On this day in history: The Battle of the Frigidus – Sep 5, 394 AD

AncientPages.com - On September 5, 394 AD - the Battle of the Frigidus, was fought along the Frigid River (probably Vipava, in the Alps).

Theodosius I the Great, Roman emperor who established Christianity as the official religion and persecuted the pagans, defeats the pagan Western emperor Eugenius and his commander, the Frankish magister militum Arbogast.

The Battle of the Frigidus lasted two days and resulted in the victory of Theodosius, the beheading of Eugenius the usurper, and the suicide of Arbogast. Photo credits: Johann Weikhard von Valvasor - Public Domain

The religious nature of this conflict was rather obvious by the fact that Arbogast and Eugenius erected a large statue of Jupiter at the edge of the battlefield and put images of Hercules on the Roman battle standards.

The message is clear: they are defending the old pagan religious traditions, and their army is being supported by the pagan gods themselves, just as the Roman armies were in the old days.

Eugenius' early reign was characterized by appointing pagans to high-ranking positions in the imperial government, something which made the tensions between the eastern and western Roman empires even worse.

Theodosius ruled for 16 years during which time he was baptized and Eugenius' apparent pagan revival, centered in Rome itself, upset him.

The war between the two halves of the empire was inevitable.

In 394, Theodosius marched west to deal with both the usurper and the restoration of paganism.

The Battle of the Frigidus lasted two days and resulted in the victory of Theodosius, the beheading of Eugenius the usurper, and the suicide of Arbogast.

Updated on September 5, 2022

AncientPages.com