CHAPTER I

THEODOSIUS’S TWO SONS DIVIDE THE EMPIRE. RUFINUS IS SLAIN AT THE FEET OF ARCADIUS

AFTER the death of the emperor Theodosius, his two sons undertook the administration of the Roman empire, Arcadius having the government of the East, and Honorius of the West. At that time Damasus presided over the church at Imperial Rome, and Theophilus that of Alexandria; John was bishop of Jerusalem, and Flavian of Antioch; while the episcopal chair at Constantinople or New Rome was filled by Nectarius, as we mentioned in the foregoing book. The body of the emperor Theodosius was taken to Constantinople on the 8th of November in the same consulate, and was honourably interred by his son Arcadius with the usual funeral solemnities. On the 28th day of the same month the army also arrived, which had served under the emperor Theodosius in the war against the tyrant Eugenius. When therefore according to custom the emperor Arcadius met the army without the gates, the soldiery slew Rufinus the Prætorian præfect. For he was suspected of aspiring to the sovereignty, and of having invited into the Roman territories the Huns, a barbarous nation, who had already ravaged Armenia, and were then making predatory incursions into other provinces of the East. On the very day on which Rufinus was killed, Marcian bishop of the Novatians died, and was succeeded in the episcopate by Sisinnius, of whom we have already spoken.