Stilicho

Stilicho commanded the western Roman armies for thirteen years and was executed by the emperor he had protected since childhood. Born around 359, he was the son of a Vandal cavalry officer in Roman service and a Roman mother — an ancestry his enemies never let go of. He rose through the army, was sent as an envoy to Persia, and married Serena, the niece and adopted daughter of Theodosius I, which placed him inside the imperial family. On his deathbed in 395 Theodosius is said to have entrusted his sons to him. Stilicho claimed guardianship over both the eleven-year-old Honorius in the West and the older Arcadius in the East; the eastern court rejected it, and the rivalry poisoned relations between the two halves for the rest of his life. He was the ablest general of the period and spent it firefighting. He fought Alaric's Visigoths repeatedly, defeating them at Pollentia in 402 and Verona in 403, and destroyed Radagaisus's invasion of Italy at Faesulae in 406. To do it he stripped the Rhine frontier of troops, and on the last day of 406 Vandals, Alans and Sueves crossed the frozen river into Gaul, never to be expelled. He negotiated with Alaric rather than fighting him to the end, and in 408 persuaded the Senate to pay him four thousand pounds of gold — which was portrayed as treason and collusion. The anti-German faction at Ravenna turned Honorius against him. He was arrested at Ravenna and beheaded in August 408, refusing to let his troops resist. Massacres of soldiers' families followed, and thirty thousand men defected to Alaric, who sacked Rome two years later.

• Lived: 359 CE – 408 CE
• Nationality: Italian
• Roles: military_leader, statesman