Decline of the Roman Empire

The **Decline of the Roman Empire** lasted from about 363 AD until 476 AD. It began with the death of Julian "the Apostate", the last of the Constantinian line. It then ended when a *barbarian* warlord deposed the last *western emperor*, Romulus Augustulus, which, by convention, marks the end of Classical Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Constantine’s hope for an *empire* held together by Christian faith was in large measure an illusion. As the first experiments with *co-emperors* had shown, the empire had grown too big for a unified political structure, however desirable the myth of *Romanitas* might be. In 364, it was divided again between *co-emperors*. Only once more would East and West be ruled by the same man; and then briefly. The political institutions and cultural differences between the Greek-speaking East and Latin-speaking West diverged further and further, until it now seems obvious in retrospect that two distinct entities were emerging. Yet it was a long time before anyone could see that. Instead, they saw something much more appalling: the *western empire* simply disappeared.

One explanation is social and economic. The tale of the third century had been resumed in the fifth; inflation drove rich and poor alike to devices for avoiding taxes. The East was populous and could still raise great revenues, while the West was unable to feed itself without North Africa. The main purpose of raising revenue was to pay for the army, but it became more and more difficult to raise enough. Less money meant Roman citizens were increasingly unwilling to chose a military life, which was harsh, dangerous, and offered few rewards. The result was a weaker army, and yet more recourse to *barbarian* mercenaries. This, in turn, meant concessions to Germanic peoples just as the pressure of folk-movements was reaching a new climax. In the last quarter of the fourth century, a particularly formidable nomadic people from Central Asia, the Huns, had fallen on the *barbarian* lands beyond the Roman frontiers. In 376, the Visigoths set a precedent; they were allowed to settle within imperial territory as a distinct people, keeping their own chiefs, laws, and religion. When Roman officials mistreated these refugees, they revolted, and, in 378, killed an emperor at the Battle of Adrianople. A few years later and the Visigoths were on the move again, this time towards Italy, until stopped by a Vandal general in the imperial service. This was the best the *western empire* could do for its own defence, and soon it was not enough. In 410, Rome itself was sacked by the Visigoths, an event so appalling that it inspired St. Augustine to write one of the masterpieces of Christian literature, “*The City of God*”; which set out to explain how God could allow such a thing to happen.

By now, a new world-order seemed to be emerging in the west, as *barbarian* warlords and their people wandered to and fro. The Visigoths eventually agreed terms with the *emperor*, who settled them in south-western Gaul, to help to clear other *barbarians* from Spain. Of these, the most important were the Vandals, who were pushed across the Straits of Gibraltar to settle in North Africa, making their capital at Carthage. In 455, they, too, sailed across the Mediterranean to sack Rome. Terrible as this was, it was less important than the seizure of North Africa, a fatal economic blow to the old *western empire*. The final collapse followed the greatest of the Hun assaults under Attila. In 451, he wreaked havoc in Gaul, until halted at Catalaunian Plains, by a “Roman” army, consisting mostly of Visigoths, commanded by a general of *barbarian* origin. It proved a *Pyrrhic* victory; the Huns simply regroup and ravaged Italy the next year. Attila unexpectedly died a few month later, which was the end of the Hun threat, but the damage had already been done. The late *emperors of the west* declined through stages from negotiating with *barbarian* warlords as equals, to being their *puppets.* The last of them, the appropriately named Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by the warlord Odoacer, who sent the imperial regalia to Constantinople and rules as “King of Italy”. Italy, like other barbarian kingdoms, was henceforth independent in all but name.

## History

### Emperors Valens and Valentinian (364-375 AD)

When Emperor Julian died on his Sassanid Persian expedition, the army dressed one of their own generals in the imperial *purple*, and proclaimed him *emperor*. **Jovian** (363-364), despite his predecessor's reinstitution of *paganism*, was unabashedly faithful to Christianity. Not that this brought an end to the plight of the Roman legions; starving, besieged, and stranded deep in Persian territory. Jovian was a pragmatist. Instead of fighting, he put on his crown and asked the Persian king, Shapur II, to parley. The treaty, once concluded, allowed the army to go home in peace. In exchange, Jovian ceded all Roman territory beyond the Tigris, including the fortress-city of Nisibis. Nisibis henceforth became the centre of Persian assaults against the Roman frontier; it would never be recovered. The legions limped back to Roman Syria under Jovian, to face the scorn and fury of the Roman populace; the peace treaty was shameful, a disgrace to Rome, an unacceptable conclusion to Julian’s bold and disastrous campaign. Jovian paused at the city of Antioch, and revoked the edicts of Julian against Christians, However, rather than replacing them with equally restrictive decrees against *paganism*, he declared religious toleration; Christian, Greek, Roman, or Jew, all would have equal rights to worship and to take part in government. But it was too late. Religion and politics were intertwined at the *empire*’s centre. A very strong and charismatic *emperor* might have managed to hold onto power, and to proclaim religious tolerance, at the same time, but Jovian’s political authority was already weak. He never even made it back to Constantinople. One day in February 364, Jovian was found dead in his tent. Accounts of the cause were suspiciously varied; he was said to have committed suicide, suffocated from a badly vented stove, died from a “swollen head". “*So far as I know,”* Ammianus wrote, “*no investigation was made of the death*”. The Roman throne lay open for the next claimant.

The new *emperor* was chosen by the army*; which* had become, without design, representatives for the entire *empire*. **Valentinian** (364-375) was forty-three, a lifelong soldier, and a zealous Christian, which makes it somewhat difficult to get an accurate picture of him. The Christian sources generally spoke in glowing term; "*distinguished not only for his courage but also for prudence, temperance, justice, and great stature*", wrote Theodoret. The *pagan* historian Zosimus, who was inclined to revile the restorer of Christianity, grudgingly remarked that he was “*an excellent soldier but extremely illiterate*”. What the *empire* needed at this point was not a learned man, but an experienced general, and Valentinian proved one of Rome's last great *warrior-emperors*. He was in Anatolia when the army acclaimed him. Before even setting out for Constantinople to be crowned, he chose to declare a *co-emperor*; his younger brother and fellow soldier **Valens** (364-378). Valentinian put him in charge of the *eastern empire*, then he himself travelled to the west. This was a brief reorientation of the *Roman Empire*, with the *senior* *emperor* taking up residence in Italy, and the *junior emperor* in the east, although Valens settled, not in Constantinople, but in Antioch. And it soon became clear why. The *empire* was beset by military problems: Germanic tribes pushing across the Rhine and Danube; Britain under attack from Picts and Saxons; North Africa suffering from the hostility of native tribes; and the Persians agitating for compliance with the treaty of 363. But Valens was apparently more worried about inner purity than outside threats. His elder brother held to *Nicene Christian* orthodoxy, but was tolerant both of *Arianism* and of *paganism*. But the younger Valens belonged to the *Arian* branch of Christianity, and was entirely intolerant of any other doctrine. He set about exterminating *Nicene Christians* in Antioch; exiling their leader, driving out the followers, and purging any resistance. This gave Shapur II even more freedom to harass the eastern frontier. And then catastrophe struck. In the summer of 365, an earthquake and ensuing tsunami caused destruction all around the Eastern Mediterranean. On Crete, nearly every town were destroyed. Christian historians found in Julian the Apostate an explanation for the quake and wave; they simply moved the event back in time, insisting that God was punishing the *empire* for his misdeeds. Traditional pagan chroniclers were more likely to suggest that Earth was mourning Julian’s death; “*if you would have it so, by Poseidon*”. Christian or pagan, there was no place in either world for random events that were not a direct response to human action.

