in the riot, but none of the early sources actually say so. Sources There are no contemporaneous accounts. Church historians Sozomen, Theodoret the bishop of Cyrrhus, Socrates of Constantinople and Rufinus wrote the earliest accounts during the fifth century. These are moral accounts emphasizing imperial piety and ecclesial action rather than historical and political details. Further difficulty is created by these events moving into legend in art and literature almost immediately. Doležal explains that yet another problem is created by aspects of these accounts contradicting one another to the point of being mutually exclusive. Nonetheless, most classicists accept at least the basic account of the massacre, although they continue to dispute when it happened, who was responsible for it, what motivated it, and what impact it had on subsequent events. Theodosius' role Theodosius was not in Thessalonica when the massacre occurred. The court was in Milan. Several scholars, such as historian G. W. Bowersock and authors Stephen Williams and Gerard Friell, think that Theodosius ordered the massacre in an excess of "volcanic anger". McLynn also puts all the blame on the Emperor as does the less dependable fifth century historian, Theodoret. Other scholars, such as historians Mark Hebblewhite and N. Q. King, do not agree. Peter Brown points to the empire's established process of decision making, which required the emperor "to listen to his ministers" before acting. There is some indication in the sources Theodosius did listen to his counselors but received bad or misleading advice. J. F. Matthews argues that the Emperor first tried to punish the city by selective executions. Peter Brown concurs: "As it was, what was probably planned as a selective killing ... got out of hand". Doleźal says Sozomen is very specific in saying that in response to the riot, the soldiers made random arrests in the hippodrome to perform a few public executions as a demonstration of imperial disfavor, but the citizenry objected. Doleźal suggests, "The soldiers, realizing that they were surrounded by angry citizens, perhaps panicked ... and ...forcibly cleared the hippodrome at the cost of several thousands of lives of local inhabitants". McLynn says Theodosius was “unable to impose discipline upon the faraway troops" and covered that failure by taking responsibility for the massacre on himself, declaring he had given the order then countermanded it too late to stop it. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan and one of Theodosius' many counselors, was