EUGENIO, USURPER. — When the powerful “magister militum” Arbogast rid himself, by the murder, of the young emperor Valentinian II, he did not dare to assume the purple himself, since it still seemed inconceivable that a barbarian such as Arbogast could command the Romans. He considered it wiser to govern through an intermediary, and had Flavius E. proclaimed emperor, a teacher of rhetoric who had risen through the administrative career to the rank of “magister officiorum” and whom his temperament and habits of life led him to regard as incapable of freeing himself from his domination. Although, however, the version of Valentinian II’s natural death was fabricated, it proved impossible to obtain the requested recognition from the senior emperor residing in Constantinople, Theodosius I, which amounted to a declaration of war.
In preparing for hostilities, E., although a Christian, sought the support of the pagans, ordering that the expenses of the old idolatrous cults be assumed by the state budget, and favouring the pagans in other ways. The war thus became almost a war of religion, nor was this character left unemphasized: on E.’s side, images of Jupiter Latiaris were erected on the passes of the Julian Alps, where the army from Constantinople was expected to pass, while Theodosius appealed to prophecies of certain victory, said to have come from a holy anchorite of Euitt.
The battle that took place in the Friulian plain, along the course of the Vipava, was long and arduous, and only on the second day of fighting (6 September 394), when a furious wind arose and struck E.’s soldiers in the face, were they defeated. The intervention of natural elements appeared miraculous, and this final battle, in which the pagan gods seemed to clash with the God of the Christians, marked the definitive defeat of paganism. E., taken prisoner, was condemned to death; Arbogast killed himself (395).