    The natural disaster was followed, in short order, by a series of political catastrophes. Valens was challenged by the usurper Procopius, a maternal cousin of the dead Julian, who managed to convince the soldiers in Constantinople to support his claim to the eastern throne. Valens sent a frantic appeal for help to his brother, but Valentinian was fighting the Alemanni, and had no soldiers to spare. Procopius was able to control much of Thrace and western Anatolia for almost a year, attesting to the power still possessed by anyone who could claim a Constantinian connection. Even so, Valens prevailed in two battles at Thyatira and Nacolia, when two of Procopius' generals betrayed him; they had been promised Valen's "favour". Once the usurper was in his hands, Valens had him sawn asunder in the manner of the Greek myth of *Theseus* and the bandit *Sinis*; he also executed the generals, piously condemning their helpful treachery. Valens himself provoked the next catastrophe by declaring war on the Visigoths, to punish them for supporting Procopius. Since the *Crisis of the 3rd Century*, the Romans and Goths had worked out a means of coexisting; the Goths provided soldiers for the Roman army, and in return were allowed certain privileges. And the Goths had become increasingly Christian in recent decades. A bishop and missionary named Ulfilas (d. 383) had invented an alphabet, and translated the Bible into their own language; Ulfilas, like Valens himself, was an *Arian Christian*. None of this kept Valens from launching his war of revenge in 367, which dragged on for three full years, without any particular resolution. It was a bad time to start a war against a people who were inclined to friendship. In the west, Valentinian won a great victory over the Alemanni later that same year, but suffered heavy casualties. And, in Britain, the Roman defences were falling apart. According to the historian Ammianus, it was a carefully planned and coordinated attack; which he called the “*Barbarian Conspiracy*”. In the winter of 367, the Roman garrison on *Hadrian's Wall* apparently mutinied, and allowed the Picts to cross over into Roman Britain. At the same time, the Scots from *Hibernia* (Ireland) landed on the mid-western coast, while Saxons from the lands north-east of Gaul invaded the island from the south-east. With his own hand full on the Rhine, Valentinian dispatched the experienced general Theodosius the Elder over to Britain to try to recover the situation; he brought as second-in-command his son, and future *emperor,* Flavius Theodosius. He waged a year-long war that finally restored Roman control of Britannia; “*He warmed the north with Pictish blood,*” gushed one Roman poet, “*and icy Ireland wept for the heaps of dead*”. A string of forts and watchtowers was then built along the south-eastern shore, to keep guard against approaching Saxon ships. But all was not well. The invasions had ravaged cities, burned settlements, and wiped out entire garrisons. The remaining Roman military presence in Britain was huddled into crude and isolated fortresses. By 373, the royal brothers had given up on conquering their respective *barbarian* foes, and made peace with their leaders. But almost immediately, yet another barbarian war erupted. Boldly, Valentinian had ordered the construction of a fortress north of the Upper Danube, in land that belonged to the Germanic tribe known as the Quadi. The Quadi were not much of a threat; “*a nation not greatly to be feared,*” Ammianus called them. When the fort-building began, they sent a series of polite embassies to the local commander, asking that it stop. Finally the Roman commander, apparently unable to think of a better solution, invited the Quadi king to a banquet and murdered him. This atrocious mishandling of the affair so infuriated the Quadi that they stormed across the Danube, and began ravaging the unprotected countryside. Valentinian, furious with the incompetence of the commander, hurried to the trouble spot. But when he arrived and saw the devastation of the frontier, he decided to ignore the murder of the Quadi king. Instead, he launched a punitive expedition; Ammianus wrote, disapprovingly, that he “*put to death without distinction of age*” all Quadi civilians he could get his hands on. In fact, his behaviour suggests that he had lost touch with reality in some frightening way; he cut off one groom’s hand when his horse reared as he tried to mount; he had an inoffensive secretary put to death for an ill-timed joke. Finally, the Quadi sent ambassadors to negotiate for a peace. When they tried to explain that they had not been the original aggressors, Valentinian grew so enraged that he had a stroke and died.

### Emperors Valens and Gratian (375-383 AD)

With the *western empire* left temporarily without leadership, Valens sent word that Valentinian’s son, the 16 year-old **Gratian** (375-383 AD), should succeed as *co-emperor*. His ascension, however, did not go smoothly. One of Valentinian's generals, Merobaudes (d. 383), arranged to have his little brother, **Valentinian II** (375–383), proclaimed *emperor*, ostensibly to quell a threatened army revolt. In reality, Gratian was an inexperienced young man, and not acceptable to the soldiers; Merobaudes became the real power behind the throne. His leadership was needed, though. The Romans had begun to hear rumours of a new threat; the merciless advance of a fearsome nomadic people from the east, who could barely be resisted; a “*stunted and foul tribe, scarcely human, and having no language save one which bore but slight resemblance of human speech,*” wrote the historian Procopius. The **Huns** had arrived at the distant edges of the Roman world. All the northern tribes were in agitation. The Alans, a people who had lived for centuries north of the Black Sea, had already been subjugated. The Ostrogoths, themselves a “*terror to their neighbours,*” were defeated. The Visigoths were driven from their land. The Huns were still distant, though, and the immediate problem was what to do with the Visigothic refugees, who were crowding to the northern side of the Danube, seeking to enter the security of Roman territory. Valens had already been forced to make peace with the Goths, and now he decided to permit the immigration. This was a new departure. Earlier *barbarian* incursions had been either driven out or absorbed; the usual course was that some were recruited into the army, and the rest would be broken into small groups and resettled across the *empire*. The Visigoths, though, came as a people, perhaps 40,000 strong, a compact unit keeping their own chiefs, laws, and religion. Valens had intended to disarm them; it was not done, and instead the newcomers were mistreated by unscrupulous Roman officials. Gothic families were forced to sell their own children into slavery for the food that had been promised them in the interim. Within two years, Valens’ decision led to an army of starving and angry Visigoths, under the chieftain Fritigern (d. 381), rampaging through Thrace, killing, robbing, and heading for the walls of Constantinople. Valens, who was engaged on the Persian frontier at the time, heeded the frantic calls of its citizens, and march to the defence of his city. In the west, young Gratian started east to help his uncle. Before he could lend his support, the paths of Valens and Fritigern intersected near the city of Adrianople. At the **Battle of Adrianople** (August 378), the Roman troops arrived tired and thirsty from their forced march. Yet the Goths seemed to number only around 10,000 fighting men, leaving Valens to believe he had a two-to-one advantage. When the Goths sent an emissary to propose peace, the *emperor* rejected them out of hand. However, Fritigern was manipulating the situation, stalling for time until his cavalry could return, which had gone extended distances to forage; in fact, the two sides were evenly matched. Both sides were carried into battle, by an overzealous Roman unit which sallied forth without orders. The legions held their own early on, but failed to recognize the arrival of the much-anticipated Gothic cavalry, which completely shattered their left wing, leaving their flank exposed. The reports of Valens' death vary. According to Ammianus, he was wounded, but carried to a nearby farmstead, where he was burned to death by Gothic marauders, evidently unaware of the prize within. His body was never found. Two-thirds of his army fell with him. The ground, says Ammianus, was ankle-deep in blood. The Visigoths laid siege to Adrianople, but they had more experience with hand-to-hand combat than with sieges, and soon withdrew. They tried the same at Constantinople, and again found that they had no hope of breaching its walls. And so they withdrew; but the point had been made. The *Roman Empire* was far from all-conquering. Earthquake and flood could wreck it; a distant nomadic people could disrupt it; and a ragged band of refugees could bring down an *emperor*.

