A Re-Examination of Why Stilicho Abandoned His Pursuit of Alaric in 397Author(s): Emma BurrellReviewed work(s):Source: Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 53, H. 2 (2004), pp. 251-256Published by: Franz Steiner VerlagStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4436726 .Accessed: 25/05/2012 09:12

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A RE-EXAMINATION OF WHY STILICHO ABANDONED HIS PURSUIT OF ALARIC IN 397

Modem historians have found Stilicho's behaviour in 397 a puzzle. Honorius' magister utriusque militiae led an expedition to Greece to attack Alaric's marauding Goths, without the invitation of the emperor Arcadius. He besieged the Goths, but the Goths somehow escaped to Epirus and, rather than pursue them, Stilicho returned to Italy. A victory might have excused Stilicho's presumptuous behaviour in entering Arcadius' dominions with his army uninvited, but he seems to have deliberately given up the chance of achieving one. It is the contention of this article that Stilicho abandoned the expedition against Alaric primarily because of the looming troubles in Africa, which led to Gildo's revolt later in the year. This is not a new claim - it was first made by Steinl - but more evidence can be offered in support of it than has hitherto been the case.

First, the scene should be set with an examination of what actually happened when Stilicho went to Greece. Claudian, Stilicho's propagandist, has a description of the expedition in IV Cons.2 Claudian claims that Honorius ordered Stilicho to Graiasfulcire ruinas. Stilicho set forth with a mighty fleet that sailed to Corinth. Though it is implied that Stilicho saved the city, it had actually been sacked by the Goths. Claudian speaks of camps awash with blood, skin-clad soldiers cut down, some dying through disease and others by the sword. All the forests of the surrounding landscape did not suffice for their funeral pyres. Excutiat cineres Ephyre Spartanus et Arcasl tutior exangues pedibus proculcet acervosl fessaque pensatis respiret Graecia poenis! Claudian proclaims. The attacking tribe was broken through the strength of Honorius and his generals; 'lugetque sibi iam rara superstesl et quorum turbae spatium vix praebuit orbisl uno colle latent.' Claudian then describes the Goths imprisoned on their hill and without water, since Stilicho had diverted the nearby river. And that is where Claudian's description of Stilicho's expedition to Greece ends. Though we see the usual rivers of blood and heaps of corpses, the poet's account of events is big on implication and small on hard facts. The Goths are fracti, we hear of deaths and survivors, but nowhere is it stated that the Romans were victorious and the Goths defeated. The awkward ending of the account, before the destruction of the Goths that the audience has been led to expect, shows that the expedition was not an unambiguous success. Stilicho obviously felt that some capital could be made out of it, but whatever might be a source of embarrassment has been concealed. This is only to be expected, and not just because Stilicho wanted to preserve his image as a military hero. The expedition is attributed to Honorius in this poem, and there was no reason to embarrass the emperor in a poem celebrating his consulate by stating openly that Stilicho (who has a low profile in IV Cons.) had not managed to destroy the Goths. For the same reason, this poem was not the appropriate place for explanations and excuses.

Zosimus and John of Antioch provide other accounts of the expedition.3 According to Zosimus, Stilicho embarked some troops and hastened to assist the unfortunate Achaians. He landed in the Peloponnese and forced the Goths to flee to Mt Pholoe. Zosimus says that Stilicho could have easily starved them out had he not devoted himself to luxury, comic actors,

I E. Stein, Histoire du Bas-Empire (Edition franqaise par J.-R. Palanque, Amsterdam 1968) vol.1 231. This article is based upon material from my PhD thesis, entitled 'Political Themes in Claudian's Major Poems for Stilicho'.

2 Claud. IV Cons.459-483. 3 Claudian also refers to the expedition at pr.Ruf.ll and Stil.l.181-187, but these poems add

little to the account in IV Cons.

Historia, Band LIII/2 (2004) ? Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH, Sitz Stuttgart

252 EMMA BURRELL

and shameless women, and allowed his soldiers to plunder what the Goths had left. He thus gave the Goths the opportunity to depart from the Peloponnese with all their booty and cross into Epirus to ravage the cities there. When Stilicho heard what they had done, he sailed back to Italy without achieving anything, and had in fact inflicted worse evils on Greece with his own troops.4 John of Antioch reports that Stilicho sailed to Greece out of pity for the misfortunes of its inhabitants, and after destroying the barbarians by starvation, he withdrew from his assault upon the inhabitants (presumably of Achaia)5; but since we know that Alaric and his forces were not destroyed, his account is of limited value. Zosimus' hostility aside, his account confirms the suspicion that the expedition was not a great success, and that while Greece might have been saved by being relieved of the Gothic presence6, Alaric and his forces were in relatively good shape when they departed.

