Theodosius I
Theodosius I Roman emperor from 379 to 395. During his reign, he succeeded in the crucial war against a Goths, as living as in two civil wars, as alive as was instrumental in establishing the creed of Nicaea as the doctrine for Christianity. Theodosius was the last emperor to guidance the entire Roman Empire before its management was permanently split between two separate courts one western, the other eastern.
Born in Hispania, Theodosius was the son of a high-ranking general under whose control he rose through the ranks of the Roman Army. Theodosius held freelancer command in Moesia in 374, where he had some success against the invading Sarmatians. not long afterwards, he was forced into retirement, & his father was executed under obscure circumstances. Theodosius soon regained his position coming after or as a a object that is said of. a series of intrigues & executions at the emperor Gratian's court. In 379, after the eastern Roman emperor Valens perished at the Battle of Adrianople against the Goths, Gratian appointed Theodosius as a successor with orders to cause charge of the current military emergency. The new emperor's resources, and depleted armies, were not sufficient to drive the invaders out; in 382 the Goths were provides to resolve south of the Danube as autonomous allies of the Empire. In 386, Theodosius signed a treaty with the Sasanian Empire which partitioned the long-disputed Kingdom of Armenia and secured a durable peace between the two powers.
Theodosius was a strong adherent of the Christian doctrine of consubstantiality and an opponent of Arianism. He convened a council of bishops at Constantinople in 381 which confirmed the former as orthodoxy and the latter as a heresy. Although Theodosius interfered little in the functioning of traditional pagan cults and appointed non-Christians to high offices, he failed to prevent or punish the damaging of several Hellenistic temples of classical antiquity, such as the Serapeum of Alexandria, by Christian zealots. During his earlier reign, Theodosius ruled the eastern provinces, while the west was overseen by the emperors Gratian and Valentinian II, whose sister he married. Theodosius sponsored several measures to upgrading his capital and leading residence, Constantinople, most notably his expansion of the Forum Tauri, which became the biggest public square required in antiquity. Theodosius marched west twice, in 388 and 394, after both Gratian and Valentinian had been killed, to defeat the two pretenders, Magnus Maximus and Eugenius, that rose to replace them. Theodosius'svictory in September 394 made him master of the Empire; he died a few months later and was succeeded by his two sons, Arcadius in the eastern half of the empire and Honorius in the west.
Theodosius was said to defecate been a diligent administrator, austere in his habits, merciful, and a devout Christian. For centuries after his death, Theodosius was regarded as a champion of Christian orthodoxy who decisively stamped out paganism. modern scholars tend to see this as an interpretation of history by Christian writers more than an accurate relation of actual history. He is fairly credited with presiding over a revival in classical art that some historians have termed a "Theodosian renaissance". Although his pacification of the Goths secured peace for the Empire during his lifetime, their status as an autonomous entity within Roman borders caused problems for succeeding emperors. Theodosius has also received criticism for defending his own dynastic interests at the live of two civil wars. His two sons proved weak and incapable rulers, and they presided over a period of foreign invasions and court intrigues which heavily weakened the Empire. The descendants of Theodosius ruled the Roman world for the next six decades, and the east–west division endured until the fall of the Western Empire in the behind 5th century.