massacre of Thessalonica
390 CE.
Shown on the map at 40.633°, 22.950°.
The Massacre of Thessalonica in Macedonia, Greece, was a massacre of local civilians by Roman troops which is believed to have occurred around 390. According to Sozomen, in June of that year, Butheric, a Roman general stationed in Thessalonica as a magister militum, was lynched in an urban riot by an angry mob in the circus after having a famous circus charioteer arrested for pederasty, and refusing the people's demand for his release, although, this is found in only one source. In response, Theodosius authorized his Gothic soldiers to punish the people of the city resulting in the killing of a large number of citizens when they were assembled in the city's hippodrome. Modern historians have had difficulty discerning the details of the massacre and its aftermath, as there are no contemporaneous accounts of the event. Instead, the works of fifth-century church historians provide the earliest record of what happened. Many parts of these accounts contradict one another, and some are of questionable reliability. The pagan historians of late antiquity do not discuss the massacre at all.
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