It can safely be assumed that the initiative to attack Alaric in Greece came from Stilicho, not Honorius. There is no sign that Stilicho was invited to do so by Arcadius.7 Stilicho's primary aim must have been to put an end to the devastation of Achaia, but whether he hoped to destroy the Goths in battle or subdue them and enrol them in his own army is not clear8, though the behaviour of Alaric's forces since the Battle of the Frigidus in 394 would perhaps make the latter unlikely. Stilicho may also have hoped to prove his worth to Arcadius by putting an end to the Gothic menace, and to offset the opprobrium his uninvited intervention might cause with his success; but on both counts he was to be disappointed.9 Stilicho's motivations must have been strong for him to bring an army into Arcadius' dominions uninvited, especially after the way Arcadius ordered him out of the Eastem dominions in 39510

It is not known for certain when Stilicho arrived in or left Greece. He was in Milan in early 397 when Ambrose was ill, and may not have left until after the bishop's death. I' The seas were open then, so he could have left at any time after that. His ships presumably left from the fleet base at Ravenna. If the weather was good and the winds favourable, the sea voyage would certainly have taken no more than two weeks, and probably a good deal less.12 An uninterrupted march from Corinth to Olympia would have taken approximately eight days'3; a

4 Zos. 5.7.l-3. 5 Joh. Ant. fr. 190. 6 E. Demougeot, De l' unite d la division de l'Empire romain 395-410: essai sur le pouvoir

imperial (Paris 1951) 172. 7 A. Cameron, Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius (Oxford 1970) 168.

8 Demougeot (as in n. 6), 171, suggests that Stilicho besieged the Goths to spare his own troops and enrol the conquered after they surrendered.

9 P. Fargues, Claudien: e'tudes sur sa poesie et son temps (Paris 1933) 93, suggests that the campaign in Greece was designed to prove Stilicho's devotion to Arcadius.

10 Vid. Claud. Ruf.11.160-162, 213-219. I accept the idea that Stilicho left the East at Arcadius' command, for reasons that cannot be gone into here.

11 Paulin. v. Amb.45. If Stilicho was as concerned for Ambrose as Paulinus says he was, would he have left before the bishop's death? Paul. v. Amb.48 says that Ambrose died on Easter Eve; F.H. Dudden, The Life and Times of St Ambrose (Oxford 1935) vol.2 491 n. 1, says that the date was 4/4/397.

12 Vid. examples of travel times given in J. Rouge, Recherches sur l'organisation du commerce maritime en Mediterran&e sous 1'empire romain (Paris 1966) 101-102.

13 By road, the distance is approximately 160 kilometres; for rates of march, vid. G.R. Watson, The Roman Soldier (Thames and Hudson 1985 paperback edition) 54-55; and D.W. Engels, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army (Berkeley/ Los Angeles 1978) 153-156.

Why Stilicho Abandoned His Pursuit of Alaric in 397 253

large time span is thus not necessary for this expedition of Stilicho's. A landing at Corinth by the Romans makes sense, for it would have allowed Stilicho to cut the Goths off from the rest of Illyricum had they continued to travel by land, but how the Romans and Goths came to be in the region of Olympia is not clear. Claudian's account suggests that there was some fighting before the siege at Mt Pholoe, but there is no sign of who initiated the siege situation.

