In this revised version of her Oxford doctoral thesis, Meaghan McEvoy presents an analysis of the phenomenon of child emperors as it manifested itself in the western half of the Roman Empire during the later fourth century and first half of the fifth century — a period during which Gratian, Valentinian II, Honorius and Valentinian III were successively proclaimed Augustus at the ages of, respectively, eight, four, ten and six. There had been child emperors previously, but never such a concentration. The timing of the trend is surprising: why did it become acceptable to have emperors who were minors in an era when active military leadership had become a desideratum of imperial rank, and how did they manage to remain in office for increasingly lengthy periods at the same time as the Western Empire became increasingly prone to upheaval? When the subject is presented in these terms, as M. does, its inherent interest quickly becomes obvious, so it is puzzling that it has previously received only limited attention. Perhaps the perceived passivity of these child emperors has not made them seem an attractive subject for research, or indeed to require much explanation. M.'s study shows otherwise.
Largely eschewing comparanda from other societies or periods of history, M. embeds her analysis in a detailed narrative of the reigns of the relevant emperors, invoking the complexities of the period and the often intractable nature of its source material. This is very much in the style of an earlier important study of political life during (most of) the same period: John Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court, A.D. 364–425 (1975), to which M. pays homage in the opening line of her Preface when she promises, as Matthews did in his, ‘to set [its subject] in its full context’, as also perhaps in the title of one chapter (‘The Regime of Stilicho’). Not that this influence should occasion surprise: in addition to the impressive model of scholarship provided by Matthews' book, M. was supervised by Peter Heather, originally a student of Matthews, while Matthews himself examined M.'s thesis.
Among the highlights of M.'s study is its careful investigation of how the image of the emperor, as projected above all through panegyric, was modified to accommodate the constraints imposed by under-age incumbents, with the theme of youthful promise emerging as a central refrain. Increasing emphasis was also given to the emperor's ceremonial and religious rôles, both of which were less age-dependent. The relationships of these emperors with powerful generals is an essential aspect of this subject, and M. also offers valuable analysis of this dimension, especially in her treatment of the régimes of Stilicho and Aetius. In particular, she draws out significant commonalities and variations in their situations, such as Aetius not facing a hostile eastern court (unlike Stilicho) but also lacking the advantages arising from Stilicho having been able to ensure Honorius' successive marriages to his daughters. In explaining this run of boy-emperors, M. is particularly concerned to show that it involved ‘far more … than blind dynastic loyalty’ (226). She emphasizes the specific circumstances surrounding each accession and the rôle of contingency, alongside its value as a strategy for reducing factional conflict at court and the likelihood of civil war.
M. is generally a sure-footed guide through the treacherous intricacies of political life in this period. In accounting for Stilicho's dominance, however, there did seem to me a significant omission. While Aetius' control of independent military forces is rightly stressed as a crucial factor in his rise to power (245–6), I missed any equivalent recognition of the way in which his centralization of military forces in the West, as detailed in the Notitia Dignitatum, underpinned Stilicho's power (cf. A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire (1964), I, 174–5). I also occasionally wondered about the wisdom of some of the terminology which M. deploys. While right to emphasize the importance of a more complex bureaucracy in allowing the business of government to continue irrespective of who was emperor, referring to this development as ‘professionalization’ (117, 306, 318), giving rise to a ‘bureaucratic machine’ (129), risks importing unhelpful anachronistic assumptions of efficiency into a context where emperors had an interest in encouraging a degree of duplication and conflict between administrative rôles (cf. C. M. Kelly in CAH XIII (1998), 169–71). I much preferred the less value-laden formulation of ‘a self-sustaining entity’ (117). Similarly, describing the strategies by which Stilicho secured his position as a ‘system’ (194, 250, 318) is in danger of suggesting too formalized an arrangement.
Of course, the eastern half of the Empire also had its child emperors during a substantial part of the same period, which would ideally form an integral part of an attempt to understand the phenomenon. However, the realities are that UK doctoral theses have relatively tight word limits and young would-be academics face considerable pressure to publish their first monograph without too lengthy a delay — circumstances which mean that M. has had to defer treatment of eastern child emperors to a follow-on project. This is unfortunate, but in the meantime a range of recent perspectives on one of their number can be found in C. M. Kelly (ed.), Theodosius II: Rethinking the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity (2013).
Overall, M. is to be congratulated on producing a fine, clearly-written study which significantly advances our understanding of the exercise of political power during an important phase of late Roman history.
