THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS 77 provinces which his father had just recovered. Meanwhile Theodosius prevented the victorious Visigoths from pene- trating farther into the Empire or from devastating on too vast a scale by fighting with them now and then, in which encounters he was sometimes worsted ; but more by allow- ing them to occupy under their own rulers and law as much of Lower Mcesia and Thrace as they wished, by paying them an annual tribute, and by employing many of them as his own soldiers. He was called " the friend of the Goths." Indeed, it now became not at all unusual for the emperors to employ Huns as well as Germans in their armies ; Gratian favored the Alani among his troops. These barbarians did not merely enlist as individuals; they were hired in bodies and fought in their native organizations under their own kings. Theodosius' two chief generals were Arbogast, a Frank, and Stilicho, a Vandal ; and the imperial family even intermarried with such barbarian chieftains. Barbarian troops were not so favored by the civilian populace as they were by the emperors, and especially not when such troops were quartered upon citizens. The mas- A famous incident will illustrate this and some Thessalon- other important points. Theodosius had placed ca; . Theo ; . . . dosius and a German garrison in Thessalonica, one of the Ambrose largest cities in the Balkan peninsula and the same as the modern Saloniki. When the barbarian leader imprisoned a charioteer who was a great favorite in the races of the circus, the mob of the city rose in rebellion and killed the comman- dant. The news of this riot threw Theodosius into a terrible rage and he allowed his soldiers to slaughter some seven thousand of the populace. Yet he had often shown mercy to defeated enemies, and was an orthodox Christian who did so much for the Church as to win the appellation, "the Great." On this occasion the Church was to show that it dared reprove even an emperor when he sinned. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, warned Theodosius that he should refuse to perform the sacrament of the mass in his presence until he atoned for his crime, and the emperor soon did penance before him. Thus the story of Thessalonica illus-