How the siege of the Goths ended is not clear. Zosimus gives the impression that they managed to slip away from Mount Pholoe and sail across the Gulf of Corinth before Stilicho realised what was happening. Claudian would surely have made capital out of any attempt on Alaric's part to negotiate or withdraw, if that was what had happened. 14 If Zosimus' account is correct, it was a highly embarrassing conclusion to the siege for Stilicho, and it is easy to understand why Claudian makes no mention of it. Cameron has suggested that Zosimus' explanation of Stilicho's failure to defeat Alaric, stripped of its embellishments, should be accepted; that the Western army was too undisciplined to be relied upon, a situation created or exacerbated by Gothic attempts at bribery.'5 The evidence he quotes from Claudian in support of this conjectured bribery is not particularly convincing.16 That said, it seems clear from Zosimus and, to a lesser extent, John of Antioch, that lack of discipline, whatever caused it, was certainly a problem in Stilicho's army, to which the Goths' escape to Epirus can probably be attributed. But the ending of the siege and Stilicho's decision to withdraw to Italy rather than continue to pursue the Goths are two different matters. Is indiscipline within the Roman army enough to explain Stilicho's decision to abandon the expedition?

If there was no other evidence, one would have to say that this indiscipline was probably behind Stilicho's seemingly odd behaviour. Yet there is additional evidence that can be taken into account in this matter. Stein proposed that Gildo's revolt, the other 'big event' of 397, was behind Stilicho's withdrawal from Greece; Cameron countered this proposal with his belief that Gildo's revolt came too late in the year to influence events in Greece.'7 Some time in 397 Gildo, comes et magister utriusque militiae per Africam, transferred Africa to the administra- tive control of the East, thereby placing the supply of its grain production to the West in jeopardy. On the basis of Gild. 16 (quem veniens indixit hiems ver perculit hostem), the modern tendency has been to date Gildo's revolt to the autumn of 397, that is, to September at the earliest.18 Yet there are clear indications that there were serious problems in Africa from around the middle of the year. CTh 7.13.12, issued on 17th June 397, states that the public welfare recommends conscription and that not even the emperor's property will be exempt from the obligation of providing recruits, and then goes on to decree that recruits will be furnished from the res privatae. The driving force for this law must surely have been Stilicho. Since it is hard to believe that Stilicho would request that raw conscripts be sent to him in Greece (thereby wasting untrained soldiers in an offensive conflict and exposing them to the very bad example being set by the troops in Greece, when they could be reserved for a war that was actually necessary to the West), it can be assumed that he had returned from Greece

14 Cameron (as in n. 7), 172-173. 15 Cameron (as in n. 7), 169-172, 175. Demougeot (as in n. 6), 171-172, suggests that

Stilicho let the Goths escape not for military reasons, but for political reasons of which we are ignorant; there may be some truth in this.

16 IV Cons. 120-121 and 501, which mention the loyalty of the army to Honorius, seem to be rhetorical commonplaces only, given the context, and there is no sign that Claud. Get.87- 88 'must' refer to 395 or 397.

17 Cameron, 173 (as in n. 7). 18 Vid., for example, the standard view of Gildo's career set out in his entry in PLRE I,

where his revolt against the West is dated to autumn 397.

254 EMMA BURRELL

(Stilicho's presence in Milan was surely necessary for the devising and issuing of the contro- versial recruitment laws of 397) and either wished to make good the losses the army had suffered in Greece or was preparing for a new campaign. In support of the latter, it can be said that the highly unusual nature of this law, which contributed to the senatorial outrage the issue of conscription always provoked, suggests the need for troops was viewed as urgent. CTh 7.13.13, dated to 24th September 397, in response to senatorial petitions, decrees that senators can provide money instead of recruits; CTh 7.13.14, dated to 12th November 397, modifies CTh 7.13.12, and allows senators to provide money instead of recruits from any imperial lands they hold under lease. The original law which CTh 7.13.13 modifies does not survive, but it seems reasonable to date it to June 397 with CTh 7.13.12, and the amount of time it would have taken to organise and deliver senatorial petitions to Honorius pushes the government's de- mand for conscripts from the senate back into August at the very least. Further, Stil.lll.81-83 indicates that an embassy was sent to Constantinople over the issue of Africa (rather than the East sending an embassy to Milan as Demougeot says'9), while Stil.1.294-296 indicates that Stilicho was communicating with the Eastern government on the same issue; and those things surely would have occurred before the decision to take military action was made. All of this suggests that the troubles in Africa had been going on well before the autumn of 397, probably since May or so. What Claudian refers to at Gild. 16 is thus the official outbreak of hostilities. Indixit ... hostem can be taken as a reference to the senate's declaration of Gildo as hostis publicus20: not a decision lightly taken or speedily arrived at, one would think. Gild.66-67, hanc ... Gildo rapuit sub fine cadentisl autumni (in reference to the grain supply) can be taken as a reference to Gildo's official declaration of his position - that his allegiance, and the allegiance of Africa itself, now lay with the East and the grain supply was his to control in the years to come - but it is not certain whether he made this declaration before or after having war declared on him by the West.21 Symmachus is the only other source for the issue of when trouble in Africa began. In ep.4.54, he shows concern over the deficient grain supply arriving from Africa, but merely expresses the wish that the present harvest will not be as bad as those of the previous years and that the authorities responsible will be dealt with.22 He also says that autumn is not yet inclining towards winter, so there is still hope. While this letter seems to suggest that nothing was wrong in Africa in the autumn of 397, a man of Symmachus' eminence and with his connections cannot have been unaware of what was happening there. His ignorance is only apparent, and even if it was not, the evidence of unusual recruitment for the army and discussions between East and West over Africa should still be taken as indicating when the problems with Gildo began. So if Stilicho was in Greece from some time in April or later, it is easily possible that events in Africa called him back to Italy by early June - only nine weeks separate Ambrose's death and CTh 7.13.12. The objection that trouble in Africa arose too late to influence Stilicho's behaviour in Greece is thus removed.

