STILICHO, a celebrated Roman gen., the mainstay of the western empire after the death of Theodosius (q.v.) the great, is said to have been a Vandal, and was the son of a rapt. of barbarian auxiliaries in the imperial army. He rose through his military talent to high rank in the army, and Theodosius was so pleased with his rare ability, zeal, and accomplished manners, that he gave him his niece Serena in marriage. Stilicho's promo tion was, however, viewed with great jealousy by Rufiuus, the able but evil-minded and ambitious minister of Theodosius. and an inextinguishable feud arose between the two, which it required all the weight of the emperor's influence to repress. In 394 Stilicho departed for Rome in charge of the youthful Honorius (q.v.), who had been committed to his care, placed him on the throne of the western empire, and administered in his name the affairs of state. On the death of Theodosius, toward the close of 394, the quarrel for supremacy between Stilicho and Rufous, the guardian of Arcadius (q.v.), became fully developed, and Alarie (q.v.), at the instigation of the latter, invaded Greece while Stilicho was engaged in chastising the invaders of the Roman territories on the Rhine and in Gaul. Stilicho, on his return, at once set out for Constantinople, and put an end to the struggle between himself and Rufinus by the destruction of his rival in 395. He then marched against Alaric. blocked him up in the Peloponnesus; but, through over-confi dence, permitted him to escape across the isthmus with his captives and booty. In 398 his daughter Maria became the wife of Honorius. His old opponent, Alaric, after sev eral inroads upon the eastern provinces of the western empire, now invaded northern Italy, but was signally defeated at Polleutia (War., 403) by Stilicho, who had hurriedly called in the Roman legions from Rhntia, Gaul, Germany, and even Britain. He was again defeated at Verona, upon which he retired from the empire, and Stilicho obtained the honor of a triumph and a great increase of influence and power. Stilicho's ambition now led him to attempt the introduction of his own family to the imperial succession (a statement disbelieved by Gibbon, who considers it merely as an invention of the crafty Olympias; though the great historian of the Roman empire honestly confesses to various heavy blots on the character of his hero), by the marriage of his son with the heir-pre sumptive Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius, and to attain this end, he made overtures of alliance to Alarie, which were gladly accepted. But the dreadful inroad of Radagaisus,
in 406, at the head of more than 200.000 (some say 400,000) barbarians, who ravaged the whole country as far as Florence, compelled the great gen. of the west to shelve for a time his ambitious schemes. With a small but chosen army of veterans, aided by a body of Huns under Uldin (father of Attila), and of Visigoths under Sams, he so harassed the invaders that they were forced. to give him battle. They were soon routed. Radagaisus, who surrendered, was put to death, and his followers sold as slaves. Stilicho again resumed his pet scheme; established enmity between Rome and Byzantium by seiz ing on eastern Illyricum and inducing Alaric' to transfer his allegiance to Honoring., But Honorius, who had been prejudiced against Stilieho by one of hie officers, Olym pias, refused to take eastern Illyricum from the Byzantine empire; and subsequently, by an artful harangue, he so influenced the soldiers of the army of Gaul that they rose en masse against the partisans of Stilicho. Stilicho himself was at Bologna; and on the news of the imeute, his most zealous friends urged immediate action against Olympius and the Pavian rebels; but for the first time in his life, vacillation seizedStilicho, and he declined. They then, for self-preservation, turned against him, and one of them, Sarus, the Goth above mentioned, drove hint out of his camp, and compelled him to flee to Itavenna, where he was soon afterward slain, Aug. 23, 408. Thus perished the last of the series of distinguished aliens, who, as emperors, warriors, or politicians, had propped up the Roman empire for 150 years, with a stern and resolute zeal equal to that of the early Romans themselves. After protecting the weak empire from formidable invasion by his own kinsmen, administering its affairs with remarkable abilityymoderation, and integrity, and restoring its old heroic glory to the imperial arms, Stilicho received the reward which alone an effete and conceited people can be expected to bestow; and three months after his death, Alaric and his Visigoths were at the gates of Rome.