Aetius Attila’s Nemesis Read online

  Aetius

  Attila’s Nemesis

  First published in Great Britain in 2012 by

  Pen & Sword Military

  an imprint of

  Pen & Sword Books Ltd

  47 Church Street

  Barnsley

  South Yorkshire

  S70 2AS

  Copyright © Ian Hughes, 2012

  ISBN: 978-1-84884-279-3

  Digigtal Edition ISBN: 978-1-78346-134-9

  The right of Ian Hughes to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is

  available from the British Library.

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  Contents

  List of Plates

  List of Maps

  Acknowledgements

  Foreword

  Introduction

  1. Historical Background and Early Years

  2. Aetius the Hostage

  3. Aetius Takes the Stage

  4. The Late Roman Army

  5. The Barbarians

  6. Magister Militum per Gallias

  7. Magister Militum Praesentalis

  8. Undisputed Leadership

  9. The Fall of Africa

  10. The Treaty of 442

  11. After Africa

  12. The Calm Before the Storm

  13. Crisis

  14. The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains

  15. Attila’s Invasion of Italy

  16. The End

  17. Aftermath

  Conclusion

  Outline Chronology

  Imperial Family Tree

  Select Personalities

  Notes

  Bibliography

  List of Plates

  1. Possible diptych of Aetius

  2. Sarcophagus of Stilicho

  3. Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna

  4. Interior of Placidia’s Mausoleum

  5. Painting of Galla Placidia

  6. Medallions of Honorius and Galla Placidia

  7. Solidus showing wedding of Valentinian III and Licinia Eudoxia

  8. Honorius on the consular diptych of Probus

  9. Diptych of Flavius Felix

  10. Inscription from Altava referring to ‘barbarians’

  11. Inscription to Merobaudes

  12. Inscription to Aetius

  13. Close-up of inscription to Aetius

  14. Diptych celebrating consulship of Astyrius

  15. Silver disc made to commemorate Aspar’s consulship

  16. Roman amphitheatre at Arles

  17. Coin allegedly produced for Aetius

  18. Coin minted by Boniface in Africa

  19. Siliqua produced in Africa by Gaiseric

  20. Coin minted by the usurper John

  21 and 22. Coins minted during the reign of Valentinian III

  23 and 24. Coins minted for Aelia Pulcheria and Aelia Eudocia

  25. Bronze medal showing Attila

  26. ‘Attila’s Throne’ in Venice

  27. Feast of Attila by Mor Than (1870)

  28. The Meeting between Leo the Great and Attila’ by Raphael

  29. ‘The Huns at the Battle of Chalons’, De Neuville

  30. The countryside around Troyes

  31. ‘Genseric sacking Rome 455’, Briullov

  32. ‘Sainte Geneviève et Attila’, Maindron Hippolyte

  List of Maps

  1. The Empire at the Time of Theodosius I

  2. The Western Empire c.408

  3. The Western Empire c.423

  4. Aetius in Gaul

  5. Spain c.429

  6. Aetius’ Campaigns in Gaul, Raetia and Italy

  7. The Vandals in Africa

  8. The Vandal Settlement of 435

  9. The Western Empire c.439

  10. Africa, Spain and the East

  11. The Vandal Settlement of 442

  12. Barbarian Settlements

  13. Spain and Gaul 449–450

  14. Attila’s Invasion of Gaul

  15. Attila’s Invasion of Italy

  Acknowledgements

  As is usual, my gratitude must go to Philip Sidnell for keeping faith with an unknown author. I hope that this third book continues to repay that confidence.

  I would like to thank Adrian Goldsworthy for agreeing to read through early drafts of the entire book. For reading excerpted chapters I would like to thank Philip Matyszak. Finally, I would like to express my extreme gratitude to Perry Gray for not only reading the whole manuscript but for taking the time to discuss significant points throughout the process. The comments, criticisms and corrections of the above have been a valuable asset in the writing process. However, it should not be taken for granted that they agree with all that is written here, and for any mistakes that remain I am solely responsible.

  For helping me to secure otherwise impossible-to-acquire books, I would once again like to thank the staff at Thurnscoe Branch Library, Barnsley, and especially Andrea World of the Inter-Library Loans Department of Barnsley Libraries.

  I would very much like to thank the following people for kindly allowing me to use their photographs in the plates: Beast Coins (www.beastcoins.com), CNG coins (www.cngcoins.com), Giovanni Dall’Orto of Wikimedia, Sean Pruitt, Didier Rykner, Nigel Rodgers, and ‘Antiquite Tardive’ of Flickr. Their generosity is very much appreciated.

  For their patience and for permission to use photographs from their extensive and valuable libraries I would like to thank Dr Manfred Clauss of ILS, and Dr Andreas Faßbender and Dr Manfred G. Schmidt of CIL.

