(9) WORST: ARCADIUS –
THEODOSIAN DYNASTY: EASTERN EMPIRE
(395 – 408 AD: 13 YEARS 3 MONTHS 14 DAYS)

 

And now we come to the worst imperial dynasty, the Theodosian dynasty, effectively the Roman counterpart to the barbarians at the gates that – along with those barbarians – destroyed the empire.

Theodosius was the last emperor to (briefly) rule the empire as a whole, institutionalizing its imperial division by inflicting his two terrible sons on it, one on each of its western and eastern halves. The western empire did worse with the son it got but it’s as if the empire was trying hard to churn out the worst possible imperial clones to ensure its fall. As we’ll see, the western empire did that twice over but it’s like the eastern empire got Arcadius as the clone of his brother in the western empire.

Arcadius was much like his brother in the western empire, weak and useless, puppeted by subordinates but luckier in that the eastern empire was more robust. He was also fortunate to have capable administrators, notably the prefect Anthemius. I’m also prepared to give Arcadius slightly more credit than his brother because he seems to have had major health issues which incapacitated him and led to an early death.

Like his brother, Arcadius also caused major issues for the empire’s supreme military commander Stilicho as the latter attempted to shore up the eastern half of the empire against its Germanic barbarian invaders as he did the western half. Those Germanic barbarian invaders were the Visigoths led by Alaric, who menaced and ransacked the eastern empire before turning on the western empire and sacking Rome. Arcadius stymied Stilicho’s attempts to defend the eastern empire, albeit as always under the influence of subordinates – before incredibly declaring Stilicho as public enemy and appointing Alaric, the leader of the Goths sacking the eastern empire, as magister militum or military commander to defend that same empire.

At least Arcadius didn’t actively betray and execute Stilicho, as opposed to his brother as western emperor. However, the damage was done, albeit ultimately more to the western empire and Rome itself, with this and other actions widening the ever more gaping division between the western and eastern empires.

 

RATING: 1 STAR*
F-TIER (WORST TIER)
EMPIRE BREAKER

 

No need to bother with imperial victory titles or deification – nothing to see here, although in fairness I think the institutionalization of Christianity had done away with deification by then.

 

SPECTRUM RANKING COMPARISON

This is tricky because Spectrum ranks him with the other eastern Roman emperors after 395 AD (the death of Theodosius), which of course extends through emperors to 1453 AD and there’s quite a few emperors after 476 AD that he ranks as worse. He does rank him as second worst eastern Roman emperor between 395 AD and 476 AD – I dissent from that and rank him as the worst in that period, ranking the emperor Spectrum ranked as worse in my special mentions.

Spectrum’s reasoning was that Arcadadius was “essentially a puppet – luckily his uselessness ended up not having any major consequences, largely due to much better successors the empire ended up having”. I’m not sure I cut Arcadius that much slack, although I do agree with Spectrum’s statement – “Also, just look at his bust – it screams impotent!”