450-469 Attila the Hun & Gaiseric the Vandal Sacks Rome

In this 20 year period Theodosius, Emperor of the east, died and Attila (pictured) murdered his brother Rugila and became King of the Huns.

Valentinian III was emperor in the west, and because Theodosius had no heir he was replaced by general Marcian who married Pulcheria, Theodosius's sister.

Marcian died in 457, no male hier, and the new emperor was selected by Aspar, a senior Germanic general who was barred from the position because of his ethnicity and Arian faith. He chose Leo who set about weakening German power in the east by founding an army of Isaurian warriors and marrying his daughter to their chieftain, Zeno.

Both emperors staged a massive campaign against the Vandals in 468, but Gaiseric, King of the Vandals, prevailed.

The Huns had been helpful to the empire but things changed when Attila murdered his brother Rugila and became King of the Huns.

Attila not only demanded a marriage with Valentinian III's older sister, Honoria, but also half the territory of the western empire as her dowry!

Valentinian III refused and Attila, the new King of the Huns, responded by invading Gaul in co-operation with Gaiseric, King of the Vandals. Faced with a massive army that Aetius had put together -- including the Franks, Burgundians, Celtics and Theoderic of the Visigoths -- Attila withdrew but Aetius pursued and was victorious at the Battle of Chalons-sur-Marne in 452. Theoderic died.

Attila was allowed to leave in peace, only to return in 452 to invade Italy but was stopped by plague. In 453 Attila died, and the Huns were finally defeated in 454.

Valentinian III resented Aetius' prestige, and in conspiracy with the senator Petronius Maximus murdered Aetius, but then they fell out and Valentinian III was assassinated in 455.

Petronius Maximus then declared himself emperor, married Valentinian's widow and betrothed her daughter to his son.

King Gaiseric seized the opportunity of imperial chaos to sieze more land in Africa, take Sardinia and land a fleet at Rome. Petronius Maximus got killed while fleeing.

The Bishop of Rome persuaded Gaiseric to refrain from murder -- which he did -- but for 10 days the Romans had to suffer the Teutonic Vandals ransacking their city.

370-389 Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Huns

In this 20 year period the Western Roman Emperor Valentinian died in 375 and was succeeded by his son Gratian (pictured) in the West and his younger brother Valens in the East.

Valentinian II ruled over Italy, Africa and Illyricum.

In 376 the Goths of the Danube were divided into two groups known as the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths. The Huns, a powerful tribe from central Asia, were pushing into southern Russia and destroyed the kingdom of the Ostrogoths. Terrified by the Huns, the Visigoths petitioned Valens to be allowed to cross the Danube and settle in Roman territory.

In return for troops, Valens agreed and had them ferried across the Danube to settle in Thrace, where a revolt took place in 377. In 378 Valens asked for assistance from 19 year old Gratian, who sent troops, but Valens became impatient and attacked the German Goths (cavalry men) and was defeated and killed.

Gration appointed Theodosius (a Spaniard) as commander in Thrace, headquarters in Thessalonica, and in 379 appointed him emperor of Egypt, the East and the Balkans where the Goth troubles persisted.

In 382, Theodosius entered into a treaty with the Goths, allowing them to settle in the Balkans, as a self-governing federate, but providing troops for the Roman army ( under Goth command).

At first, Gratian was tolerant of religious differences, but under the influence of the aristocratic Bishop of Milan, Ambrose, (Milan having long been the imperial seat of Rome) outlawed "heretical" assemblies, and abolished the privileges of the pagan priesthoods in Rome.

Theodosius - an aggressive catholic - issued a decree in 380 advising everyone to become catholic (ie to accept the Nicene Creed) calling those who did not "demented and crazed" warranting not only God's punishment but his as well and deposed the Arian bishop of Constantinople.

In 381 he ordered that all churches should be turned over to catholic bishops, and like Gratian he banned all non-catholic assemblies issuing 18 edicts against various dissenting christian sects.