19 Demougeot, 178 (as in n. 6). 20 E.M. Olechowska, Claudii Claudiani de bello Gildonico (Leiden 1978) 137, says that

indicere hostem is the technical expression that would be used in official proclamations. 21 These lines cannot be taken to mean that Gildo seized the grain harvest of 397, at least not

completely. Grain was harvested in Africa in late spring or early summer, that is, May or June. The grain was then transported across the Mediterranean in convoys of ships. Loading of grain ships was supposed to cease on the 1st of October, and while their departure could be postponed until the 15th of October, all sailing was supposed to cease by November: E. Tengstrom, Bread for the People: Studies of the Corn-supply of Rome during the Late Empire (Stockholm 1974) 14, 43-45. Symm. ep.4.54, written in autumn, shows that some grain was arriving.

22 For more on recent harvests, vid. Symm. ep.6.12, 6.14, 6.22.3, and 7.68.

Why Stilicho Abandoned His Pursuit of Alaric in 397 255

This evidence for when troubles in Africa arose and their proximity in time to Stilicho's expedition to Greece is not the only indication that Stilicho withdrew from Greece because of events in Africa. In 402, Claudian said with reference to the expedition to Greece (in the character of an old Goth addressing Alaric), extinctusque fores ni te sub nomine leguml proditio regnique favor texisset Eoi.23 Cameron has shown that these lines cannot refer to the post of mag. mil. per Illyricum being granted to Alaric to stop his depredations and is inclined to dismiss them altogether, since they are very vague and Claudian makes no reference to any such thing in his earlier poems.24 If these lines are intended to express the idea that the Eastem government intervened in the conflict on Alaric's behalf, it is difficult to see what they could be referring to, since the Goths continued their attacks on Roman territory for quite some time after this point, and any intervention by Constantinople would surely have had as its price halting those attacks. Yet maybe these lines refer to something else instead. Get.516-517 is similar in sentiment, if not in expression, to Claud. Stil.I.272-273 (transtulerat nomen Libyae scelerique profanol fallax legitimam regni praetenderat umbram). The import of these lines may be that Gildo's treacherous behaviour in Africa (sub nomine leguml proditio) called Stilicho away from Greece. While the chronology of events is not as clear as could be wished, difficulties with Africa certainly did occur at a time when they could have influenced Stili- cho's behaviour in Greece, as shown above. Regnique favor texisset Eoi would then be a reference to Alaric's rise to the post of mag. mil. per Illyricum, which meant that Stilicho could not return for another attack on him. Get.564-567,

hic est quem totiens campisfudistis Achivis quem discors odiisque anceps civilibus orbis non sua vis tutata diu dum foedera fallax ludit et alternae periuria venditat aulae,

support this conclusion; these lines apply to 397 as well, and in them Stilicho describes Alaric as an enemy whom his army often routed in Greece, and who has been protected for a long time not by his own strength, but by discord and the danger civil hatreds pose to the world. Discord between East and West existed in 395, when Stilicho was forced to withdraw from Illyricum before attacking Alaric, but it was a far more serious issue in 397. Gildo's revolt, which was fostered by Eutropius25, and the declaration of Stilicho as hostis publicus are signs of the Eastern government's hostility to Stilicho personally, and were almost certainly con- nected with his uninvited intervention in its territory, as well as the damage his troops caused.26 So Get.516-517 and 564-566, when set against the background of Gildo's revolt,

