Political problems were brewing which pushed Theodosius even farther. In the West the weak emperor, Valentinian, tried to get rid of his overly ambitious pagan army commander Arbogast (a Frank) but failed. Then Valentinian committed suicide under Arbogast's orders and a professor of rhetoric named Eugenius was placed on the western throne, a break from a long line of military emperors. Eugenius' prefect in Rome, Virius Nichomachus Flavianus, a patrician from a powerful family led a pagan revival and had the statue of Victory restored to the Senate as well as the refinancing of the ceremonies. Theodosius journeyed to Italy to do battle with the usurpers in a battle heavily symbol-laden: the cross-bearing pennants of the Christians flew against the banners, emblazoned with Hercules, of the pagans. But Theodosius' forces overwhelmed the rebellion and Virius and Arbogast committed suicide. Eugenius was executed. The ancient families of the Rome were now dispirited and felt that the ancient Luck of their ancestors had finally deserted them. Many gave up and converted. 23
Theodosius now abolished the freedom to practice pagan customs:
"No one, under any circumstances, is permitted to sacrifice an innocent victim nor, as a less serious sacrilege, to worship one's lares with fire, ones genius with uncut wine, ones penates with perfume, to light lamps, waft incense, or hang garlands ... offering incense to a divinity, decorating a tree with ribbons, or raising an altar with bunches of torn-up grass."24
Rome had turned against it roots.
Even though private, as well as public, acts had now been forbidden, private conscience was still allowed, as were processions, festivals and festive entertainments: the public revolt would still have been too strong to ban these. The ancient games in the Greek style, which had spread throughout much of the empire and were very popular, lost their funding and disappeared. An enormous cultural shift was being forced. Public and private life was purged of familiar patterns and age-old enjoyments.
At the end of the century the enormous temple of the goddess Tanit (known as Dea Caelestis to the Romans) was ordered shut in Carthage. "How great was the power of the goddess Caelestis" complained Augustine. Two counts (high officials), Jovius and Gaudentius traveled through North Africa carrying out the destruction of temples and the breaking of statues. Tremendous resentments welled up from these losses and the new emperors tried to placate the people, allowing festivals and ordering the halting of temple destruction. But in the following decade Christian mobs continued destroying popular statues such as that of Hercules in a Tunisian city which then erupted with rioting during which sixty of the Christian mob ended up being killed. In 408, at Calama, now in Algeria, pagan dancers attracted a crowd; Christian hecklers gathered but were roughed up while their churches were set on fire.25 A volcanic rage of the pagan majority seemed to burn just beneath the surface from time to time flaring up in public outpourings.
In Carthage, the temple of Tanit, after being closed for several years, was turned into a church for Easter services. Having been condemned, for some years, the approaches were lined with garbage and overgrown with brambles, but the goddess' followers claimed that snakes and especially vipers defended the site. A bishop, named Aurelius, led a column of Christians to the temple intending to consecrate it to the Christian father. The bishop, upon entering, seated himself upon the seat of the Goddess and proclaimed that the building was now a cathedral of Christ. Yet, pagans still frequented the grounds and avenues leading to the site, so in 422 the church authorities had the place completely razed but it wasn't until the Vandal conquest, with its disruptions, that the place lost its sacredness to the population.
Notes to this chapter
23. Chuvin, p.70
24. Ibid. p.71
25. ibid. 73-5