When Valens had fallen, Gratian, seeing the impossibility of undertaking alone the defence of the whole Roman world, called Theodosius to be his colleague. This resolution of Gratian’s does him great honour, as it proves him to have been capable of the feelings of a great man. Theodosius was the son of a most distinguished person, who in the earlier days of Gratian had recovered Britain and Africa, but had been put to death, though guiltless, on a malignant charge. He was a native of Spain, a province which had likewise given birth to the Emperors Trajan and Hadrian, to whom, however, he was not related: he came from the neighbourhood of Valladolid; the other two were from Seville. He is rightly surnamed the Great: he achieved great things in a great manner, being indeed the last great emperor, if we set aside Majorian whose unlucky star was too powerful for him. His defects were passion and rage, which, however, were allied to his great qualities; but his worst fault was, that after great exertions, he would often give himself entirely up to sloth, and in matters of government become the tool of many an unworthy man, to whom he had given his confidence. Theodosius had a task at which one shudders: with the remaining forces of the Eastern empire,—for the West was no longer able to support him,—he was to keep the Goths at bay. Yet he not only set them bounds, but he also succeeded in disarming them by means of treaties of which we have no knowledge: in a series of campaigns in which he cut off one tribe from the other, he so managed to break them up, that they yielded to the supremacy of Rome. But they remained, as it seems, in Northern Illyricum, in Mœsia, and in Servia, where they dwelt in the country, while the towns remained Roman. In Illyricum, there are still to this day the genuine descendants of the old stock. The Goths lived there under the Roman sovereignty, and they bound themselves to serve the empire, as Theodosius found them very useful in his wars, and likewise there were always Gothic troops in the Roman service: yet they were not tributary, but in fact received a tribute under the name of pay. Matters had been thus settled, more especially since the year 384; and so they remained until the death of Theodosius (395).