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Birth of Theodosius II
One of my favourite Roman emperors was Theodosius II, who had the good fortune to be ruler of the eastern half of the empire at a time when extremely bad things were happening to the west. Theodosius came to the throne at the age of seven after the death of his father, Arcadius; his older sister Pulcheria served as regent while he grew up. His father and his uncle Honorius, the western emperor, were do-nothing weaklings, but Theodosius turned out to be a very productive monarch.
The codification of Roman law that was completed by Justinian a century later was undertaken and published as the Codex Theodosianus.
Theodosius is also responsible for the invention of the university. In 425 the Imperial University of Constantinople opened with schools of medicine, philosophy and law and 31 professors offering courses taught in Latin and Greek. It was a secular institution for training the empire’s civil service and ruling class; women may have been admitted too, at least into medicine.
The most enduring of his accomplishments the construction of the massive land walls around his capital, Constantinople. Though the fortification was begun when he was a child, Theodosius repaired and added to them which is, I suppose, why they are still called the Theodosian Walls. They kept the city safe for a thousand years, repelling Goths, Huns, Avars, Saracens, Vikings, and Persians; it was only the invention of gunpowder that brought their usefulness to an end.
As a warrior Theodosius was less successful. He was unable to save Italy from the Visigoths or North Africa from the Vandals, though he did manage to keep the Persians at bay in the east.