Estilico's Assassination of Rufinus

Stilico's biggest fear of course was a vaguely noble one, he feared that Constantinople would give the Gothic king the Roman general ship that he had been craving as the price for an alliance. Eudokseo quickly got together with one of Rufinus' court enemies, a eunuch named Eutropius, and together they conspired to topple the prefect. While Stilico was thus occupied, Alaric continued to plunder the central empire more or less it will. In 397 Estilico felt like he would do something about Alaric so gathered up an army, partially composed of new recruits and sailed them over to Corinth.