23 Get.516-517. 24 Cameron (as in n. 7), 173-175. Alaric was probably granted this post by Eutropius in late

397 or early 398. 25 Zos. 5.11.2. 26 These lines from Get. appear among criticisms of the Eastern government made by

Claudian in this poem - criticisms that may seem surprising, given that there seems to have been reduced tension and greater harmony between the two halves of the empire at this stage (vid. A. Cameron and J. Long with a contribution by L. Sherry, Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius [Berkeley/Los Angeles 19931 246-250, though the evidence should not be overstated). Yet these criticisms are of limited scope and impact. While some of them centre upon Eastern involvement in the end of Stilicho's campaign against Alaric in 397 and follow the line that Eastern hostility led to Alaric's escape, Alaric's survival then was past history by now, and of no relevance except for one factor: the need to deflect blame from Stilicho for the Gothic invasion of Italy in 401-402. Thus,

256 EMMA BURRELL

support the idea that Stilicho had to leave Greece to deal with affairs in Africa. One might think that this fact would have been mentioned earlier in Claudian's poems, rather than appearing for the first time five years after the event, but there were good reasons why it was not. Mentioning it in IV Cons. would have meant admitting that there was no victory in Greece, thus embarrassing Honorius upon the occasion of his consulate, as stated above. There was no point mentioning it in Gild., or indeed any other poem which mentioned events in Greece or the revolt in Africa, since leaving the Goths to go free hardly redounded to Stilicho's credit, no matter how good his excuse; and the excuse itself meant reminding people that Stilicho was at one point in extremely bad odour with the Eastern government. It only became important enough to mention, however obliquely, in Get. There must have been those who claimed that if Stilicho had destroyed the Goths in 397, they would not have been able to invade Italy in 401- 402. In Get. Stilicho gives these people, courtesy of Claudian, a subtle hint that if he had not returned to Italy in good time in 397, the consequences could have been far worse for the peninsula.27

In this matter, as in so many others, there need not be a single definitive factor which explains why something happened. It seems certain that Stilicho's army was undisciplined and caused additional harm to the people it had come to rescue, and the general may have had it intimated to him that Arcadius was not pleased with his presence in his domains.28 These could easily have been factors in his decision to return to Italy. Yet the evidence examined in this article suggests that the troubles in Africa that later led to Gildo's revolt arose at a time when Stilicho was in Greece, and that he left Greece and abandoned Epirus to the Goths to tend to matters in Africa. Preserving the grain supplies of Africa for the West, particularly for the fractious people of Rome, would have seemed far more important to him than continuing his pursuit of Alaric. One can also interpret the revolt in Africa and the decree of hostis publicus against Stilicho as an effort by Eutropius to destroy him politically. As reprehensible and puzzling as his withdrawal from Greece may have seemed, Stilicho may have been foresighted enough to realise that his very survival, in addition to the well-being of the people of Italy, depended on attending to the troubles in Africa.

Kingston, ACT, Australia Emma Burrell

it appears that Eastern involvement in Alaric's escape is not mentioned for the sake of blaming the East for it, but for the sake of defending Stilicho's actions at the time.

27 Stilicho's withdrawal from Greece had happened only five years ago, and many in Claudian's audience would thus have been very familiar with the sequence of events in 397. If Get.516-517 do indeed indicate that Gildo's revolt summoned Stilicho away from his pursuit of Alaric, it is worth noting that this explanation was no good as an excuse for Alaric's continued survival unless things had actually happened that way - there were too many people able to contradict Claudian's words if he lied on this matter.

28 It is beyond belief that Arcadius and his government would not have been in contact with Stilicho at this time. The declaration of Stilicho as hostis publicus can be seen, in part, as Eastern anger (and perhaps fear) at Stilicho's behaviour in Greece, and his effrontery in entering Greece at all. Arcadius' hostility to Stilicho on a personal, as well as political, level should perhaps be considered a factor in these events.