The Old Gods Shall Die!

One day in the summer of AD 390, the gates around the packed horse arena of Thessalonica - the Eastern Roman Empire's second city - slammed shut. Armed legionaries spilled out through the tunnels and waded into the stands, to cut down the crowds like ears of wheat. The stands ran red with blood as between seven thousand and fifteen thousand civilians were butchered that day. 

What madness drove the soldiers of the empire to such depths of brutality? The madness, it seems, of Emperor Theodosius I, master of the Roman world.

Two Months Earlier...

The imperial hall in Milan - the effective capital of the Western Roman Empire at the time - was abuzz with chatter, the scrip-scrape of scribe's pens on vellum, the hasty coming and going of messengers and administrators. Presiding over it all was Theosdosius I - Emperor of the entire Roman world, East and West. Milan was his temporary home, and had been ever since winning the civil war against Magnus Maximus. That campaign had been so brutal (with the Battle of the River Save being particularly bloody) that he had been unable to extricate himself from the aftermath and return to his true seat of power - the city of Constantinople, jewel of the Eastern Empire for two years and counting.

Understandably, Theodosius would have been preoccupied, stressed and anxious with the burden of repairing the war-damaged West. So when yet another messenger from the East arrived, he probably thought it was to ask again when he would be returning to the East. After all, the hasty framework of deputies he had left behind there before marching on Maximus' West had been assembled to rule in his stead for a few months, not years.

The Battle of the River Save saw countless Roman legions pitched into battle against one another. Artwork by Sean Ó’Brógáín.

Just as his hackles were rising, as his lungs filled to explain for the hundredth time that he could not yet extricate himself from the civil war's aftermath, the messenger announced to him details of a completely different matter.

Butheric, one of the trusted commanders whom Theodosius had left in charge at Thessalonica, had been lynched by an angry mob of racegoers. They attacked him, hacked off his limbs and dragged his trunk through the city streets. His crime? The arrest of a chariot racing champion and crowd favourite whom he caught in the act of raping a stable boy.

The Hippodrome (horse racing arena) of Thessalonica. Digital art by The Byzantine Legacy.

Incensed, Theodosius sent the messenger back to the East with orders to throw the populace of Thessalonica new races, that they would never forget...

Yet the messenger was no sooner away, than Theodosius became gripped with guilt. Fiercely pious - it was he who had declared Nicene Christianity as the empire's official state religion in AD 380 - he realised that many innocents would die, for the mob who had mutilated and killed Butheric had numbered only a few hundred. He sent off a new messenger at haste, tasked with repealing the order to slaughter the crowds. The message never reached its destination, and the great massacre described at the top of this article took place.

Theodosius set aside his crown and purple robes and spent the rest of that year in Milan's cathedral. Dressed in rags, he crawled up and down the aisle, begging Bishop Ambrosius to forgive him for what he had done. It wasn't until Christmas 390 that Ambrosius restored him to the community of the faithful and permitted once again to take communion.

Emperor Theodosius I begs Bishop Ambrosius of Milan to be allowed to take communion. Painting by Anthonis Van Dyke c1619.

Come spring AD 391, he finally began the long journey home to Constantinople. By all accounts he was a broken, tormented figure, driven mad by guilt and convinced that the best means of atonement was a furious new tide of Christian zeal.
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It began with a spate of increasingly-brutal anti-pagan edicts.

The Old Gods Shall Die!

On 24th Feb AD 391, Theodosius banned the ancient pagan practice of sacrifice (usually the slaughter of animals in offering to the old gods), forbade entry into the old temples, and prohibited the burning of incense - the only herbs allowed to be burned being thyme and rosemary (a Christian "Holy Smoke" of sorts)

“No-one shall pollute himself with sacrificial offerings; no-one shall slaughter an innocent victim; no person shall approach the sanctuaries, shall wander all over the temples, or revere images created by mortal labour, lest he become guilty by divine and human laws.” - from the Codex Theodosianus.

But pagans were fiercely protective of their ancient ways, and took to worshipping in private houses. It became almost the reverse of the situation a century before, when Christians had to worship in secret, fearing persecution.

In June 391, Theodosius explicitly forbade apostasy (conversion to paganism), and fiercely underlined his earlier rulings that pagan temples were a thing of the past.

Christian monks took this as permission to go and smash up pagan shrines. Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, oversaw the violent destruction of the Serapeum - the statue of Nile god that for eons had brought about the yearly and life-giving inundation of Egypt's grain fields. During the violence, the attached library was also destroyed and its riches looted.

The following year, Christians were jubilant when the Nile rose again in the normal way regardless of the statue's demolition.

An artist's impression of the Serapeum (the statue of Serapis the Nile God, in Egypt).

On 8th November 391, the darkest decree was issued: that any and all acts of sacrifice would result in death for the perpetrator, regardless of rank or class.

In 393 he declared that the Olympic Games were a symbol of paganism, and that they would no longer take place.

Then in 394, the eternal fire in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum was extinguished, and the Vestal Virgins were disbanded.

Now seems an apt. moment to quote the poet, Horace:

“The wise man ought to bear the name of madman, the just of unjust, if they should pursue virtue herself with disproportionate zeal.” - Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace).

​Theodosius did at least issue one law that stood out amidst this tide of violent persecution: all capital sentences were to have a 30 day delay. This might have been down to his unshakeable guilt about the Thessalonica massacre that had triggered all this. We don't know how many were spared thanks to this 'month of mercy'.

The Consequences

​The furious Christian zeal destabilised the regime in Eastern Empire, and deeply unsettled the Western Empire, pitting the largely pagan Senatorial families of Rome and the populace of the land against the reforms that were being pushed upon them. They and the people of the West were ripe for mobilisation, for an emperor of their own. And it just so happened that there was a power-hungry warlord at the head of the Western legions who had been waiting for an opportunity like this...

Why not step into that ancient time, and live out the adventures of the legions caught up in all this chaos? My novel, LEGIONARY: DEVOTIO, will take you there!

​Gordon Doherty is the author of the Legionary series, available at all good online stores!

The tenth & final volume DEVOTIO is a story of heroism, adventure and great personal sacrifice set in the Late Roman Empire.

Buy DEVOTIO now!

References:

• Theodosius: the Empire at bay, Gerrard Friel
• A Brief History of the Roman Empire,  Stephen Kershaw
• Anatomies of Violence, David Potter
• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon
• Byzantium, The Early Centuries, John Julius Norwich
• Codex Theodosianus
• Horace