The massacre at Thessalonica

other · 390 · Thessalonica

A charioteer was gaoled by Butheric, the Gothic general commanding in Illyricum. At the next races the crowd demanded his release, and when it was refused they rose and killed Butheric and several magistrates. Theodosius ordered a reprisal, and it was carried out in the hippodrome without trial and without any attempt to separate the guilty from anyone else; strangers who had arrived in the city on their way elsewhere were killed with the rest. Seven thousand is the figure the sources give. Sozomen keeps two of the individual cases: a merchant who offered himself in place of his two sons and was allowed to buy only one of them off, and a slave who offered to die instead of his master. The one witness who was in a position to stop it says so. Ambrose writes to the emperor that he had petitioned against the order repeatedly, that when the news came a synod of Gallican bishops was sitting at Milan and not one of them made light of it, and that Theodosius himself showed what he thought of it by revoking the order too late.

To punish Thessalonica for lynching Butheric, the Gothic commander of its garrison.

Seven thousand dead by the lowest ancient count, and the first time a Roman emperor was made to answer for a public act as a private sinner.