The dynasty of Theodosius, or, eighty years' struggle with the barbarians

The dynasty of Theodosius, or, eighty years' struggle with the barbarians by Thomas Hodgkin is a historical account written in the late 19th century. It surveys the late Roman Empire under the Theodosian house and its mounting confrontations with Goths, Huns, and Vandals, while tracing the Christianization of imperial power and the reshaping of Roman administration. Drawn from public lectures, it promises a clear, compact narrative of the Empire’s political machinery, key battles and leaders, and the pressures that hastened the Western Empire’s decline. The opening of this work explains its origin as a brief lecture course meant to distill the author’s larger scholarship, then lays out a contents map and family trees before plunging into Lecture I’s vivid tour of the Roman world—beginning in Roman Britain and ranging to the Rhine, Danube, Near East, and North Africa—to convey the Empire’s scale. It sketches how Rome was governed: the Senate and People under the Republic, their decline, and the rise of the Principate under Caesar and Augustus, with the provinces benefiting even under bad emperors. Hodgkin then periodizes imperial history (from the Julians and Antonines through the third‑century anarchy) and details Diocletian’s restoration—enhanced imperial majesty, the four prefectures, and the attempted adoptive succession—followed by Constantine’s ascent, civil wars, and pragmatic alignment with Christianity, culminating in Theodosius making Nicene orthodoxy the state faith.

The dynasty of Theodosius, or, eighty years' struggle with the barbarians, by Thomas Hodgkin. Republished by OpenStories from Project Gutenberg eBook #78826.