### Emperors Theodosius and Gratian (379-383 AD)

A few months after the death of Valens, Gratian, now the *senior emperor*, appointed a new eastern colleague: Flavius Theodosius, who now became *emperor* **Theodosius** (379-395 AD). Gratian’s younger brother Valentinian II, technically his *co-emperor*, was still only seven years-old, and he needed a competent general to assume control of the crisis. The greatest threat to the east, Persian invasion, had diminished. In 379, Shapur II died, after a spectacularly long reign of almost seventy years, and was succeeded by his elderly brother Ardashir II (379 – 383), who was more concerned with hanging onto the throne than with foreign adventures. Instead, Theodosius turned to the more immediate problem of how to check the marauding Visigoths, with a severely depleted army following the debacle at Adrianople. He proved himself willing to implement desperate measures, recruiting large numbers of Germanic auxiliaries into the Roman army; even Gothic deserters. This was a risky strategy, but Theodosius found an innovative solution; to recruit *barbarians* from one region to fight *barbarians* in another. He transferred fresh recruits to Egypt, and then brought soldiers from there over to fight the Visigoths. Some historians have accused Theodosius of having contributed decisively to the "Germanisation" of the Roman legions. But the reality is that men of *barbarian* origin had already intermingled extensively with the rest of the army, both among the troops and in all ranks of the officer corps. The line between Roman and *barbarian* was becoming increasingly nebulous. It became more hazy still in 382, when, after four years of fighting, Theodosius made peace with the Visigoths. Under this novel arrangement, an entire people was settled on imperial soil to the south of the Lower Danube, while retaining their own autonomy. The Gothic chiefs would be subject to the *emperor*, but the Goths themselves would have to answer to no Roman official; and when they fought for Rome, they would do so as a national contingent, as opposed to being fully integrated into the Roman army. In many ways, the Goths were easier to deal with than the ongoing tendency of the *Roman Empire* to pull apart from the inside; Constantine’s hope for an *empire* held together by Christian faith was still unrealized. To the west, Gratian, a devout Christian, had found himself increasingly at odds with Rome's *senatorial* elite, who still held to the traditional Roman gods. In 382, four years after Adrianople, he made it quite clear that he would not allow *paganism* to undermine the *empire*’s new faith by removing the *Altar of Victory* from the *Senate House*. It had stood there since Augustus’ defeat of Antony and Cleopatra four hundred years before, as tribute to the Roman goddess *Victoria*. When the *Senate* protested, he responded by abandoning the office of *pontifex maximus*, high priest of the Roman religion. Even Constantine had put on the sacred robes; “*If the emperor refuses to become pontifex,*” one of the priests is said to have muttered at the time, “*we shall soon make one*”. In the east, Theodosius was still dealing with destructive arguments about the Arian take on the divinity of Christ. To restore Christian unity, he turned to the law. In 380, Theodosius issued the *Edict of Thessalonica*, declaring that Nicene orthodoxy was the one true faith, and threatening *heretics* with legal penalties. If Theodosius actually believed that he could legislate his subjects into believing, then he was wildly optimistic. But he soldiered on, enforcing uniformity on a practical level; he took over all of the non-Nicene churches, handing them over to Nicene bishops (a material gain for the fortunate bishop); and threatened *heretics* who continued preaching with exile. Although he had enacted severe punishments into law, the punishments were often not applied; Sozomen remarked, approvingly, that “*He had no desire to persecute his subjects; he only desired to enforce uniformity of view about God through the medium of intimidation*”. But all of Theodosius’ solutions had the appearance of victory, not the reality. The Visigoths were not at peace. Arianism was not dead; not to mention a score of other *heresies*. And the Christian Church was not unified. As part of an ecumenical council in 381, Theodosius announced that the bishop of Constantinople was equal to the bishop of Rome in authority; “*because Constantinople is the New Rome*”. The bishops of the older centres of Christianity - Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria - all objected to the exaltation of the relatively young bishopric in Constantinople. And the bishop of Rome went one step further, calling his own council in Rome, and declaring himself the leader of all other bishops, including the upstart at Constantinople. Theodosius had declared all Christians to be one, but the eastern and western halves of the Church were beginning to pull apart.

In 383, the Roman army in Britain mutinied, and proclaimed their general, Magnus Maximus (d. 388), as the new *emperor*. It seems likely that he had already exercised a king-like power in isolated Britannia for some years already, for his name pops up in Welsh legends, where he is known as *Macsen Wledig*. Maximus crossed into Gaul with his army, and arrived at *Lutetia* (Paris), where Gratian met him in battle. After a short period of skirmishing, Gratian’s cavalry, followed by most of his other troops, went over to the usurper. Gratian fled towards the Alps, but was pursued and killed at *Lugdunum* (Lyon) in August 383.

### Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian II (383-392 AD)

The defeat of Gratian left Magnus Maximus in control of Gaul and Britain, and he declared himself *emperor* of Spain as well. The *empire* was divided into three: Maximus in the far west, Theodosius in the east, and Gratian’s younger brother and *co-emperor*, Valentinian II, still hanging onto power in Italy and North Africa. Maximus sent Theodosius an official message, *emperor* to *emperor*, suggesting that they be allies and friends. Theodosius decided that it would be prudent to accept the offer; he and Maximus were old comrades, as it happened, having fought together in Britain as young men. He agreed to recognize Maximus as a legitimate *emperor*, and, for four years, the three men ruled side by side, with Theodosius as clearly the senior *emperor*. “*Nevertheless,*” wrote Zosimus, “*he was at the same time privately preparing for war, and endeavouring to deceive Maximus by every species of flattery*”. Preparing for war involved negotiating with the Persians; Theodosius didn’t want to head west and immediately find his eastern border under attack. Ardashir II, the elderly brother of the great Shapur, had been deposed by Persian noblemen at court after four years of inefficiency; now Shapur’s son Shapur III (383-388) sat on the throne. The issue most likely to cause another war was control of Armenia, so Theodosius sent an embassy to the Persian court to negotiate a settlement. The lead ambassador was a certain Roman officer named Stilicho (d. 408). His mother was Roman, but his father was a Vandal. Unlike the Goths, the Vandals, who lived just north of the Carpathian Mountains, were not troublesome to the Romans at this time. Nevertheless, in the eyes of many Romans, Stilicho carried with him the taint of the *barbarian*. Nevertheless, Stilicho, still in his twenties at that time, performed an impressive negotiating feat. It was agreed that Armenia would be partitioned into Roman Armenia and Persian Armenia; this was the beginning of the end for independent Armenian statehood, which would blip out of existence in 427. Once Stilicho returned, a grateful Theodosius married him to his own step-daughter Serena. Meanwhile, Magnus Maximus was making his own plans. He wanted to be true *emperor of the west*, and, as long as Valentinian II was still in Italy, his legitimacy was shadowed. As Maximus marched across the Alps into Italy, Theodosius was marching west with his own army, including some 20,000 Visigothic *foederati*, lately settled below the Lower Danube; and Valentinian II fled Italy to join him. Perhaps Maximus had not expected Theodosius to actually leave the eastern border, and come all the way west. While Maximus hesitated, Theodosius boldly advanced, spreading plenty of rumours about the size and lethal skill of his army. Maximus’ soldiers were so thoroughly intimidated that they took the *emperor* captive and handed him over; although Maximus pleaded for mercy, he was executed. The whole invasion had worked out pretty well for Theodosius. He now had a whole new level of power; he was Valentinian’s saviour, and staged a *Triumphal* procession to Rome, in which he himself took centre stage. On his return to Constantinople, Theodosius secured his own influence in the west by installing his trusted officer, Arbogast (d. 394), as Valentinian’s principal adviser. Like Stilicho, Arbogast was of “*barbarian*” descent; his father was a Frank. All of Theodosius’ most trusted aides tended to be at least half *barbarian,* since they would have no hope of challenging for the imperial throne. Arbogast was an experienced soldier by this time, and Valentinian II, still only fifteen, was dominated by him. In essence, Theodosius now had control over the entire *Roman Empire*.

