ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The so-called Theodosian age represented the period from 379 to 455, when both half of the Empire were ruled by members of the Theodosian dynasty.

Historical context

Political and military events

Regarding the main military political events, we refer to every in-depth study of the Teodosian dynasty.

Company and Government

Emperors

Kingdoms and peoples

Settlement of barbarians in the provinces

In 376 the Visigoths, expelled from their headquarters by the attacks of the Huns, asked Emperor Valente for permission to settle on the south bank of the Danube and were accepted in the Empire as foederates. Until then, the Foederates were exclusively extra fines, that is, they continued to reside outside the borders of the Empire, committing themselves not to invade the Empire and indeed to help it against raids of other barbaric populations, thus forming a first line of advanced defense. Until then, there had been cases (deditio) in which the Empire had welcomed intra fines, that is, within the borders, of the barbaric populations, establishing them as non-free peasants in desolate border areas, but in this case the Romans, by precaution, dispersed the peoples settled by deditio (the so-called dediticians) in order to destroy their cohesion and make them easily controllable. In the case of the Visigoths this was not done: to them it was allowed to maintain their tribal cohesion within the Empire, thus forming the first case of Foederati intra fines, or Foederati settled within the borders of the Empire.

After the defeat of the Roman legions in the battle of Adrianopoli (378) against the Goths who had revolted after having settled intra fines with the permission of Valente, Theodosius (called to guide the empire of the East by Graziano after the death of Valente) and his successors adopted a new strategy of containment towards the barbarians. Following this event, traumatic for imperial leadership and the Roman system as a whole, the emperors, unable to stop the invasions militarily, began to adopt appeasement policies based on the systems of hospitalitas and foederatio, i.e. on mechanisms that allowed integration and assimilation of the people who pressed along the Roman limes. The battle, moreover, accelerated that process of openness to barbaric immigration that already for centuries concerned the Romans and saw them forced to enter into welcoming pacts with the populations of over Danube who demanded to settle in the Empire.

On 3 October 382, peace between the Empire and Goths was signed. Tervingi and Grutungi became Foederates of the Empire, and landed in Moesia II and Scythia Minor, and perhaps in Macedonia; they were allowed to settle within the Empire, and, even if they were not recognized as a single leader, to maintain it