Orchestrating the Downfall of Opponents: Political Violence in the Fifth-Century Roman West (395-472 CE)

This dissertation aims to examine and categorize violence on political level in the fifth century Roman west that has so far enjoyed no systematic inquiry. Specifically, cases of violence that came to materialization almost exclusively amongst the high ranked generals of the western empire at a time its imperial office was undergoing infantilization is the focus of this research. Genesis of such rivalries was the individuals' desire to seize and control the post of the magisterium militum (the office of the supreme general), the post that allowed its holder easy and direct access to the soldiery, those veritable tools of political violence in ancient Rome. Once one established himself as the supreme general, he would have also established his monopoly on violence and bend others, including emperors, to his will. Due to the military and economical privations of the west in its last century, however, these generalissimos' prized position could never be completely safe. When the ambitious and competitive nature of others was added to the equation, the number of political violence cases naturally multiplied. The result was that the western Roman empire in the fifth century suffered also from an endemic that deprived it of further time and energy from its already limited reserves. Keywords: political..