Theodosius now turned his attention again to the project of religious unification. In the early part of his reign, he had been relatively tolerant towards *paganism*, since he needed the support of the wealthy and influential *senatorial* elite in Rome. The percentage of non-Christians in the general population was still quite high, perhaps 50% overall; less in the east and more in the west, where the Christianity still remained largely an urban phenomenon, except in North Africa. Then, in 389, he began to issue a series of decrees known as the "*Theodosian Decrees*", which seemed effectively to establish a practical ban on *pagan* worship; the prohibition on sacrifice was reiterated; visits to pagan temples were forbidden; the remaining pagan holidays (which had not yet been rendered Christian ones) were abolished; the *Vestal Virgins* were disbanded; and the taking of auspices was deemed a punishable offence. In doing so, Theodosius was rejecting not just the Roman gods, but the entire Roman past. As Zosimus points out with asperity, the Roman feast days had been established by the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, a thousand years before. This apparent change of policy has often been credited to the increased influence of St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan. In 390, Theodosius ran afoul of Ambrose, who *excommunicated* him; the first time that a monarch was ever punished by the Church for a political action. The action was a fairly straightforward, if cruel, act of retaliation for the *Massacre of Thessalonica*. In this Greek city, a popular charioteer had “*attempted an outrage*" (possibly rape), and been thrown in jail by the local governor. When this governor refused to release him in time for him to compete, a general riot erupted that cost the governor his life. In response, Theodosius punished the city; what had been intended as selective executions seems to have gotten out of hand, leaving some 7,000 dead. To the astonishment of contemporaries, Theodosius was soon seen standing in penance for the misdeed in a Milan church; Ambrose had refused him communion. It was the the inauguration of a great theme of European history, the tension of spiritual and secular claims to authority; the conflict between "Church and State". Standing on the steps and looking at Ambrose’s unyielding face, Theodosius must have realized that his decrees were having an unintended consequence; the increasingly intransigent, militant temper of the Christian Church. In reality, the *Theodosian Decrees* were fairly limited in scope, and did not explicitly authorize the destruction of *pagan* temples. But in 391, one of the most famous temple in the east, the *Serapeum of Alexandria*, was destroyed by a Christian mob. When Theodosius failed to punish the *zealots*, it was seen as the *emperor*'s tacit approval. Many Roman temples throughout the *empire* were knocked down, so that Christians could build churches instead. The Christian Church held the empire together because it was greater than the state, greater than any national loyalty, greater than the *emperor* himself.

### Emperors Theodosius and Honorius (393-395 AD)

In 392, after four years under Arbogast's tutelage, Valentinian II died; either killed by Arbogast or more likely a victim of suicide. His death immediately lit the fuse of civil war. Theodosius' wife Galla (Valentinian’s sister) insisted that he could not have killed himself, and Theodosius was obligated to investigate. Arbogast realized that the *emperor*’s first action would most likely be to remove him from power. So he went to the *Roman Senate*, and promised to protect the old Roman religion from extinction and to reinstall the *Altar of Victory*, removed by Gratian. Together, Arbogast and the *senators* chose a new western *emperor*: a harmless and malleable Roman official named Eugenius (d. 394). Theodosius, hearing the news, refused to recognize Eugenius as a valid *emperor*. Instead, he named his own 8 year-old son, **Honorius** (393-423), to the western throne. He then prepared for war, hiring additional *foederati* - Visigothic troops under their own warleader, Alaric (d. 410) - to beef up his own army. This pushed the two sides further apart. When Arbogast and Eugenius led their army north to meet Theodosius' advancing troops, they threatened to turn the basilica at Milan into a stable upon their victorious return. Fortunately for Bishop Ambrose, such a victory was not to be. The war was decided by one decisive Battle of the Frigidus (September 394). Although Christian historians reported that a divine wind blew up and rammed the arrows of the western army back into their own bodies, Stilicho and Alaric, leading two wings of the attack, were largely responsible for Theodosius' crushing victory. Eugenius was captured in his camp and killed on that same day; Arbogast, seeing the destruction of his army, committed suicide the following day. The story of divine winds show that the historians knew what was at stake. This was more than another battle between competing *emperors*; it was a battle between two entirely different ways of understanding the world. When the battle ended, Theodosius controlled the entire *empire*: the east as senior emperor, the west as regent for his young son Honorius. It was the last time the *Roman Empire* would be united under a single ruler. Probably as a result of the exertion of the campaign, Theodosius fell ill and died a few months later in January 395; he was 48 years-old and had been an *emperor* for 16 years.

### Emperors Arcadius and Honorius (395-408 AD)

On the death of Theodosius, his two sons divided the empire as *co-emperors*. **Arcadius** (395-408), eighteen, took the throne of the east; Honorius (393-423) was left in control of the west. As Honorius was only ten, Theodosius left instructions that Stilicho, the half-Vandal general, should act as his guardian. He was also married to Theodosius' step-daughter. Stilicho, too *barbarian* to be *emperor* in name, could be *magister militum* (the highest military official), which now evolved into *emperor* in practice. To the east, Arcadius, mild and easily intimidated, was also ruling with the help of an army officer. Unlike Stilicho, Rufinus had no *barbarian* blood; he could nurse his ambition of someday being *emperor*. Both sides of the empire were now threatened by a former ally: Alaric, commander of the Visigothic contingent at the Battle of the Frigidus. His people were already seething with discontent; a disproportionate number of Goths (over 10,000) had fallen at Frigidus, and they suspected that they had been placed in the front lines, ahead of the regular regiments, as "sacrificial lambs". Alaric was among the few who survived the bloody affair, but received little recognition from the *emperor*. Rather than continuing to struggle against Roman disdain, he declared himself king of the Visigoths. Alaric’s people was united not by a single tribal heritage, but by a single purpose. Although most of them had once lived in the western Gothic lands, they included members from other tribes farther east and north. Historians call this “ethnogenesis”: when a confederacy, united by geography or necessity, makes itself into a nation by giving itself a name, a history, a royal lineage. Thanks to the outside pressure of Roman disdain, an independent Visigothic nation now existed right in the middle of Roman land. They were resentful, they had a strong leader, and so their first act was to march towards Constantinople, plundering the provinces in their path. Arcadius and his *puppet-master* Rufinus were ill-equipped to resist. Most of the eastern army had gone to Italy with Theodosius, and were now in the hands of Stilicho. Appealed to, Stilicho did agreed to return his eastern contingent. In response, Alaric withdrew south to plunder Greece instead. When Roman soldiers arrived at Constantinople, Arcadius and Rufinus rode out to greet them. There, Rufinus was suddenly murdered by the troops. The official story from the west was that the soldiers acted out of impulse. Many historians suspect the involvement of Stilicho in the assassination. If so, it was the first step in an attempt to extend his power over the entire empire. However, another eastern courtier immediately rose to fill the power vacuum: the eunuch Eutropius (d. 399). While Eutropius consolidated power, the distracted eastern court still failed to react to the presence of Alaric's Visigoths in Greece. At Eutropius' urging, Arcadius declared Stilicho, guardian of the west, an outlaw in the east. In doing so, the cracks that were dividing the *empire* in two became visible. Eutropius also encouraged a revolt in North Aftica under the local governor Gildo. The rebellion caused an immediate problem for Stilicho, because the African provinces were the critical source of Rome's grain supply. Stilicho sent Gildo's own brother, Mascezel, to North Africa with an army, which quickly suppressed the rebellion. However, upon his return to Italy, Mascezel was drowned under questionable circumstances; perhaps on the orders of a jealous Stilicho.

