Gainas

Gainas († 400 ) was a Roman general of Gothic descent.

Life

Gainas, a Romanized Goth, first appears in the sources in 394 when he served as one of the commanders of the Gothic foederati in the Eastern Roman army at the Battle of Frigidus . In 395 he led the army that the Roman army master Stilicho had to bring to the new emperor in the east, Theodosius' son Arcadius , after the death of Emperor Theodosius I. At this time there was considerable tension between the two imperial courts in the east and west because Stilicho claimed to have been appointed guardian of Arcadius and the western emperor Honorius by the dying Theodosius , which was not accepted in Constantinople. When the Praetorian Prefect Rufinus , the leading civilian official at the Eastern Roman court, reclaimed command of the troops from Stilicho , the comes Gainas of Stilicho received the order to lead the army to Constantinople . He was probably also ordered to kill Rufinus there. This happened, but the attempt by the military to gain control of the eastern court also failed.

Instead of Rufinus came the praepositus Eutropius , who brought Stilicho into distress through skillful diplomacy. Gainas therefore allied himself in 399 with the rebellious Tribigild , a leader of Greutungian horsemen, against whom Gainas had been entrusted with the supreme command; At least he was said to have had this alliance, and it is also possible that this news was spread by hostile circles at court. In any case, Gainas rose against Arcadius and finally brought about the overthrow of Eutropius, who was slain. After he quartered part of his troops in Constantinople, he was appointed army master himself and de facto took over the reign; leading members of the civil court party were handed over to him.

The representation of the sources, which has long been uncritically adopted in research, that there was a conflict between "Teutons" and "Romans", does not stand up to scrutiny. Rather, it was about an attempt by the military to gain control of the court and the Emperor Arcadius. Behind this coup attempt was probably Stilicho, who sought supremacy over the entire empire and used his follower Gainas as an instrument.

But Gainas' Visigoten caused serious unrest in Constantinople during his absence due to their licentiousness and the fact that they demanded an Arian church for themselves . The civil court party continued to stir up this discontent and systematically incited the population against the visigothic "barbarians". This displeasure erupted in the year 400 in a popular uprising in the course of which supposedly 7,000 soldiers, mostly visigotic foederati , were killed. The army master Fravitta , who was allied with the civil court party and who was also of Visigothic origin, finally threw Gainas' Visigoten back for good. Gainas turned with the rest of his followers to the diocese of Thrace and started an open war against Arcadius, but fell in the battle against the Hun Uldin at the end of the year 400. Uldin sent the head of Gainas to Constantinople and was generously rewarded for it. The emperor had the severed head presented to the population in January 401 in a great victory ceremony in the hippodrome .

The events of Gainas were processed, among other things, in an epic poem that Eusebios Scholastikos wrote in the early 5th century. Arcadius celebrated the victory on a triumphal column that was lost today.

literature

• Eike Faber: Anti-Germanism in Constantinople or the Revolt of Gainas? . In: DH de la Fuente (Ed.): New Perspectives on Late Antiquity. Newcastle 2011, pp. 124-135.
• Hermann Reichert , Dieter Timpe :  Gainas. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 10, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1998, ISBN 3-11-015102-2 , pp. 317-321.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 3: Faber Felix - Juwayni, Al- . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2012, ISBN 978-2-503-53243-1 , pp. 51-52.
• Herwig Wolfram : The Goths. From the beginning to the middle of the sixth century. Draft of a historical ethnography. 4th edition. Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-33733-3 (traditional representation that interprets the events as a Gothic-Roman conflict).