ARCADIUS (378-408), Roman emperor, the elder son of Theodosius the Great, was created Augustus in 383, and succeeded his father in 395. The empire was divided between him and his brother Honorius, Honorius governing the two western prefectures (Gaul and Italy), and Arcadius the two eastern (the Orient and Illyricum). There was estrangement between the two governments throughout the reign of Arcadius. Honorius's general Stilicho (q.v.), was always on the watch to annex the prefecture of Illyri cum. Arcadius was guided at first by the praetorian prefect Rufinus, and, after his murder, probably instigated by Stilicho (end of 395), by the eunuch Eutropius (executed end of 399). His wife Eudoxia (daughter of a Frank general, Bauto), had great influence over him ; she died in 404. In the last years of his reign, Anthemius (praetorian prefect) was his minister. In 395-96 the West Goths, under Alaric, ravaged Greece. In 399-400 the Gothic General Gainas, with the aid of partisans in Constantinople, tried to set up a German domination. But he fell after having held the city for six months, and the German danger was averted from the east. The banishment in 404 of John Chrysostom (q.v.), patriarch of Constantinople, who had offended the empress and quarreled with the bishop of Alexandria, was important, as determining the supremacy of the emperor to the patriarch.
AUTHORITIES.-Ancient: Fragments of Eunapius and Olympiodorus Authorities.-Ancient: Fragments of Eunapius and Olympiodorus (in Miller's Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, vol. IV.) ; frag ments of PhiIostorgius, Socrates, Sozomen, Zosimus, Synesius of Cyrene ("The Egyptian") , Claudian.