In declaring Stilicho an enemy of the east, Eutropius had won round one of the battle for power; now Stilicho, reclaiming Africa, had won round two. Then catastrophe struck them both. In the east, Eutropius’ failed plot had made him vulnerable, and he went the same way as his predecessor Rufinus; a Gothic general named Fravitta arrived at Constantinople with his army, demanding that the *emperor* put Eutropius to death, and then taking his place as the third puppet-master to control Arcadius. In the west, the Visigoth king Alaric invaded the north of Italy in 400. The Visigoths came not just with their fighting men, but with their women and children, intending to settle. Alaric had a nation; now he was in search of a homeland. Honorius and his court were forced to flee from Milan and take refuge in the city of Ravenna; a virtually impregnable fortress, surrounded by swampland. For two years, the Visigoths squatted in northern Italy, until Stilicho defeated them at the Battle of Pollentia (April 402). It was not an entirely honorable victory; on eastern Sunday, Alaric, *barbarian* though he may have been, was a Christian who assumed fighting was banned. Stilicho, ignoring the prohibition, won a bloody and costly battle, which ended with his troops storming Alaric’s camp and capturing his wife. The two men negotiated a treaty that returned Alaric’s wife, and gave northern Italy back to Stilicho. Alaric withdrew to the Upper Danube, still without a homeland. Despite his victory, the *empire* continued to totter. Roman Britain was in serious trouble. When Magnus Maximus had crossed over into Gaul to claim the throne, he had taken the best part of the Roman legions with him. For years afterwards, the remaining soldiers battled desperately against the invaders from the northern lands and from the sea. In 407, exasperated with the court politics in distant Ravenna, they proclaimed one of their own generals emperor, as Constantine III (d. 411). Like Maximus, Constantine III wasn’t happy merely to be emperor in Britain, and set out to conquer Gaul as well. Gaul was in turmoil. In the winter of 406-407, the Rhine frontier had given way and a large number of Germanic tribes - including the Burgundians, Suevi, and Vandals - had broken into Gaul. Although no contemporary source explains how they crossed with such apparent ease, a frozen Rhine was a plausible surmise 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon. From there, all the tribes, except the Burgundians, made their way southwards, sacking and looting as they went, and crossing the Pyrenees into Spain.

### Emperors Theodosius II and Honorius (408-423 AD)

The year 408 brought a change of leadership in both halves of the *Roman Empire*. In the east, Emperor Arcadius died at only 31 of natural causes. A weak ruler, completely dominated by a shifting caste of powerful ministers, our sources don't even tell us the cause of death; presumably an illness. His seven-year-old son, **Theodosius II** (402-450), succeeded to the throne without incident, thanks to two important men. First, the Persian king, Shapur III's son Yazdegerd I (399–420). Arcadius had known just how precarious his son's hold on life would be, should he himself die; "*Many would inevitably exploit the boy’s isolation and make a bid for the empire,*” wrote the historian Procopius. So Arcadius, who trusted no one within his own empire, turned to the Persians. Rome and Persia had been at peace for almost twenty years; since Stilicho’s negotiations on behalf of the first Theodosius. Yazdegerd agreed to act as guardian to his young son, and took his role seriously, threatening war on anyone who harmed him. This guardianship meant that not only could the eastern legions focus on securing the Danube frontier, but kept open the lucrative trade routes to and from Asia. The second important man was the Roman statesman Anthemius (d. 414), who dominated the eastern court in the later years of Arcadius and the early years of Theodosius II. Anthemius gave the *eastern* *empire* a decade of stable and thoroughly competent rule. He also initiated one of the most important construction projects in history, the **Theodosian Walls** of Constantinople. The famous double wall stretched for four miles from the imperial harbour (the *Golden Horn*) to the Sea of Marmara, and, when well-man, were virtually impregnable for any besieger. They would save Constantinople, and the Byzantine Empire with it, during sieges by the Avars, Arabs, Rus', and Bulgars, among others. Ultimately, the city fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, due to sheer weight of numbers, rather than the advent of gunpowder and siege cannons.

    To the west, Emperor Honorius, now 22 years-old, made a sudden bid for independence. Stilicho had proposed a marriage between his own son, and Honorius’ younger sister Placidia. To many Romans at court, this sounded like the first step in a coup; Stilicho might be resigned to never being *emperor* himself, but his son, with a royal wife, a royal mother, and less Vandal blood, might well ascend to the imperial throne. In 408, Honorius had him arrested and executed for treason. With his formidable old foe dead, Alaric and his Visigoths immediately came back from their wanderings in central Europe, and laid siege to the city of Rome. The *Roman Senate* tried to negotiate a peace, agreeing to pay him tribute if he would withdraw. Alaric did take the ransom and withdraw, but he had not been merely seeking wealth. In 409, he sent a message to Ravenna, threatening a second siege of Rome if he was not given land for his people to settle on; the Visigoths were still in search of that elusive homeland. Honorius refused, and Alaric fulfilled his threat. This time the siege of Rome dragged on a little longer, until the city was hungry, exhausted, and beginning to suffer from plague. With Alaric refusing to leave, no help came from Honorius, safely holed up in Ravenna. So the *Roman Senate* offered Alaric a deal. The Roman people would never accept him as *emperor*, but the *Senate* would declare one of their own, a *senator* named Priscus Attalus (d. 418), to be *emperor* in place of Honorius. Alaric could then become his *magister militum*; like Stilicho before him, he would be ruler in all but name. To seal the deal, the two sides exchanged hostages. Among the Roman hostages was a fourteen-year-old boy named Aetius (d. 454), the son of a senior Roman official; he would grow to adulthood among the Visigoths. Now there were three *emperors of the west*: Honorius in Ravenna, Attalus in Rome, and Constantine III in Gaul. Any hope that Christian faith would bind the whole disintegrating mess together had entirely gone. Civil war was the only hope that any of the three *emperors* had of reunifying the *western empire*. To counter Attalus, Honorius cut-off Rome's grain supply from North Africa, threatening the city with renewed famine. When Alaric suggested sending a Gothic army to secure the African provinces, Attalus refused as he was distrustful of Visigoth intentions for the province. Incensed that his *puppet emperor* was frustrating his plans, Alaric summoned Attalus to a meeting, where he was unceremoniously stripped of the imperial regalia, and imprisoned in the Gothic camp. Alaric then marched back to Rome, which he besieged for the third and final time. On the night of 24 August 410, slaves inside Rome quietly opened the *Salarian Gate* to admit Visigoths. Alaric was angry; he had been trying for years to get a legitimate place for himself and his people inside the *empire,* and some sort of admission that his ability compensated for his barbarian ancestry. In his bitterness, he allowed his men to plunder Rome for three days. The Visigoths broke into the homes of the old aristocracy, stealing any and all moveable goods. Many of the city's great buildings were ransacked, most famously the mausoleums of both Augustus and Hadrian, in which many *emperors* of the past had been interred; the urns were stolen, and the ashes scattered to the wind. The people of Rome were devastated. Many were taken captive; some to be ransomed, others to be enslaved, and still others to be raped, killed, or tortures into revealing their valuables. Alaric himself took Honorius’ own sister Placidia as his personal captive. The event became known as the ***Sack of Rome***, even though it didn’t destroy all that much of the city, and even though Rome had suffered much worse sacks by fellow Romans. Being an Arian Christian, Alaric had put out word that churches would be spared, and encouraged citizens to seek sanctuary in them. But for the far-flung citizens of the *empire*, both east and west, it served as a jolting revelation. The *Eternal City*, the Rome they had assumed would stand forever, was so diminished that a band of *barbarians* could overrun it without difficulty. No foreigner army had entered Rome for almost eight centuries, not since 387 BC, when the city was not yet the focus of an *empire*. The sack was used by both pagans and Christians to bolster their competing claims of divine legitimacy. A great many Romans saw it as divine punishment for turning away from the ancient traditional gods. These attacks on Christianity spurred St. Augustine to write a defence, the *City of God*. Rome, he wrote, was merely an earthly city, founded in men, imperfect, and made with sinful hands, however glorious in appearance. Like all the cities of men, it existed side-by-side with the heavenly city of *God*, the true *Eternal City*, the community founded on the promise of God’s salvation. Rome had fallen, but the city of God would endure forever.

