose the following night came back with the same report, he went out himself to see the extraordinary sight with his own eyes.

Imagining that the army before him was made up of soldiers withdrawn from other cities, who guarded the city and palace by night and hid by day, Gainas pretended to be possessed by a demon. On the pretext of going to pray, he went to the church the emperor’s father had built in honor of John the Baptist at the Hebdomon. Some of the barbarians stayed in Constantinople and others went with Gainas. They secretly carried weapons, and jars full of darts, in the women’s carriages. When they were found out, they killed the guards at the gates who tried to stop the weapons from being carried out. At this the city was filled with as much confusion and uproar as if it had suddenly been captured. A good decision ruled that terrible moment. The emperor at once declared Gainas a public enemy and ordered all the barbarians left in the city to be killed. As soon as the order was given, the soldiers fell on the barbarians and killed most of them. Then they set fire to the church called after the Goths, for the barbarians had gathered there, as was their custom, in the house of prayer, since the gates were shut and they had no other refuge.

When Gainas heard of this disaster, he passed through Thrace and headed for the Chersonese, meaning to cross the Hellespont. He thought that if he could conquer the opposite coast of Asia, he could easily bring all the provinces of the empire in the East under his own power. But all this turned out against his hopes, because the Romans were favored there by divine power. For the army the emperor sent was on hand by land and by sea, under the command of Fravitta, who, though a barbarian by birth, was a good man and an able general. The barbarians had no ships, and they rashly tried to cross the Hellespont to the opposite continent on rafts. Suddenly a great wind blew, scattered them violently, and drove them against the Roman vessels. Most of the barbarians and their horses were drowned, and many were killed by the soldiers. Gainas, however, escaped with a few of his followers. But not long after, as they were fleeing through Thrace, they ran into another detachment of the Roman army, and Gainas died with all his barbarians. Such was the end of the daring schemes and the life of Gainas.

Fravitta had made himself very prominent in this war, and so he was appointed consul. During his consulship, which he shared with Vincentius, a son was born to the emperor. The young prince was named after his grandfather, and at the start of the next consulship he was proclaimed Augustus. [h]