Chapter 11, Part 4 Chapters 28, 29, 30 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 28: Unity Achieved. Emperor Honorious repeals laws protecting the Catholics from the Donatists. Support for the Roman regions in Africa is withdrawn, mainly due to the fact that Alaric the Goth and his military adventures throughout Italy gained the majority of the Emperor's attention. There was a meeting set up so that the Catholics and Donatists could debate before a crowd. There had been a precedent, a century earlier that had caused Roman laws to support the one over the other. Brown writes that the Christian Roman Empire came to be ruled by a small number of 'corrupt, petty and violent men' [Brown's choice, not order, of words]. Brown cites one leader's killing/murder? of a political prisoner en route to the capital of Ravenna as proof of the corruption. The tide turned in North Africa, and...