With Rome behind them, Alaric marched his Visigoths south, intending to plunder North Africa. It was a short crossing, but a sudden storm wrecked their ships. Alaric was deciding on his next course of action, when he was struck by a fever and died. According to legend, his body was buried under the riverbed of the Busento. The captives temporarily diverted the stream, while the first Visigothic king was buried with the most precious spoils, and, when the work was done, the diggers were put to death, so that none might ever know the place. Alaric was succeeded by his brother-in-law, Ataulf (411–415), who soon married Placidia. Whether this was a romance of captor and captive or a political move, the result was the same; “t*he Empire and the Goths,*” Jordanes concluded, “*now seemed to be made one*”. Once married, Ataulf decided that Gaul would provide easier pickings than either Italy or North Africa. Gaul was in turmoil. It had been in the hands of the British pretender Constantine III, who won several confrontations with the Vandals, and re-secured the Rhine frontier. This proved Constantine's high-water mark, though. The defection of his top general Gerontius to Honorius, raids by Saxons on the near-defenseless Britain, and continued *barbarian* pressure on the Rhine, led to a collapse of his support. After further military setbacks, Constantine III abdicated in 411, ran to the nearest church, and had himself ordained as a priest. This blatant attempt to shield himself with the cross was only temporarily successful; he was murdered shortly afterwards. Honorius had reunified the *western empire*; at least temporarily. By 413, Ataulf’s Visigoths had conquered land in southern-western Gaul, making the city of Toulouse into their capital. But rather than establishing a Visigothic kingdom, Ataulf returned to the seductive idea of Roman rule. Attalus, the *ex-emperor* that Alaric had created and then stripped of his title, had been trailed around with the Visigothic army ever since. Now, Ataulf again crowned him, setting him up once more as a rival *emperor* to Honorius. He would have done better to throw himself into building up his own kingdom. Honorius had finally found himself a capable general, the Roman-born Constantius (d. 421). Constantius’ forces harassed the Visigoths, eventually capturing and beheading Attalus, and reducing the Visigoth's to hunger and desperation. In 415, Ataulf was murdered by his own people, and succeeded by a Visigoth warleader named Wallia (415–418). Wallia sent word to Constantius that he was willing to make a deal. He would help the *Western Empire* to fight the Germanic tribes who had made their way into Spain; and he would send Honorius’ sister Placida, the young hostage Aetius (now nineteen), and the other captives taken during the sack of Rome, back to Ravenna. In exchange, he wanted south-western Gaul for the Visigoths. Honorius agreed to the treaty, and, after nearly two decades of wandering, the Visigoths finally had a homeland. The freed captives were soon put back into the service of the state. In 417, two years after her return, Placida was ordered by Honorius to marry his new right-hand-man Constantius; the man who had driven her first husband, Ataulf, to his death. And in 418, Honorius sent Aetius off in another hostage exchange. The Huns, still hovering on the distant edges of the Roman world, had agreed to make a temporary peace. In exchange for Aetius, the Huns sent a nephew of the Hunnic warleaders, the brothers Octar and Rugila; a twelve-year-old boy named Attila.

### Emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III (423-450 AD)

With the *western empire* struggled for survival, the *emperor* **Honorius** died in 423. Roman Britain had been effectively abandoned. Under Wallia and his successors, the Visigoths prospered in south-western Gaul, a Roman ally in name, but a sovereign state in practice. And despite the combined efforts of Roman and Visigothic armies, much of Spain had been taken over by other *barbarians* - Vandals and Suevi - who were forming their own kingdoms. After a scuffle for power that lasted the best part of a year, Honorius' six-years-old nephew **Valentinian III** (425-455) was crowned as *emperor*; the son of the general Constantius and Honorius’ sister Placidia. The little boy’s mother and regent was soon forced to appoint as *magister militum* the Roman soldier Aetius. During his years as a Hun hostage, he had developed a friendship with his hosts. When Honorius’ died, Aetius was 25 years-old, hardened by exile, and a deadly player of power politics; he made it clear to Placida that his Hun friends would descend on Ravenna unless he was given the highest military post in the west. She gave him both the title and the authority that went with it. Meanwhile, another part of the *western empire* disappeared. In 429, the Vandal king, **Gaiseric** (428-477), built himself a fleet of ships, and sailed across the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, abandoning Spain to the Visigoths, who began to push their way south into the vacated land. Gaiseric meanwhile then began to march along the North African coast, conquering his way through Roman provinces and independent African kingdoms alike. By 430, he had reached the Roman city of Hippo Regius. His army laid siege to the city, with an ailing St. Augustine inside. The man, who had written of the ultimate triumph of the *city* *of* *God*, died with Vandals still surrounding his earthly city, and no hope of relief. When Hippo finally fell, there was a pause in the Vandal advance, while Gaiseric consolidated his holdings. The western court even signed a treaty with him in 435, in order to keep the vital grain shipments flowing. In a surprise move, Gaiseric broke the treaty in 439, capturing Carthage without resistance. North Africa was lost to Rome. Before long, Geiseric ruled as a North African pirate-king, his capital at Carthage, master of a powerful **Vandal Kingdom** (435–534) that had sprung up as quickly as a mushroom. Aetius, the most powerful man in the *western empire*, made no effort to fight for the Roman territories across the Mediterranean. He sent the nominal *emperor* Valentinian III off to visit Constantinople, where he married his cousin Licinia, daughter of his co-*emperor* Theodosius II, creating a blood bond between the two halves of the *empire*. While the *emperor* was away, Aetius went to war in Gaul. North Africa and Spain were lost, but he had no intention of losing the land on his northwestern frontier as well. Aetius had already put down a rebellion of the Franks who lived within the Roman borders as *foederati*; now he marched against the Burgundians in the Rhine valley. Their king, Gundahar, had established his capital at Borbetomagus (now Worms in Germany), and was showing worrying signs towards independence. Aetius hired Hun mercenaries to fight this Germanic upstarts. In a brutal battle in 437, the Romans and Huns together destroyed Borbetomagus, crushed the Burgundians, and killed Gundahar. The historical Gundahar's end came down into Germanic heroic legend, the *Song of the Nibelungs*. Aetius had now used the Huns for years to establish his own power. But the Huns were not tame mercenaries, and Aetius was about to find himself the loser in his dangerous game.

Up until this point, the Huns had not been a great threat to the *empire*. Hun raids, when they troubled the frontiers, were frightening and damaging, but they always withdrew. The Huns were unable to sustain attacks, because they had never been a single unified force. Like the Germanic coalitions, they were a collection of tribes with no particular loyalty to each other. They did not plant or tend crops, but herded cattle, horse, goats, and sheep across the countryside, which meant that it took a lot of land to feed a group of Huns. So they had remained in small independent tribes, easier to support, instead of some massive monolithic force. But even as Aetius was hiring Hun mercenaries to fight his battles, Hun society was changing. Over the preceding decades, they had made their way from the bare steppe north of the Black Sea, into the relatively rich and cultivated land of the Goths, land that allowed at least the possibility of coalescing into a much larger group. Sometime in the 420s, two brothers, Octar and Rugila, had managed to extend their power over Hun tribes unrelated to their own. By 434, their nephew **Attila** (435-453), who had been returned after spending some years as a Roman hostage, and his brother Bleda (435-445), had succeeded their uncles as joint chiefs over an expanding Hun coalition. Attila and Bleda were even more ambitious. One of their first acts was to force Constantinople to sign the highly advantageous *Treaty of Margus* (435), paying them off with an annual tribute. When Carthage fell to the Vandals, in 439, both eastern and western *emperors* sent a combined force to Sicily, intending to launch an attack on the new Vandal Kingdom. Seeing the depleted borders, the Huns and Persians both attacked. The Hun army attacked Roman fort up and down the Danube, and laid waste to the towns on the Roman side of the river, before withdrawing in 441 and agreeing to a new treaty that doubled the annual tribute. The truce held for two years, until Theodosius II decided that he could defeat the Huns, and refused to pay them tribute. Attila responded with a campaign in 443. For the first time, as far as we know, his forces were equipped with battering rams and siege towers. They successfully assaulted the walled-cities of *Ratiara*, *Naissus*, and *Serdica* (now Sofia). They encountered and destroyed a Roman army outside Constantinople, but were stopped by the Theodosian Walls. When they defeated a second army near *Callipolis*, Theodosius II prudently decided to settle rather than fight on, agreeing to a crippling annual tribute of 2,100 Roman pounds of gold. Not long after the withdrawal from Constantinople, Bleda died (killed by his brother according to Roman sources), and Attila ruled as the single, unopposed king of the Huns. Now they were a kingdom: “*very strong, so that they surpassed in their greatness all the forces of the Romans*,” wrote bishop Nestorius. In 447, Attila made his second great invasion of the *eastern empire*, following a Roman attempt to assassinate him. The Huns engaged the Roman forces on the Utus river (today the Vit in Bulgaria), and defeated them, though not without suffering heavy losses. They then laid waste to the defenceless Balkan provinces, until turned back at pass of Thermopylae.

