Emperor Theodosius and the Roman World Restoration

Abstract

The article examines a complex of various measures (military, political, diplomatic, economic, financial, social, and religious) of Emperor Theodosius undertaken by him in the first years of his reign and aimed at overcoming the consequences of the Adrianople catastrophe, which put the Roman Empire on the brink of survival. The author defines what exactly had to be restored and what the «Roman World» meant. The main attention is paid to the activities of Emperor Theodosius and his measures in various areas of domestic and foreign policy, as well as to the estimation of their effectiveness in the context of the history of the Late Roman Empire. The analysis of the sources does not allow us to call Theodosius in the full sense of the word «the restorer of the Roman world», and his contemporaries did not give him such a title. Nevertheless, these measures turned out to be effective for a certain period, and they can be recognized as quite logical and correspond- ing to the historical situation. Some of them had a long-term effect and significance that went far beyond the reign of their initiator; others were limited to the current moment or were intended for the near historical perspective