  My gratitude also goes to Raffaele D’Amato, Roy Boss and Graham Sumner for their correspondence regarding depictions of Aetius in ancient monuments and diptychs, although they may not agree with the conclusions I have drawn.

  As with my first two books, this book would not have been the same without the contributions of the members of both www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/ and www.unrv.com.forum. They have yet again been exceptionally patient, especially with regards to questions about the availability of photographs.

  My utmost gratitude goes to the individuals and institutions who have made available the ever-growing corpus of source material on the internet. I will, however, refrain from mentioning individuals by name, since a look at the bibliography will show that it would need a separate book to list all of the people involved and to single individuals out for special praise would be unfair.

  To all of these people, once again, my heartfelt thanks.

  However, most of all I would like to thank Joanna for her endurance in reading through a third book about ‘some bloke from ancient Rome’. For her seem
ingly endless patience and understanding I remain forever in her debt.

  Finally, to my son Owen – again, I would like to apologize for all of the times when you have wanted to play and been told, ‘Not now, Daddy is working.’ Unfortunately, this will continue, as I have now signed a deal for another book. Sorry!

  Foreword

  Historians of the fourth and fifth centuries have a particularly difficult life. Those used to the relative certainties of the late republic and early empire can only look on with admiration at those brave souls who plunge into the mess that is late antiquity.

  ‘Mess’ is not putting it too strongly. Firstly, the Roman Empire itself was in a mess, and particularly so the western empire. A series of barbarian invasions not only tore through the countryside, but also through the social and economic fabric of the affected provinces. The empire was bankrupt, the peasantry surly and mutinous (and often likely to side with the invaders) and the soldiers too few and of dubious loyalty.

  Secondly, the evidence is in a mess. Barbarian invasions and civil wars tend to be confusing events even at the time, let alone 1,500 years later, when the historian has to make sense of the fragmentary writings of people who themselves had little idea of what was actually going on. Furthermore, the motives of the main protagonists are often obscure. And that is even if we assume that the actions of the protagonists are accurately reported and dated – an assumption any chronicler of late antiquity is likely to greet with sardonic laughter. Documents are scanty and tend to refer even to major events in oblique terms. Entire battles have gone missing. To give but one example, early in the period Britain drifted out of imperial control. One might think this would be significant enough to warrant a detailed description in the primary sources, and perhaps even an analysis of the causes. In reality, the historian of late antiquity settles gratefully for any passing mention.

  Thirdly, and most importantly, almost everyone writing in this period had an agenda in which the accurate reporting of events was either irrelevant at best, or at worst something to be avoided at all costs. The sources for this period seldom say what they mean, or mean what they say. Sometimes the motive is political, as when a writer is attempting to praise one emperor at the cost of a rival, or trying to obfuscate his own involvement with that rival. At other times the issue is religious. The fourth and early fifth centuries saw the triumph of Christianity over paganism and much, in fact most, of what we know of the history in that period is seen through the lens of that process.

  One consequence of such ideological involvement is that battles are seen as tests of the religious convictions of the generals involved. Writers such as Jerome are apparently convinced that a prayer at the right moment affected events more powerfully than a well-deployed legion. And since Jerome seldom takes interest in the actual deployment of the armies, there is no telling whether he was right. What we do know is that his reports, like those of his contemporaries, must be filtered for bias, poetic exaggeration, hyperbole and plain ignorance.

  Furthermore, the religious struggle of the period was a complex affair in which the pagans were sometimes mere interested spectators to vicious in-fighting between catholic Christians, Arians, Monophysites, Donatists and others. It would be fair to say that most historians of the period would gladly sacrifice, say, the minutiae of the struggle against the Pelagian heresy for a proper description of a secular event or two – for example, the invasion of Italy by Radagaisus.

  To repeat: from a historian’s perspective, the period is a mess. Yet it is a critically important mess. The huge structure of the Roman Empire in the west was changing dramatically and the edifice of imperial control was rushing toward final collapse. We cannot draw a veil over this critical period in world history simply because it is too untidy. It is momentously important. Out of this chaos, medieval Europe was born, and the outcome of the ideological battles fought in those days continues to shape our lives. How can one not study such events?

  Yet, if the preceding part of this foreword has not already warned the casual reader that this is a topic to be approached with extreme caution, it has often been said that there is nothing like an absence of facts for a good argument, and modern studies of late antiquity are almost as riddled with opposing viewpoints and arcane argument as the shibboleths they analyze. ‘Pagan’ and ‘barbarian’ are loaded terms that the historian must use with care, and even to talk of the ‘fall’ of the Roman Empire in the west identifies one as belonging to a particular school of historical thought.

