Galla Placidia

Galla Placidia was a Roman empress of the western empire. She was the daughter of the emperor Theodosius by his second wife and the sister of the emperor Honorius.^[1] She was the mother of the western emperor Valentinian III and of Honoria, whom Jordanes calls the daughter of the Augusta Placidia.^[2]^[3] In the 430s Aetius made his way back to power against her with the help of the Huns.^[4] Her daughter’s appeal to Attila may have turned the Huns towards the West.^[5]

Captivity and marriages

Jordanes writes that the Visigothic king Athaulf returned to Rome and stripped it of what the first sack had left. He led Placidia away from the city as a captive. Her nobility, beauty and chaste purity attracted him, and he took her to wife in lawful marriage. The marriage terrified the neighbouring peoples, since the empire and the Goths now seemed to be one.^[6] The wedding took place at Narbonne in 414.^[7] Honorius promised her in marriage to his general Constantius if he could bring her back. The Visigothic king Valia gave her up by treaty.^[8] Athaulf was assassinated in 415.^[3] Two years later his widow married Constantius. She bore him a son, who ruled as Valentinian III from 425 to 455.^[3]

Aetius and the Huns

In 425 Aetius brought an army of Huns to Italy for the usurper John, and he came too late.^[9] He persuaded the Huns to go home. Placidia and Valentinian made their peace with him and gave him the rank of count.^[9] Boniface, count of Africa, was one of the empress’s chief advisers.^[10] In 433 Aetius fled to the Huns because Placidia and Sebastian were making attempts on his life. Sebastian was the son-in-law and successor of Boniface.^[11] With the help of Rua, the leader of the Huns, Aetius re-established himself in Italy. Placidia and Sebastian had called Gothic troops from Gaul against him. Even so, Aetius became patrician, and Sebastian fled to Constantinople.^[12]

Honoria and Attila

In 449 Honoria’s intrigue with her steward Eugenius was discovered. She was betrothed against her will to the rich senator Herculanus.^[13] In the spring of 450 she sent her ring to Attila and asked him to save her from the marriage.^[14] Honoria may have followed her mother’s example. Placidia too had turned to a barbarian power for help, after the death of her husband Constantius and in her breach with her brother Honorius.^[14] Mother and daughter have been called women of ambition and self-will. Honoria is said to have felt herself as capable of conducting the affairs of state as Placidia had proved herself to be.^[15]

When the affair came out, Theodosius II advised Valentinian to hand Honoria over to Attila. Placidia had herself married a barbarian chieftain, the Goth Athaulf, thirty-five years before. She begged that the princess be given into her keeping. Valentinian consented.^[16] Placidia had much to do to persuade her son to spare his sister’s life.^[14] What became of Honoria afterwards is not known.^[16]

Attila did not let the claim go. In 452, as he withdrew from Italy, he threatened worse things unless the Romans sent him Honoria, “the sister of the Emperor Valentinian and daughter of Augusta Placidia”, with her share of the royal wealth.^[17]^[18]

References

^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 159, p. 95
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 223, p. 114
^ a b c Mierow 1915, p. 170
^ Thompson 1948, p. 64, 125
^ Bury 1923, p. 288
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 159–160, p. 95
^ Mierow 1915, p. 169
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 164–165, p. 97
^ a b Thompson 1948, p. 35
^ Mierow 1915, p. 171
^ Thompson 1948, p. 125
^ Thompson 1948, p. 64
^ Bury 1923, p. 289
^ a b c Bury 1923, p. 290
^ Bury 1923, p. 288–289
^ a b Thompson 1948, p. 133
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 223, p. 113–114
^ Bury 1923, p. 294

Sources

Jordanes (after Priscus and Ammianus Marcellinus)

Literature

Charles Christopher Mierow, The Gothic History of Jordanes in English Version, with an Introduction and a Commentary (1915)
J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian, vol. I (1923)
E. A. Thompson, A History of Attila and the Huns (1948)