The Fall of the Roman Empire Read Online Free Page B

(Narbonne) and Burdigala (Bordeaux). Ataulf declared that his greatest wish was now no longer a Gothic Empire - which he admitted he had wanted before - but partnership with the Romans inside the Roman Empire itself. At Narbo, in 414, he married Honorius' half-sister Placidia. But the Emperor had not given his consent to the marriage, and in the following year Ataulf was forced by Constantius to retreat from Gaul into Spain, where soon afterwards, at Barcino (Barcelona), he was murdered.
    His brother Wallia (Vallia) gave up Placidia to the Romans and helped them, in return for liberal grain supplies, by fighting his fellow-Germans in Spain. He and his Visigoths were then allowed to return to their former lands in south-western France where, in 418, they were granted federate status, with Tolosa as their capital. In the same year, Honorius proclaimed a measure decentralizing his authority in Gaul to a regional administration at Arelate (Aries), in which Romans and Visigoths were intended to collaborate. But the project never became really effective.
    Constantius, who was now all-powerful, had married Placidia - against her will - in the previous year, and early in 421 Honorius proclaimed him joint Emperor of the West, the third Constantius to occupy the throne. However, after a reign of less than seven months, Constantius III prematurely died. Had he lived, he might have postponed the downfall of the West - but only at the cost of damaging his Eastern partners, who had angered him by refusing to recognize his accession.

    PLACIDIA, AETIUS, GAISERIC, ATTILA
    Honorius now proceeded to quarrel with the dead man's widow Placidia, so that she was obliged to take refuge at Constantinople. She took with her Valentinian, her four-year-old son by Constantius. But when Honorius died of dropsy in 423, an Eastern army helped her to return to the West and dispose of a usurper, and Valentinian was proclaimed Emperor (425-55) as Valentinian III. During the first years of his minority, the West was ruled by Placidia. Though she could not improve her son's idle, irresponsible character, and commanders and ministers continued to jostle for power, she, 'the most pious, everlasting mother of the Emperors', stayed firmly, for a long time, at the summit.
    Her varied life, which had seen so many dramatic ups and downs, did not come to an end until 450. But long before then she had yielded the central position to another. This was the general Aetius, a Roman from the country that is now Rumania. A fifth-century historian, Renatus Frigeridus, is full of praise for his manliness and incorruptible courage. And indeed Aetius must have been a man of extraordinary distinction. He assumed the leadership of the Western Roman world, relegating Placidia to second place, at a time when this Empire was at a very low ebb. Thereafter, for more than twenty years, he laboured to keep the destructive elements in check. For a time he even partially succeeded. Had it not been for him, the disintegration would have come quicker. But more than that he could not achieve, since he came too late upon the scene.
    Before rising to the heights of power, Aetius experienced many vicissitudes. As a youth he had spent some time as a hostage of the Visigoths, and then of the Huns as well, acquiring valuable insight into the leading non-Roman peoples of his day. With the Huns he remained friendly for a long time. In 423-5, he brought a large force of them to oppose Placidia's successful attempt to set Valentinian in on the throne, but then he succeeded in making his peace with Placidia's new government.
    During the transitional period the vital region of North Africa, on which Rome depended for its grain, had been under the semi-independent control of the Roman general Bonifatius (Boniface). A curious blend of saint and medieval knight and freebooter, he was described by an eminent sixth-century Byzantine historian, Procopius, as 'the last of the Romans'. In this connexion Procopius