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After the death of the Emperor Theodosius, in the consulate of
Olybrius and Probinus or the seventeenth of January, his two sons
undertook the administration of the Roman empire. Thus Arcadius
assumed the government of the East, and Honorius of the West. At
that time Damasus was bishop of the church at Imperial Rome, and
Theophilus of that of Alexandria, John of Jerusalem, and Flavian
of Antioch; while the episcopal chair at Constantinople or New Rome
was filled by Nectarius, as we mentioned in the foregoing book. The
body of the Emperor Theodosius was taken to Constantinople on the
8th of November in the same consulate, and was honorably interred by
his son Arcadius with the usual funeral solemnities. Not long
afterwards on the 28th day of the same month the army also arrived,
which had served under the Emperor Theodosius in the war against the
usurper. When therefore according to custom the Emperor Arcadius met
the army without the gates, the soldiery slew Rufinus the Praetorian
prefect. For he was suspected of aspiring to the sovereignty, and had
the reputation of having invited into the Roman territories the Huns,
a barbarous nation, who had already ravaged Armenia, and were then
making predatory incursions into other provinces of the East. On the
very day on which Rufinus was killed, Marcian bishop of the
Novatians died, and was succeeded in the episcopate by Sisinnius, of
whom we have already made mention.
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