Theodosius was the last emperor of the entire Roman Empire.
Flavius Theodosius, known as Theodosius I or Theodosius the Great, was born on January 11, 347 in Cuca (north-west Hispania), being the son of the general Flavius Theodosius. At the age of 32 (January 19, 379) he became co-emperor alongside Gratian, after the death of Emperor Valens in Adrianople (378). Theodosius I governed the Eastern provinces, where he instituted a series of measures to strengthen the Empire, among them reforms in the field of law, taxation, finance, the acceptance of an increased number of “barbarian” contingents in the army.
An energetic and authoritarian spirit, he supported Nicean orthodoxy, which became mandatory through the edict from Thessalonica in 380 that established the state religion as mandatory for all subjects of the empire.
After heavy battles with the Visigoths, who had occupied part of the Balkan peninsula, Theodosius reached an agreement with them, signing a peace treaty in 382, establishing them as federated in the province of Thrace, between the Balkans and the Danube. After this, Theodosius had to come to the aid of Valentinian II (co-emperor in the western parts of the Roman Empire), against the usurper Clemens Maximus. Theodosius’s armies defeated Maximus in 388, and he was executed.
After the death of Valentinian II in 392 and the proclamation of the rhetorician Flavius Eugenius as emperor in the West, Theodosius started a military campaign against him, which he defeated at Frigidius (at the foot of the Alps) in September 394. The Roman Empire is thus reunited, for the last time in history, under a single authority.
Only a few months later, on January 17, 395, Theodosius died in Mediolanum (today’s Milan). He was 48 years old. After his death, the Roman Empire is definitively divided between his two sons: Arcadia in the Eastern Roman Empire, under the regency of Rufinus, and Honorius in the Western Roman Empire, under the regency of Stilicho.
Find out presents the main historical meanings of January 17:
1468 – The national hero Skanderberg, the leader of the Albanian people against the Ottoman rule, passed away (b. 1405)
1600 – Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Spanish playwright, was born (d. 25 May 1681)
1706 – Benjamin Franklin, American politician, philosopher and scientist, was born (d.1790)
1798 – The French philosopher Auguste Comte, a prominent representative of sociology and positivism, was born (September 15, 1857)
1820 – Writer Anne Brönte (“Agnes Grey”) was born (d. 28 May 1849)
1834 – A Russian-Turkish Convention was concluded in Petersburg, by which the Porte recognized the Organic Regulation according to the provisions of the Treaty of Adrianople from September 1829. It was provided that, exceptionally, the first lords of the two Romanian Principalities would be appointed by the two signatory powers of the Convention
1859 – Al. I. Cuza appointed Vasile Sturdza as Prime Minister of Moldova
1860 – The Russian writer APCehov (“Three Sisters”, “Cherry Orchard”) was born (d. June 2, 1904)
1897 – Officer Pavel Zăgănescu died, commander of the fire department that fought, on September 13, 1848, at the barracks on Dealul Spirii in Bucharest, against the Turkish troops that arrived in Wallachia to defeat the Revolution of 1848
1899 – Al Capone (nicknamed Scar), American gangster, was born (d. 1947)
1933 – Dalida (Jolanda Gigliotti), the light music singer, was born in Cairo. Established in France (1955), Dalida had a successful career (gold and platinum discs) (d. 1987)
1985 – Irina Codreanu, sculptor and draftsman, died in Nogent sur Marne. Between the years 1924-1928 he worked in Brâncuşi’s workshop
1991 – Harald V becomes king of Norway, succeeding his father, King Olaf V
2000 – PNŢCD Vice-President Ion Raţiu passed away
2002 – The Spanish writer Camilo Jose Cela, laureate of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1989, died
2003 – The most famous Romanian anthropologist, Cantemir Rişcutia (b. 1923), passed away
2005 – Former Chinese reformist leader Zhao Ziyang passed away
2011 – The American music producer Don Kirshner, nicknamed “the man with the golden ear”, passed away; launched the careers of famous artists such as Neil Diamond, Bobby Darin, Neil Sedaka and the Carole King-Gerry Goffin duet, authors of the songs “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “The Loco-Motion” (b. April 17, 1934).
Source: www.descopera.ro