  Under these circumstances one reaches gratefully for the work of a writer such as Ian Hughes, whose intent is simply to explain, and explain as clearly as possible, who did what during those dramatic and desperate years. If one is looking for a guide through the morass of events at the end of the western Roman Empire, then perhaps it can be found in the lives of the men who struggled to hold things together as the world they knew went through wrenching changes. Biography is almost by definition narrative, and a narrative that has a single clear focus.

  As his groundbreaking biography of Stilicho (Pen & Sword, 2010) has shown, Ian Hughes has the expertise to understand the complexities of the period and the confidence to present and argue his point of view even against established orthodoxies. Even better, he does so with a clarity and enthusiasm that makes him as accessible to the general reader as to the specialist scholar.

  The end of the Roman Empire is one of the pivotal events in European history. Yet this is not the only reason for reading this book, or even the best one. The simple fact is that the life of Aetius was both important and fascinating. He is worth reading about for his own sake.

  Philip Matyszak

  February 2011

  Introduction

  Aetius was born sometime around the year AD 391. At the time of his birth all must have seemed well. The two halves of the Roman Empire were still strong and able to defend themselves. Yet within a few years the first signs of weakness were apparent. When Theodosius ‘the Great’ re-united the two halves of the empire after a civil war in 394 the losses inflicted by his troops on the western army severely weakened the west. Further, thanks to internal and external pressures on the empire, even a strong emperor such as Theodosius was forced to accept that it was too large to be ruled by one individual. He immediately arranged for his younger son, Honorius, to rule in the west. Theodosius died shortly after his victory, in January 395.

  By the time of Aetius’ death the West was almost unrecognizable. Britain had seceded from the Empire, large parts of Gaul and Spain were in the hands of barbarian leaders and the Vandals had conquered ‘Africa’. In 444 the Western Emperor Valentinian III was forced to accept that his empire was bankrupt.

  Aetius was in control of the West during this tumultuous time, and with so much going wrong it is surprising that he is still perceived as the ‘the man who was universally celebrated as the terror of the Barbarians and the support of the republic’.1 This book aims to tell his story, chronicling the steady decline of the West and the strategies Aetius used to halt that decline.

  The fact that there have been few attempts to tell Aetius’ story in detail is a little surprising, as the period when he rose to power is both pivotal and fascinating. This reluctance, though, is due to the (perceived) nature of the sources. In most cases these are vague, contradictory and usually extremely brief, consisting largely of single-line entries in the surviving chronicles.

  Alongside the poor quality of the sources are disagreements amongst historians concerning such fundamentals as a chronology for Aetius’ lifetime. This uncertainty has created reluctance on the part of many historians to make definitive judgements, which are open to instant criticism. This is understandable: certainty is impossible and negative comments virtually certain.

  The difficulties with the sources have one major repercussion on the present work. This book is not a biography in the modern sense. If the fragmentary nature of the sources and the lack of detailed information make it impossible to outl
ine a clear passage of events, it is obvious that any attempt to reach conclusions concerning Aetius’ military ability or his personal thoughts and beliefs is due to failure. Instead, the book will venture to fill as many gaps as possible, create a chronology that incorporates all of the evidence, and attempt to peel away the years to study Aetius as a man, in so far as this is possible. Scholars of this period will find much that they disagree with, but this cannot be avoided.

  Map 1. The empire at the time of Theodosius I

  THE SOURCES

  The main causes of controversy revolve around the surviving sources that cover this period. They fall into four broad categories: Ecclesiastical Histories (which include the Hagiographies – lives of the saints), Secular Histories, Letters and Chronicles. In addition, there are the panegyrics of Merobaudes, the law codes of the Codex Theodosianus and the Codex Justinianus, and the Notitia Dignitatum (List of Imperial Offices). There are also several smaller works that sometimes give relevant information, for which see the list of abbreviations at the end of this Introduction. Unfortunately, their fragmentary nature and large number means that there are too many to analyze individually. Only a brief description of some of the major sources is given here.

  Secular Histories

  Gregory of Tours See Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus

  Jordanes Jordanes (fl. 550s) wrote two books. The Romana (On Rome) is a very brief epitome of events from the founding of Rome until 552. Due to the fact that it is extremely condensed, it can be useful, but offers little that cannot be found elsewhere. Jordanes also wrote the Getica (Origins and Deeds of the Goths). This work is valuable in that it contains a lot of information that would otherwise be lost, especially those sections that demonstrate a Gothic viewpoint. Unfortunately, due to its bias towards the Goths, it must be used with caution.2

  Procopius Procopius (c.500–c.554) wrote the Wars of Justinian. In these he describes the wars fought by the general Belisarius on behalf of the eastern Emperor Justinian. Included are many asides and brief entries concerning the history of the west and of the Germanic peoples who had overrun the western empire. It is usually assumed to be reliable, but caution is needed where the work concerns events outside Procopius’ own lifetime.