Having bled the *eastern empire* to his heart's content, in 450, Attila turned to the west. Hitherto, he had been on good terms with Aetius, the real power behind the western throne. However, he found an unusual excuse for war. The emperor Valentinian III had forced his sister Honoria to marry a Roman *senator* named Herculanus, an older man with bone-deep loyalty, who the *emperor* could depended upon to resist using his royal connection to seize the throne. Faced with this unwanted marriage, Honoria sent one of her servants on the dangerous journey to Attila’s court, along with an engagement ring: if Attila would come and rescue her, she would marry him. She was not indulging her passion for Attila, who, despite his undoubted charisma, was universally described as short, squat, small-eyed, and large-nosed. Honoria had seen a way out of her gray and pointless life. As Attila wife, she would become queen of the Huns, or perhaps even empress of Rome. Attila at once accepted the offer, demanding half of the western territory as her dowry. Valentinian was apoplectic at his sister, but his mother Placidia, who had herself been married to the *barbarian* Ataulf, suggested that he do as Attila demanded, in order to avoid a Hun invasion; he refused flatly. It was at this delicate moment that the *eastern emperor* Theodosius II died, as the result of a riding accident.

### Emperors Marcian and Valentinian III (450-455)

Since Theodosius II had no male heir, there was no clear heir to the eastern throne. The dominant personality in the eastern court was his eldest sister Pulcheria, who could bestow dynastic legitimacy on an outsider by marriage. She chose as a husband the general **Marcian** (450-457). He had to agree, as a condition of the marriage, to honour Pulcheria’s vow of perpetual virginity; a vow to be faithful only to God. They were both in their fifties, in any case. Marcian's first act as *emperor of the east* was to defy Attila, refusing to pay him the annual tribute that Theodosius had been shelling out. It was a gamble, but one that worked out; Attila assembled his army and headed west.

Rather than marching straight across the difficult Alps into Italy, Attila led his army into Gaul. By April, he had captured the city of Metz; “*They came to the town on Easter Eve,*” wrote Gregory of Tours, “*burned the town to the ground, slaughtered the populace with the sharp edge of their swords, and killed the priests of the Lord in front of their holy altars*”. The general Aetius, who for so long had controlled the affairs of the *western empire*, put together a coalition against him. The western Roman army was joined by the Germanic tribes settled throughout Gauls: the Visigoths, to the south-west, under their king Theodoric (418–451); the Salian Franks, the branch of the tribe settled west of the Lower Rhine, under their king Merovech (c. 450–458); and the Burgundians, to west of the Upper Rhine, now in submission to Rome. The combined armies assembled in the Roman city of Orleans, and met the Huns at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (June 451), somewhere halfway between Orleans and the Hun-occupied Metz. Attila was expecting a Roman infantry centre, with cavalry wings, and arranged his own troops accordingly, However, Aetius and Theodoric feared each other, as much as they feared defeat. So the Romans fought on one wing, and the Visigoths on the other. The unorthodox strategy worked. The wings of the Hun attack disintegrated, and Attila was forced to retreat with his core of warriors back across the Rhine. Gaul had been saved in an expensive victory, that crippled the military capacity of the Romans and Visigoths alike. Theodoric had fallen in battle, and his son Thorismund (451-453 ) limped back to Toulouse with the diminished Visigoths. Attila, on the other side of the Rhine, kept track of the disbanding of the coalition. When the allies were safely away, he made a second attack in early 452; one aimed at Italy itself. The north of Italy fell quickly; *Aquileia*, *Patavium* (Padua), *Verona*, *Brixia* (Brescia), *Bergomum* (Bergamo), and *Mediolanum* (Milan) were sacked. Aetius’ army had no hope of meeting him in battle again, so merely harassed the Huns in small sorties, doing their best to slow their advance. When Valentinian III fled Ravenna with his court for the safety of Rome, it became clear that nothing could halt the Huns. So Leo the Great (440-461), the bishop of Rome, took matters into his own hands. He travelled north to meet with Attila in the Po valley. Little is known of the specifics of the negotiations, as a result of which the Huns withdrew. Most ancient and medieval historians gave Leo all the credit for this successful embassy. According to the contemporary Prosper of Aquitaine, Attila was overwhelmed by Leo's holiness; the later Paul the Deacon insisted that an enormous supernatural warrior with a sword, visible only to Attila, stood beside Leo, and terrified him into a truce. But hints of different motivations can be woven together into a less dramatic interpretation. For one thing, the Huns were already loaded down with loot. For another, Italy had suffered from famine in the recent years, and, to besiege Rome, would have required supplies which were not available. And for a third, the eastern emperor Marcian had sent forces north of the Danube to attack the homelands of the Huns, and they were becoming very anxious to leave Italy. Leo’s embassy gave Attila a pretext to retreat with dignity. Attila would never return to Italy. Back in his headquarters across the Danube, he decided to marry. His bride was Ildico, the daughter of am Ostrogothic chieftain. She was reportedly young and beautiful, but the match also gave him the closer ties with the Goths which he needed to rebuild his weakened army. He celebrated the wedding with an excessive indulgence in food and drink, before passing out in the bridal chamber. The next morning, Attila was found dead; he had burst a blood vessel, and choked him to death in a stupor. He was buried him in the secrecy of night, with treasures, and then, like with Alaric decades earlier, the gravediggers were executed, so that the place could never be found. Attila’s three sons tried to pick up his mantle, but, without a single leader, the Huns began to disintegrate. Like the Visigoths before Alaric, the Huns before Attila were not a nation, but a collection of tribes with a distant past in common. The Visigoths, perhaps through long association with the Romans, had picked up enough trappings of kingship to hold their newborn nations together. The Huns were not so lucky. By 455, they had been defeated, and driven back from the Roman borders. By the end of the century, the Huns had faded from history, absorbed into other ethnic identities such as the Bulgars,

The next two years saw two more momentous deaths. The Hun invasion of Italy hurt Aetius' reputation, and allowed his enemies at court to remove him from power. In 453, Aetius made the fatal misstep of arranging the engagement of his son to Valentinian III’s daughter. It was clearly an attempt to put his family in line for the western throne. Valentinian III, still only 33, had been *emperor* for almost thirty years, but had always ruled in the shadow of his *magister militum*. He had lost much of his empire; Spain and much of Gaul were gone to the Visigoths and the Suevi, and North Africa to the Vandals, who had already taken Sicily and were eyeing Italy itself. Huns had stormed through Italy almost without check, and the bishop of Rome had done Valentinian’s job while he cowered. It was easy for the *emperor* to focus his discontent on Aetius. In 455, Aetius came to court in Ravenna on a routine visit. He was in the throne room, absorbed in delivering a financial account, when Valentinian III leaped from his seat, shouting that he would no longer put up with treachery, He drew his sword, and struck Aetius on the head, killing him instantly while the stunned courtiers watched. John of Antioch reported that Valentinian then turned in satisfaction to one of his officers and said, “*Was not the death of Aetius well accomplished?*” The officer answered, “*Whether well or not I do not know, but I do know that you have cut off your right hand with your left*”. And so it proved. Just weeks later, two of Aetius’ army cronies, egged on by a wealthy *senator* named Petronius Maximus (d. 455), assassinated the *western emperor*, as he rode his horse on the the Campus Martius. They stole the dead man’s crown and robe, and brought them to Petronius Maximus, who declared himself *emperor*.

