A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

Ambrose consolidated his success through a major building programme.
When by June 386 another basilica, now known as Sant’Ambrogio, was nearing
completion, Ambrose let it be known that he would be buried under its central
altar. There was simply no precedent for such pretensions. Traditionally a church
was dedicated to an earlier martyr, not the city’s presiding bishop. Milan seems
to have suffered little in the persecutions of the previous century, and when an
earlier church had been dedicated, relics had been imported from elsewhere.
Many believed that this should happen again, but the bishop countered with
the extraordinary claim that he had a presentiment where relics of the city’s own
martyrs could be found. He then led a crowd to a local memorial previously
erected to two martyrs, Nabor and Felix, whose fate had been recorded, and
ordered the digging to start. Soon two sets of bones emerged. Ambrose later
reported that there was fresh blood on them, which he interpreted as a sign that
God had preserved the bodies as evidence that they were martyrs. He had also
brought along two women possessed by demons, and with the bones before
them, the demons cried out from inside them, proclaiming in their agonies that
these were martyrs by the name of Gervasius and Protasius. Crowds
accompanied the bloodied remains into the city and further miracles were
announced, including the curing of a blind butcher who had rubbed his eyes with
a handkerchief that had touched the bier on which the bodies had been carried.
There were voices from the court mocking these opportune finds and the dubious
evidence used to justify their legitimacy, but Ambrose had the remains buried in
his new basilica within a day. The whole episode was presented as another
victory for the Nicene faith.
By 387, Valentinian and Justina had been outmanoeuvred and their position
was crumbling. There is evidence in the last months of 386 that leading officials
were beginning to resign and leave Milan. Their weakness on a broader front
was shown when they were forced to call on the help of Theodosius, who had to
send them one of his generals to bolster their position. Valentinian’s position was
not helped by a visit of Ambrose to Maximus in Trier later in 386 in which
Ambrose appears to have launched into recriminations against Valentinian.
Consequently, during the summer of 387, Maximus moved into Italy, claiming
that he was bringing the Nicene faith with him. There seems to have been no
resistance to the usurper, and Valentinian was forced to flee with his mother
eastwards to Thessalonika. Here he had his first meeting with Theodosius, and
the two emperors counterattacked until Maximus was hunted down and killed at
Aquileia. It was now that Theodosius forced Valentinian to renounce his