Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Chapter XXVII
Sedition and massacre of Thessalonica, A.D. 390.
The sedition of Thessalonica is ascribed to a more shameful cause,
and was productive of much more dreadful consequences.
That great city, the metropolis of all the Illyrian provinces,
had been protected from the dangers of the Gothic war by strong fortifications and a numerous garrison.
Botheric, the general of those troops, and, as it should seem from his name, a barbarian,
had among his slaves a beautiful boy,
who excited the impure desires of one of the charioteers of the circus.
The insolent and brutal lover was thrown into prison by the order of Botheric;
and he sternly rejected the importunate clamours of the multitude,
who, on the day of the public games, lamented the absence of their favourite,
and considered the skill of a charioteer as an object of more importance than his virtue.
The resentment of the people was embittered by some previous disputes;
and, as the strength of the garrison had been drawn away for the service of the Italian war,
the feeble remnant, whose numbers were reduced by desertion,
could not save the unhappy general from their licentious fury.
Botheric and several of his principal officers were inhumanly murdered;
their mangled bodies were dragged about the streets;
and the emperor, who then resided at Milan,was surprised by the intelligence
of the audacious and wanton cruelty of the people of Thessalonica.
The sentence of a dispassionate judge would have inflicted a severe punishment on the authors of the crime;
and the merit of Botheric might contribute to exasperate the grief and indignation of his master.
The fiery and choleric temper of Theodosius was impatient of the dilatory forms of a judicial inquiry;
and he hastily resolved that the blood of his lieutenant should be expiated by the blood of the guilty people.
Yet his mind still fluctuated between the counsels of clemency and of revenge;
the zeal of the bishops had almost extorted from the reluctant emperor the promise of a general pardon;
his passion was again inflamed by the flattering suggestions of his minister Rufinus;
and, after Theodosius had despatched the messengers of death,
he attempted, when it was too late, to prevent the execution of his orders.
The punishment of a Roman city was blindly committed to the undistinguishing sword of the barbarians;
and the hostile preparations were concerted with the dark and perfidious artifice of an illegal conspiracy.
The people of Thessalonica were treacherously invited,in the name of their sovereign,
to the games of the circus;
and such was their insatiate avidity for those amusements that every consideration
of fear or suspicion was disregarded by the numerous spectators.
As soon as the assembly was complete,
the soldiers, who had secretly been posted round the circus,
received the signal,not of the races,
but of a general massacre.
The promiscuous carnage continued three hours, without discrimination of strangers or natives,
of age or sex, of innocence or guilt;
the most moderate accounts state the number of the slain at seven thousand;
and it is affirmed by some writers that more than fifteen thousand victims were sacrificed to the manes of Botheric.
A foreign merchant, who had probably no concern in his murder,offered his own life
and all his wealth to supply the place of one of his two sons;
but while the father hesitated with equal tenderness,
while he was doubtful to choose, and unwilling to condemn,
the soldiers determined his suspense by plunging their daggers at the same moment
into the breasts of the defenceless youths.
The apology of the assassins,that they were obliged
to produce the prescribed number of heads,
serves only to increase, by an appearance of order and design,
the horrors of the massacre,
which was executed by the commands of Theodosius.
The guilt of the emperor is aggravated by his long
and frequent residence at Thessalonica.
The situation of the unfortunate city,
the aspect of the streets and buildings,
the dress and faces of the inhabitants,
were familiar, and even present, to his imagination;
and Theodosius possessed a quick and lively sense
of the existence of the people whom he destroyed.
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Before we begin to count ourselves fortunate to live in a far more enlightened age.
you might consider the following figures
Approx. Ottoman census figures
for City of Saloniki (aka Thessaloniki)
Year .............. 1890
Total population .. 118,000
Jewish ............ 55,000
Turk (ie Muslim) .. 26,000
Greek ............. 16,000
Bulgar ............ 10,000
Roma (ie Gypsy) ... 2,500
All Other ......... 8,500
So what happened to the single most cosmopolitan city in all of modern Europe ?
I will leave to your own imagination.
Suffice to say it occured in the decades following the 1912 surrender of the Ottoman garrison.
My apologies again for the big 'downer'
But I threatened ........ and so delivered !
Now I will try and dream up a 'Smackdown' to give you more nightmares !
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Posted 03/12/2014 7:34 pm