### Fall of the Western Empire (455-476)

Thus began the disastrous 75-day reign of **Petronius Maximus** (March-May 455). He forced Valentinian III's widow to marry him, thinking that his position would be more secure. In a similar vein, he married his son to his new wife's eldest daughter, repudiating her betrothal to the son of the Vandal king Gaiseric. This gave Gaiseric the excuse he needed to muster a large seaborne force to invade Italy. Maximus quickly appointed a general of Gallic extraction named Avitus (d. 457) as *magister militum*, and sent him on a mission to Toulouse, to gain the support of the Visigoths. But Avitus had not yet returned, when Geiseric and his Vandals landed their ships on the shores of southern Italy. The news was greeted in Rome with panic and riots. Maximus, seeing that it was fruitless to mount a defence, attempted to flee. However, in the panic, his bodyguard abandoned him to fend for himself. As Maximus rode out of the city, he was set upon by an angry mob, and stoned to death. Rome was without an emperor and without a general. Three days later, on 22 April 455, the Vandals arrived at the city and broke through the gates. For 14-days, they plundered and wrecked the city so thoroughly that their name became a new verb; to “vandalize”, to ruin without purpose. In fact, Geiseric did have a very definite purpose. He wanted Rome's wealth, and his men did a good job of stealing all the gold and silver of the city; even stripping the gold gilded tiles from the roof of the *Temple of Jupiter*. The intercession of the bishop, Leo the Great, prevented the destruction of the city, and the large-scale massacre of its inhabitants. But even Leo could not prevent Geiseric from abducting Valentinian’s widow and her two daughters. The Vandals returned to Carthage with ships full of treasure and the three royal women. Geiseric then married his son Honoric to the older daughter Eudocia, as had previously been agreed.

When news of the sack of Rome and the death of Petronius Maximus reached Toulouse, the general Avitus was still negotiating with the Visigoths. The Visigoth king Theodoric II (453-466) urged Avitus to assume the *purple* himself. One can assume, of course, that Theoderic's goal was not mere altruism, and that he saw some benefit for himself and his people. **Avitus** (455-456) accepted, marching across the Alps with his Visigothic allies, and entering Rome in *Triumph*, as the third *emperor* of the year. Rome was wrecked, robbed, and suffering from famine. There was no way of feeding the Visigoths, so Avitus was forced to send them away. First, though, he had to pay them. With the imperial treasury empty, he was obliged to melt down and sell the bronze from the remaining statues. This infuriated the people of Rome, who were in a mood for any offence. The popular discontent was exploited by a half-Germanic general named Ricimer, who had served under Aetius. While Avitus was struggling to feed and pacify Rome, Ricimer was successfully campaigning against the Vandals on Sicily and Corsica. This made him enormously popular, in inverse proportion to Avitus’ plummeting reputation. In the fall of 456, Avitus fled Rome in fear for his life, and attempted to return to Gaul, probably to gather support from his Visigothic and Gallic followers. He was captured by Ricimer en route, deposed, and forced to be ordained as a priest; he died very soon afterwards in unclear circumstances, Ricimer was now the most powerful man in the *western empire*, but he knew that his *barbarian* ancestry would prevent the Romans from accepting him as *emperor*. So he elevated an Italian colleague named **Majorian** (457-461), intending for him to be *western emperor* in name and Ricimer’s *puppet* in reality. But Majorian would not allow himself to be dominated, and quickly proved himself a capable ruler. He launched a campaign against the Visigoths in southern Gaul and Spain that effectively forced them to return to their former status as *foederati*, Having securing their support, Majorian crossed to Spain in 460, where a fleet of 300 ship had been prepared for a campaign against the Vandals of North Africa. A sneak attack cut the invasion short, though. Gaiseric was always vigilant of Roman military movements, and launched a pre-emptive strike that destroyed or captured most of the Roman fleet at *Cartagena*. In the spring of 461, Majorian began to march overland back towards Italy in disgrace. However, Ricimer intercepted him in the Po valley, compelled him to abdicate, and then beheaded him. This murder did not sit well with some of the military establishment, most notably the commander in Gaul, Aegidius, and the commander in Illyria, Marcellinus. Both men pledged their allegiance to the new *eastern emperor* Leo (457-474), and became openly hostile to Ricimer and his next *emperor,* an undistinguished *senator* named **Libius Severus** (461-465). No one seems to have recorded much of anything about Severus. He was simply Ricimer’s *puppet*, and he only remained in place for four years. In 465, he died in Rome, either of sickness or poison, and, for 18-months, Ricimer ruled the west without an *emperor*. The idea of a legitimate Roman *emperor* in the west was suddenly revealed for what it was: a myth which helped the Romans pretend that a disintegrating realm, now consisting of little more than the peninsula of Italy, still had some vital connection with the glory of the past. Finally, in 467, Ricimer roused himself to accept a new *emperor* nominated by Constantinople, not because he wanted one, but because he found it useful in facing hostilities with the two most powerful *barbarian* peoples of the west. Both the Vandal and the Visigoths had seen the vacant *western* throne as an opportunity. In Gaul, Theodoric II of the Visigoths had been murdered by his brother Euric (466-484), who took up the Visigothic army, and began rapidly expanding his reign over land that had once been Roman. Genseric extended Vandal attacks into the territories of the *eastern empire* to pressure Leo into nominating his own preferred candidate for *western emperor*; a *senator* named Olybrius, with family ties to Genseric. Instead, Leo nominated the Roman general Anthemius, who happened to be married to his predecessor's daughter; he sought in part to rid himself of a potential rival. Anthemius marched into Italy with the army of Marcellinus, the commander of Illyria who had previously rebelled against Ricimer. Needing the support of the *eastern empire*, Ricimer chose to accept **Anthemius** (467-472[), rather than fight him. The new *emperor* was no fool, and suggested that Ricimer marry his own daughter to create an extra layer of loyalty. We can forgive the bride her obvious reluctance; the groom was now in his sixties, fifteen years older than her own father. Anthemius’ attempt to rulethe *west* failed. His popularity in Italy suffered, because, as a Greek, he was suspected of having pagan sympathies. His fight against the Visigoths failed almost before it had begun. A massive east-west campaign against the Vandals ended in utter defeat. As in the case of Majorian, the arrangement between Ricimer and Anthemius ultimately unravelled. Open warfare broke out in early 472. Ricimer besieged the *emperor* in Rome. After five months, he finally entered the city, and Anthemius was caught attempting to flee disguished as a slave; and put to death. The marriage had not saved Anthemius, but Ricimer did not last much longer than his father-in-law. Two months later, he came down with a fever and died. Without its *magister militum*, the empire stumbled on even more precariously. Anthemius was followed by four *emperors* in four years, none of them managing to assert any kind of real authority.

    Finally another *barbarian* general named Orestes stepped forward to take control. Orestes rallied the western army behind him, hired a collection of Germanic mercenaries from various tribes, and marched on Ravenna. The *emperor* at the time, the useless Julius Nepos, fled without putting up a fight, and Orestes appointed his own ten-year-old son, **Romulus** (475-476), to the imperial throne. The myth that Roman *emperors* were not *barbarians* still lived; the son of Orestes, and his fully Roman wife, was less *barbarian* by blood than the father. The court at Ravenna was willing to accept this fiction, even giving him the patronizing nickname *Augustulus* (“little Augustus”). He sat on the throne for a single year while the western empire fell apart around him. In 476, even the fiction failed. Orestes had promised to pay his Germanic mercenaries by giving them land in Italy to settle on. Now their leader, Odovacer (d. 493), marched toward Ravenna, demanding more land for his followers. Orestes was killed in battle at Placentia. Odovacer went on to capture Ravenna unopposed, where he compelled little Romulus to abdicate; his life was spared, but he spent the rest of his days imprisoned in a castle in Campania. The old *western empire*, with its stubborn insistence that Romans must rule in Roman land, was no more. Odovacer took the title “King of Italy,” separating himself from the old imperial past. He was a competent soldier, and a decent administrator; and as far as his supporters were concerned, his *barbarian* blood no longer mattered.