Arcadius
377 – 408 · Generation VI · Emperor (r. 395–408) · Valentinian · Theodosian
Arcadius (AD 377 – 408). Emperor (r. 395–408). Married Aelia Eudoxia around AD 395. First sole eastern emperor of the Theodosian line. Proclaimed Augustus at the age of five and left the East at seventeen, he was judged by contemporaries a weak ruler steered by stronger hands – first the praetorian prefect Rufinus, cut down by Gothic soldiers on a parade ground outside Constantinople; then the eunuch chamberlain Eutropius, whose elevation to the consulship scandalized the empire and who ended exiled and executed; and throughout, the empress Eudoxia. The Gothic revolt of Alaric plundered Macedonia and Thrace almost unanswered, since the eastern army had marched west with his father, and rivalry with the western strongman Stilicho – whom Arcadius declared a public enemy – poisoned relations between the two courts. The jostling of courtiers for control of the pliable emperor never really ceased.
One of 13 people of Valentinian · Theodosian (321–460) in this archive. The emperors who saw the western half fall away while the east held.
Parents
- Theodosius I (347 – 395)
- Aelia Flaccilla (356 – 386)
Partners
- Married Aelia Eudoxia (377 – 404) in 395 — 2 children together
Children
- Theodosius II (401 – 450)
- Pulcheria (399 – 453)
Life
- 377 — Born
- 395 — Married Aelia Eudoxia
- 408 — Died