But the Emperor Theodosius was filled with great solicitude, and levied a powerful army against the usurper, fearing lest he should meditate the assassination of the young Valentinian also. While engaged in this preparation, an embassy arrived from the Persians, requesting peace from the emperor. Then also the empress Flaccilla bore him a son named Honorius, on the 9th of September, in the consulate of Richomelius and Clearchus. [725] Under the same consulate, and a little previously, Agelius bishop of the Novatians died. [726] In the year following, wherein Arcadius Augustus bore his first consulate in conjunction with Baudon, [727] Timothy bishop of Alexandria died, and was succeeded in the episcopate by Theophilus. About a year after this, Demophilus the Arian prelate having departed this life, the Arians sent for Marinus a leader of their own heresy out of Thrace, to whom they entrusted the bishopric: but Marinus did not long occupy that position, for under him that sect was divided into two parties, as we shall hereafter explain; [728] for they invited Dorotheus [729] to come to them from Antioch in Syria, and constituted him their bishop. Meanwhile the emperor Theodosius proceeded to the war against Maximus, leaving his son Arcadius with imperial authority at Constantinople. Accordingly arriving at Thessalonica he found Valentinian and those about him in great anxiety, because through compulsion they had acknowledged the usurper as emperor. Theodosius, however, gave no expression to his sentiments in public; he neither rejected nor admitted [730] the embassy of Maximus: but unable to endure tyrannical domination over the Roman empire, under the assumption of an imperial name, he hastily mustered his forces and advanced to Milan, [731] whither the usurper had already gone. Footnotes: [725] 384 a.d. Honorius afterwards shared the empire with Arcadius, reigning in the West from 398 to 423 a.d. But although the whole of this period comes within the time of Socrates' history, he does not mention Honorius but once again before his death. [726] Having been bishop of the Novatians for forty years; see chap. 21. [727] 385 a.d. [728] Chap. 23. [729] Being in the ninety-eighth year of his age as appears from VII. 6. [730] Zosimus, however, says (IV. 37) that the embassy of Maximus was received by Theodosius. [731] Rather Aquileja as appears from Zosimus and other historians. |
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