Valentinian III

Valentinian III was emperor of the western Romans from 425 to 455. He was the son of Galla Placidia and the brother of Honoria.^[1]^[2] His reign saw the height of the power of Attila and the Hun empire. Attila claimed Honoria as his bride and half of Valentinian’s empire as her inheritance. He invaded Gaul and Italy in 451 and 452.^[3]^[4]

The Huns before 450

In 424 the usurper John hired many Huns against Valentinian. Aetius led this action.^[5] A second account dates Aetius’s mission to 425.^[6] Aetius came back too late. He persuaded the Huns to go home for gold. Placidia and Valentinian then made their peace with him and gave him the rank of count.^[6]

In 439 Carthage fell to the Vandals.^[7] On 24 June 440 Valentinian’s government issued a proclamation to the people of Rome. It said that help from the eastern empire was already on the way.^[7]^[8] The eastern fleet achieved nothing in Sicily. It was recalled when the Huns broke into the Balkan provinces.^[9] In 444 Valentinian’s ministers took away the exemption of a large group of officials from the tax for recruits. They also devised a new tax on all sales.^[10] Some scholars see in these laws the preparations for a war with the Huns.^[10]

The embassy of 449

In 449 Priscus travelled with the embassy of Maximinus. On the way to Attila he met western envoys: Romulus, a man of the rank of count, Promotus, governor of Noricum, and Romanus, a military commander.^[11]^[12]^[13] Attila demanded the surrender of Silvanus, a banker at Rome. Silvanus had taken in pledge gold vessels that had come from the bishop of Sirmium. Aetius and the western emperor answered that Silvanus had sold the vessels to priests. They would pay gold for the cups. They would not hand over a man who had done no wrong.^[14] Some scholars note that Priscus names the patrician before the emperor.^[13]

Honoria and the war in Gaul

In 449 Honoria’s intrigue with her steward Eugenius was discovered.^[15] Eugenius was put to death. Honoria was betrothed against her will to the senator Herculanus.^[15]^[16] In the spring of 450 she sent her ring to Attila and asked him to save her from the marriage.^[17]^[16] Theodosius II advised Valentinian to hand her over to the Hun. Valentinian was furious. The eunuch who had carried the ring was tortured and beheaded. Placidia had much to do to persuade her son to spare his sister’s life.^[17]^[18]

Attila learned that Marcian had become emperor in the East and what had happened to Honoria. He then sent envoys to the ruler of the West. They said that Honoria had done nothing wrong. They said that Attila would come to her aid unless she received her share of the sovereignty. The western court answered that she could not marry him, because she was already given to another. It added that the Roman empire belonged to men, not to women.^[19] A second embassy showed Honoria’s ring. It said that Valentinian owed Attila half the empire, because the paternal kingdom belonged to Honoria by right and her brother’s greed had deprived her of it.^[3] The western Romans refused again.^[3]

Aetius adopted the younger son of a dead Frankish king. The boy’s elder brother had called in Attila. Aetius sent the boy home with many gifts from himself and from the emperor.^[3] Valentinian showed no sign of sacrificing Aetius.^[20] Jordanes writes that Attila sent word to Valentinian that he did not mean to break his friendship with the empire. Attila said that his quarrel was only with the Visigothic king Theodorid.^[21] Some scholars hold that in early 450 Attila announced his attack on the Visigoths as Valentinian’s ally.^[22]

Some scholars hold that an abrupt message from Attila finally moved Valentinian and Aetius to resist and to seek the alliance of the Visigoths.^[23] Valentinian’s envoys told the Visigoths that it was prudent to unite “against the lord of the earth who wishes to enslave the whole world”. Theodorid answered: “Romans, you have attained your desire; you have made Attila our foe also.”^[24] Avitus carried a letter from the emperor to the Visigothic court and won the king over.^[25] The campaign in Gaul ended on the Catalaunian Plains.

The war in Italy

The chronicler Prosper says that Aetius decided to take the emperor with him and abandon Italy when Attila invaded Italy in 452.^[26] Valentinian did not flee from Ravenna to Rome, as has often been said. He was in Rome throughout 451 and 452, and all his laws of those years were issued there.^[27] From Rome he sent Pope Leo and two leading senators, Avienus and Trygetius, to negotiate with Attila.^[28]^[29] Jordanes says only that Leo came to Attila at the ford of the Mincius. Attila withdrew with the promise of peace. He threatened worse things for Italy unless they sent him Honoria, the sister of the emperor Valentinian, with her share of the royal wealth.^[2] The emperor refused to give her up. No payment is recorded.^[28]

The murder of Aetius

In 454 the senator Petronius Maximus and the eunuch Heraclius, the emperor’s chamberlain, persuaded Valentinian that Aetius would kill him unless he struck first.^[30] Aetius came to the palace to lay a financial statement before the emperor. Valentinian leapt from his throne and accused him of treason. He drew his sword and attacked him, and Heraclius struck at the same moment. Aetius died on 21 September 454.^[30] Someone afterwards told the emperor: “You have cut off your right hand with your left.”^[30]

Death

Heraclius persuaded the emperor not to hand Aetius’s power to Maximus.^[30] Maximus then won over Optila and Thraustila, two barbarian retainers of Aetius. On 16 March 455 Valentinian practised archery on the Campus Martius. Optila struck him on the temple and then in the face, and Thraustila killed Heraclius.^[31] Jordanes writes that the emperor was slain through the treachery of Maximus, who then seized the throne like a tyrant. The Vandal king Gaiseric heard of it. He came from Africa with a war fleet, entered Rome and laid it waste.^[32] Priscus says that Gaiseric carried off Valentinian’s widow and daughters. Later Gaiseric married the elder daughter, Eudocia, to his son Huneric.^[33]

Almost nothing is known of Valentinian’s court and private life.^[34] Some scholars judge him intellectually and morally feeble, as unfit for the throne as his uncles Honorius and Arcadius.^[34] Others call him incapable.^[35] The first group also holds that his mere existence held Italy, Gaul and Spain together. He left no son, and no male member of the Theodosian house remained to succeed him.^[36]

References

^ Mierow 1915, p. 170
^ a b Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 223, p. 113–114
^ a b c d Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 16, p. 99
^ Bury 1923, p. 290–294
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 95
^ a b Thompson 1948, p. 35
^ a b Thompson 1948, p. 78
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 108
^ Thompson 1948, p. 81
^ a b Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 103–104
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 84
^ Bury 1923, p. 282
^ a b Thompson 1948, p. 129
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 84–85
^ a b Bury 1923, p. 289
^ a b Thompson 1948, p. 132
^ a b Bury 1923, p. 290
^ Thompson 1948, p. 133
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 15, p. 98
^ Thompson 1948, p. 134
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 185, p. 103
^ Thompson 1948, p. 130
^ Thompson 1948, p. 138
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 187–189, p. 103–104
^ Thompson 1948, p. 139
^ Thompson 1948, p. 145
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 137
^ a b Bury 1923, p. 295
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 102
^ a b c d Bury 1923, p. 299
^ Bury 1923, p. 299–300
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 235, p. 117
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 24, p. 101–102; fr. 29–30, p. 104
^ a b Bury 1923, p. 288
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 99
^ Bury 1923, p. 300

Sources

Priscus
Jordanes (after Priscus and Ammianus Marcellinus)

Literature

Karl Müller (ed.), Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Bd. IV (darin: Menandri Protectoris fragmenta, griechisch mit lateinischer Übersetzung) (1851)
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)
Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen, The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture (1973)
E. A. Thompson, A History of Attila and the Huns (1948)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)