January 17, AD 395

Theodosius I

Death of Theodosius I and succession of Arcadius and Honorius

He was well enough to watch victory games before dinner. Hours later he was too ill to return, and sent his ten-year-old son to preside in his place.

The night of 17 January 395, Milan

Theodosius I died from illness at Mediolanum — modern Milan — on the night of 17 January 395. Socrates Scholasticus records that he watched victory games earlier that day, became too ill to return after dinner, sent Honorius to preside in his place, and died that night.

The illness itself resists diagnosis. Socrates attributes it to the strain of the recent war and Theodoret calls it dropsy, but that is an ancient diagnostic label rather than a recoverable modern cause of death.

Successors who were already emperors

His sons did not receive the imperial title that day. Arcadius had been Augustus since 383 and Honorius since 393; what changed was that they now carried responsibility for the eastern and western administrations respectively.

Honorius was ten years old, and his western government initially operated under the military dominance of Stilicho, whom Theodosius had placed in a senior western command before his death. Ambrose delivered the memorial oration forty days later, on 25 February, with the boy present.

Not the day the empire split

Calling 395 an instantaneous constitutional division of the Roman Empire oversimplifies: eastern and western administrative divisions and multiple Augusti long predated this death, and the empire continued to be conceived as one Roman polity.

What the following day lacked was a single senior emperor personally directing both courts — Arcadius's eastern and Honorius's western administrations now ran under separate officials and commanders. Even Theodosius's age is uncertain: the listed 48 rests on one reconstruction, while other ancient historians gave the incompatible figure of 60.

Sources

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What the sources leave uncertain

The exact illness is uncertain. Theodoret's later history calls it dropsy, while Socrates describes an illness followed by sudden deterioration and Zosimus merely says that Theodosius died of disease.
The listed age of 48 is not secure. David Woods dates his birth to about 346 from an ancient notice that he died in his fiftieth year; other ancient historians gave the incompatible age of 60.
Calling 395 an instantaneous or constitutional 'division of the Roman Empire' is an oversimplification. Eastern and western administrative divisions and multiple Augusti long predated this death, and the empire continued to be conceived as one Roman polity.
The Oxford history excerpt explicitly cautions that treating the division as absolute from 395 is a simplification: https://academic.oup.com/book/47282/chapter-abstract/422393315