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The Battle of the Frigidus, also called the Battle of the Frigid River, was fought between 5–6 September 394, between the army of the Eastern Emperor Theodosius I and the army of Western Roman ruler Eugenius. Because the Western Emperor Eugenius (though nominally Christian) had pagan sympathies, the war assumed religious overtones, with Christianity pitted against the last attempt at a pagan revival. The battle was the last serious attempt to contest the Christianization of the empire; its outcome decided the outcome of Christianity in the western Empire, and the final decline of Greco-Roman polytheism in favour of Christianity over the following century. The defeat of Eugenius and his commander, the Frankish ''magister militum'' Arbogast, put the whole empire back in the hands of a single emperor for the last time until the final collapse of the Western Roman Empire (if one discounts the purely nominal claim of Zeno in 480). Theodosius passed the rule of the Western Empire to his younger son Honorius in the following year (with general Stilicho as regent while Honorius was underage). ==Background== In 313 Constantine I and Licinius I had legalized the Christian faith with the Edict of Milan. Theodosius I had made it the official religion of the State with the 380 Edict of Thessalonica. Conflict simmered between the Roman Senate, many of whom were not Christian, and the emperors in Constantinople and Milan who officially subscribed to Christian teachings. The senators wrote letters and argued for a return to traditional Roman beliefs, often stressing the protection and good fortune the old Roman gods had bestowed Rome since her beginnings as a small city-state. For their part, the Christian emperors emphasized the primacy of Christianity, although not all did so to the same extent. This clash between the Roman world's two main religions was for the most part merely an academic debate, without threats of armed uprisings, although small-scale violence was widespread. On 15 May 392, however, the Western Emperor Valentinian II was found dead at his residence in Vienne, Gaul. Valentinian, who for a time showed some favoritism towards the Arians, had continued the imperial policy of suppressing the interests of adherents of the old pagan religions while supporting Christians. This policy had resulted in increasing tensions between the emperor and the senators. When the Eastern Emperor Theodosius heard the news of Valentinian's death, Arbogast, who was the ''magister militum'' and ''de facto'' ruler of Western Empire, informed him that the young emperor had committed suicide. Tensions between the two halves of the empire were heightened further that summer. Arbogast made several attempts to contact Theodosius, but apparently none got further than the ears of the Eastern praetorian prefect Rufinus. The responses that Arbogast received from Rufinus were unhelpful. Theodosius himself was slowly coming around to the belief that Valentinian had been murdered, in no small part because his wife Galla was convinced her brother's death was caused by treachery. For his part, Arbogast had few friends in the Eastern court, although his uncle Richomeres was chief commander of the eastern cavalry. As it appeared increasingly likely that whatever course Theodosius decided upon would be hostile towards Arbogast, the Frank decided to make the first move. On 22 August of that year, Arbogast elevated Flavius Eugenius, the Western imperial court's ''magister scrinii'', to the purple. Eugenius was a well-respected scholar of rhetoric, and a native Roman, making him a far more acceptable candidate for the purple than the Frankish commander. His ascension was backed by the praetorian prefect of Italy, Nicomachus Flavianus the Elder, and also by many of the pagan members of the Roman Senate. However, some senators, notably Symmachus, were uneasy with this action. After his elevation to emperor, Eugenius appointed several important pagan senators to key positions in the Western government. He also supported a movement to advance the traditional religion by granting it official recognition and by restoring important shrines such as the Altar of Victory and the Temple of Venus and Rome. These actions earned Eugenius withering criticism from Bishop Ambrose of Milan and did little to endear him to the Christian Theodosius. As a Christian, Theodosius was distressed by the apparent pagan revival that was occurring under Eugenius's reign. In addition there was the issue of Valentinian's death, which had never been resolved to his satisfaction. Furthermore, Eugenius had removed all the high civil officers left by Theodosius when he had given the Western half of the empire to Valentinian, so that Theodosius had lost control of the Western Roman Empire. When a party of Western ambassadors arrived in Constantinople to request that Eugenius be acknowledged as the Western ''augustus'', Theodosius was noncommittal, even if he received them with presents and vague promises. Whether he had already decided on an offensive against Eugenius and Arbogast at this point is unclear. In the end, however, after declaring his son Honorius, then eight years old, as the western ''augustus'' in January of 393, Theodosius finally resolved to invade the West. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of the Frigidus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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