Stilicho

His primary opponent was Stilicho, a half-Roman, half-Vandal who commanded the armies of the western half of the empire.

He celebrated the war of Gildo and the victories of Stilicho over the Goths in verses equal to the "Pharsalia;" and his invectives against Eutropius and Rufinus, in defense of Stilicho his patron, are still considered masterpieces.

Yet Claudian had truly pagan morals; he praised the vices of his patron Stilicho, and when he was murdered he wrote a poem to his enemy; "he misused both panegyric and satire, the powers of a good understanding and a rich fancy and flowing versification, which place him, after an interval of three hundred years, among the poets of ancient Rome."

Honorius was one of the feeblest emperors who ever occupied the throne, and the dismemberment of the West was only temporarily averted by the efforts of Stilicho, and, later, of Constantius, a capable general who overthrew the usurpers and was rewarded with a share in the government.

His Italian campaigns fall into two great divisions, that of 402-3, when he was driven back by Stilicho, and that of 408-10, after Stilicho’s death.