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Evaluating Stilicho

Murder charge aside, what else could Stilicho have done? J.B. Bury says a stronger man would have destroyed the Goths first; obeyed second. Bury speculates that Stilicho only complied with Arcadius' order because Stilicho's wife and family were in Constantinople, where they could be used as hostages. But if Stilicho had done what Bury thinks a stronger man should have done, Stilicho would have violated a direct command from a superior, the emperor.


Stilicho obeyed the orders of his emperor even when they led to his beheading on August 22, 408.

Bury paints Stilicho in an unflattering light; others have portrayed the general in more flattering colors -- especially the last of the classical Roman poets, Claudius Claudianus (c.370? - c.404), who wrote a poem in praise of Stilicho entitled Against Rufinus. Claudian depicts Stilicho as Apollo and Rufinus as the Python which Apollo slaughters, thereby ridding the world of a great evil.

Quiz On Stilicho and Rufinus

Sources:

J.B. Bury History of the Later Roman Empire
Justine Davis Randers-Pehrson Barbarians and Romans

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