Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book VII/Chapter 1

by Philip Schaff et al.

Book VII.

Chapter I.—Anthemius the Prætorian Prefect administers the Government of the East in Behalf of Young Theodosius.

After the death of Arcadius on the first of May, during the consulate of Bassus and Philip,^[1]

his brother Honorius still governed the Western parts of the empire; but the administration of the East devolved on his son Theodosius the Younger, then only eight years old. The management of public affairs was therefore intrusted to Anthemius the Prætorian prefect, grandson of that Philip who in the reign of Constantius ejected Paul from the see of Constantinople, and established Macedonius in his place. By his directions Constantinople was surrounded with high walls.^[2]

He was esteemed and actually was the most prudent man of his time, and seldom did anything unadvisedly, but consulted with the most judicious of his friends respecting all practical matters, and especially with Troïlus^[3]

the sophist, who while excelling in philosophical attainments, was equal to Anthemius himself in political wisdom. Wherefore almost all things were done with the concurrence of Troïlus.

Footnotes

1. 408 a.d. Cf. VI. 23. See Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 32.
2. This was done, according to Cedrenus, several years later by another prefect. For this reason and because of the grammatical construction in the original, Valesius rightly conjectures that the phrase is a gloss introduced from the margin, and should be expunged from the text.
3. Troïlus was a sophist of distinction who taught at Constantinople under Arcadius and Honorius at the beginning of the fifth century a.d., a native of Side and author of a treatise entitled Λόγοι πολιτικοί. See Suidas s.v. Τρώ& 187·λος.