Theodosius was easier than Gratian on the Pagans. In 381 blood sacrifice was banned, but other forms of Pagan worship were allowed. However, no action was taken against "spontaneous" local acts destroying Pagan temples and in this way Paganism was virtually wiped out.

In 383, Magnus Maximus, a Spanish aristocratic miliary commander like Theodosius, proclaimed himself emperor in Britain and invaded Gaul. Gratian went to meet the usurper, but was abandoned by his troops, turned over to Maximus and executed by him.

Maximus sent envoys to Valentian II and Theodosius for recognition, but they stalled - Theodosius to work out a treaty in 387 with Persia (splitting up Armenia) before he could deal with Maximus in the west.

Maximus was a fervent Catholic, having Orthodox Christians executed in Spain - an action deplored by some Spanish Bishops - but such violence was the extreme logical result of the state becoming the defender of Catholic dogma.

In 387 Maximus invaded Italy, forcing Valentian II to flee to Thessalonica, and finally Theodosius came to Italy, did battle with Maximus, defeated him and had him executed.

While in Italy, Theodosius presented his 5 year old son Honorius to the Roman Senators as a future ruler of the west (having already secured the succession of his older son, Arcadius, as ruler of the east) and fell under the influence of Ambrose, as Gratian before him had.

In 388 a bishop in the Euphrates area, against Roman law, ordered the destruction of a synagogue. Theodosius ordered the bishop to pay for its rebuilding, Ambrose was outraged, and Theodosius deferred.

did ireland save christianity?

The physical location of Ireland, as well as the easy conversion to Christianity of its Celtic Pagan population, most definitely provided Christianity with a safe haven, but it was the expansionist evangelical efforts of Pope Gregory (590-604) that prevented Christianity from dying out in Europe and remaining, if at all, as an essentially middle-eastern religion.

Historians claim that Ireland - an ethnic Celtic island at the westernmost part of Europe - is the cradle of western civilization, and Christianity is the religion upon which it was founded in 675 AD.

In that St. Patrick had Christianized Ireland from 432AD, and Rome was - and still is - the central power of Christianity in the western world, it does seem strange that Ireland, rather than Rome, is considered to be the cradle of western civilization and the savior of Christianity.

It is unclear whether it was the isolated western geographical region of Ireland, its distinctive race of white Celtic people or its devotion to Christianity that made it the historical birthplace of western civilization.

Actually, Ireland's geographic position had to be the definitive factor.

With the fall of the Roman Empire in 378AD, the European city states and the new religion of Christianity were in the throes of turmoil. Ireland was seen as being the last bastion - the last hope - for the continuation of any sort of European civilization, with or without Christianity, in the face of advancing hordes from eastern Europe, the far north and the Middle East. And, as it turned out, it was!

Here is what was happening in Europe at the time:

• 378 - the Visigoths defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople
• 395 - the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western parts
• 407 - the Romans evacuated Britain
• 410 - Rome sacked by the Visigoths
• 410-442 The Jutes, Angles and Saxons invaded Britain

At this point, in 432AD, when all appeared to be lost in Europe, St Patrick returns to Ireland - where he had previously been enslaved - on an evangelical mission to introduce Christianity to the Pagan Celtic race and hopefully convert the population to his faith. In the following years, things got worse in Europe.

• 450 - The Huns invade all Roman cities in the old Empire
• 455 - Rome, itself, was sacked by the Vandals

It took Rome nearly 150 years to recover from the invasion, and while Christianity was stagnating in Rome it was thriving in the eastern lands. The magnificent church of St Sophia - which later became a mosque - was built in Constantinople in 532-537 and stands as evidence that Christianity was seen more as an eastern religion than a European one.

Fearing loss of power, in 597 Pope Gregory sent St Augustine to England. It was expected that with the widespread conversion to Christianity in England that Rome would regain control of that part of the world - if not politically then at least in the hearts and minds of the population - but the new religion of Islam intervened.