Caesarius ( consul 397 ) Flavius Caesarius ( " floruit " 386 - 403 ) was a politician of the Eastern Roman Empire , who served under Emperors Theodosius I and Arcadius . Caesarius was " magister officiorum " in 386 - 387 , praetorian prefect of the East between 395 and 397 , consul in 397 , then again praetorian prefect of the East in between 400 and 403 . Biography . Caesarius was the son of the Consul of 361 , Taurus , and the elder brother of Aurelianus , with whom he contended the power . He had a wife , to whom he was devoted . In 386 he is attested as " magister officiorum " . In 387 , while he still was " magister officiorum " , Emperor Theodosius I sent him to Antioch , where the population had revolted because of a taxation matter ; here Caesarius held an inquiry , together with Ellobicus , then " magister militum per Orientem " . Caesarius conducted his investigation with a particular attention for the situation of the citizens of Antioch , pleading for Theodosius ' clemency for them in his report to the Emperor , that the Antiochian orator Libanius thanked him in an oration of his . Despite his merits , however , for a long time after his tenure as " magister officiorum " , Caesarius was not appointed to a higher office . This period , 388 - 395 , corresponds to the years in which Rufinus was in power ; it has been proposed that Caesarius , despite being and Orthodox , was not enough strict against the heretics . In that same period , it was Aurelian that made career , succeeding Rufinus as " magister officiorum " in 392 and then holding the office of " praefectus urbi " of Constantinople between 393 and 394 . However , in November 395 , after Rufinus was killed , Caesarius had a huge obstacle to his career removed , and succeeded Rufinus in the office of praetorian prefect of the East . When he had been appointed prefect , Rufinus had issued a law to ban the Lycia ns , as his enemies , the powerful Eutolmius Tatianus and his son Proculus , were ; Caesarius nullified this law of Rufinus ' , as well as another banning the Arian Eunomians from making wills , but not in opposition to Rufinus , as shown by the fact that he also issued a law that allowed the widow of proscribed men from losing their properties ( the widow of Rufinus probably benefited by this law ) . In April 400 , Gainas returned to Constantinople with his army , and asked Emperor Arcadius to depose and hand him Aurelianus and Saturninus . Gainas chose Caesarius as successor to Aurelianus to the office of Praetorian prefect of the East , but after a short time , he left Constantinople and was defeated by the " magister militum per Orientem " Fravitta ; however , Caesarius kept his office until 403 ; to this period is to be dated an inscription in Tralles , in which Caesarius is attested " Patricius " , a title that , combined with Praetorian prefecture of the East and the ex - consul status put Caesarius at the top of the dignities . Caesarius bought a monastery from the followers of Macedonius : the property had been left as legacy to the monks by some Eusebia , a close friend of Caesarius ' wife , who had asked them to bury the relics of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste she kept in her house . Caesarius demolished the monastery a buried his wife and her friend , then he built a shrine to saint Thyrsus , and a tomb for himself close by . In literature . Caesarius has been identified by some scholars with the character of Typhon of the " Aegyptus , sive De providentia " by Synesius , where the story of the struggle between Egyptian god Osiris and Typhon is used to retell the story of the struggle between Aurelianus ( Osiris ) and Caesarius in the period of the revolt of Gainas . In the novel , Typhon - Caesarius plays the role of the villain , Osiris - Aurelius the main character . Apart its literary merits , the " De providentia " has been useful to reconstruct the events of that period , even if historians need to recast the allegories to real people and historical events and to remove Synesius ' bias in favour of Aurelianus .