When Jovian died, Valentinian was commanding a regiment of guards. A council of military and civil leaders elected him Emperor. He proclaimed his brother, Valens, Augustus and co-ruler with authority over the East, whilst he himself set about securing the West. He concentrated on frontier defence, and repelled the Alamanni who had invaded Gaul. His general Count Theodosius brutally restored order in Africa and Britain. Prone to fits of rage, Valentinian died of a stroke whilst berating a delegation of those responsible for the failure to prevent an invasion into Pannonia.

The younger brother of Valentinian I who had proclaimed him Emperor of the Eastern Empire. He lacked his brother’s military ability and forceful personality, but was an obedient colleague. He reduced taxation by his careful economies. Able to impose terms on the Goths early in his reign, later he made the mistake of allowing them to settle under supervision on Roman lands. When they later rebelled, Valens’ attempts to coerce them led to the battle of Adrianopolis, in which he and two-thirds of his army were killed. His body was never recovered.

In 365, Procopius, a relative of the late Emperor Julian, had himself proclaimed Emperor at Constantinople. He met Valens in battle in 366, and was defeated and put to death.

In order to ensure the succession, Gratian, the son of Valentinian I, was made Augustus at the age of eight. Ruling the West from 375, he was compelled to accept the army’s proclamation of his infant half-brother, Valentinian II, but on the death of Valens, he made Theodosius I Emperor of the East. He was much influenced by St. Ambrose, and abandoned the title Pontifex Maximus. Unable to concentrate upon defending Gaul as well as the Upper Danube, he was overthrown by the usurper Magnus Maximus and murdered at Lyons.

Born in 371, following the death of his father Valentinian I in 375, he was acclaimed Augustus by the army. Technically the ruler of Italy, Africa, and Illyricum, he seems to have been under the control of Gratian, upon whose death at the hands of the usurper Magnus Maximus in 383 he became the legitimate Western Emperor. Expelled from Italy by Maximus in 387, he was restored the following year by Theodosius. He was found dead, whether by suicide or murder, at Vienna in 392 and was succeeded in the West by yet another usurper, Eugenius.

The son of Count Theodosius. He was appointed Master of the Soldiers, and later Augustus of the Eastern lands by Gratian. He was sent to fight the Goths, but failed to eject them from the Empire. He secured peace in the East by signing a treaty with the Persians that divided the kingdom of Armenia between the two nations. When the usurper Magnus Maximus killed Gratian, Theodosius for a time recognised him, but later marched west and defeated him. He stayed in the West for three years whilst he established Valentinian II in Gaul. His elder son Arcadius, whom he had made Augustus in 383, took care of the East for him. He later had to march west again to remove the usurper Eugenius, taking with him his younger son Honorius, whom he made Augustus in 393. He died at Milan in 395 leaving his sons Arcadius and Honorius Emperors in the East and West respectively.

The wife of Theodosius I and mother of Arcadius and Honorius.

A Spaniard who successfully commanded troops in Britain against the Picts and Scots. Elevated by the army, he overthrew Gratian and invaded Italy, and this led to Theodosius turning against him. He was eventually defeated in battle and executed.

The son of Magnus Maximus, he was appointed by his father to the rank of Augustus. He was slain on the orders of Theodosius.

Following the death of Valentinian II, the Frankish general Arbogast, appointed Eugenius, a teacher of Latin grammar and rhetoric, as Western Emperor. He was defeated and executed in 394 by Theodosius.