Aetius Attila’s Nemesis Page 32

  LATER EVENTS

  Placidia, Eudoxia and Eudocia

  Around the year 462 Gaiseric finally saw his son Huneric marry an imperial princess when he was wed to Eudocia after their long engagement.39 Gaiseric was doubtless happy with the marriage on all levels, especially politically: theoretically, any sons of Huneric and Eudocia would have a claim to the throne of the West, although the chances of the Senate in Rome acquiescing to the rule of a ‘semi-barbarus’ would be slim. After the marriage Eudoxia and Placidia were finally allowed to return home, possibly in 464, after being ransomed by the Eastern emperor Leo.40

  Once home, Placidia was married to Olybrius, to whom she was already betrothed. Olybrius had fled from Rome during the sack of 455 and was destined to be emperor of the West for a short time in 472.41 In the early 460s there is evidence that Gaudentius, Aetius’ son, was still alive in Carthage.42 Unfortunately, after this date there is no source that tells of his ultimate fate.

  THE END OF EMPIRE

  In the West in the years after 456 a bewildering series of short-lived emperors ruled until in 476 the last of these, titled Romulus Augustulus, was forced to abdicate by the magister militum Odoacer. After negotiations with Zeno, by this time emperor of the East, Odoacer agreed to rule the West – now little more than Italy – in the name of the empire. The Eastern nominee for the Western throne, Julius Nepos, lived for four more years in Illyricum before his death in 480. Nominally, he was the last Roman Emperor of the West. Without an orderly succession and a strong military leader, the West would survive for only one more generation after the death of Aetius.

  Conclusion

  It is difficult to reach any firm conclusions about Aetius. The greatest difficulty lies with the paucity of the sources. In addition to their rarity, their lack of detail makes it difficult to appreciate his achievements and failures, let alone establish what he was like as a person. A significant factor that adds to the difficulty is Aetius’ long career, for some of which he was not the main policy maker. As a result, his career needs to be broken into three distinct parts: his youth and time as a hostage, his time as an ‘associate’ general and his time as sole magister militum. The evidence for his time as magister militum is poor but for the other two periods is almost non-existent.

  AS A HOSTAGE

  Aetius’ youth is largely unknown and little understood. Although it is believed that he was earmarked for a military career from an early age, there was no guarantee that he would fulfil any latent potential. The turning point in his life was when he was sent as a hostage to the Goths and then the Huns. This separated him from his contemporaries who remained within the empire and gave him experience that they lacked. Further, his time amongst the Goths and the Huns influenced both his behaviour and his career, as his behaviour amongst the Goths and Huns no doubt differed from what would have been expected within the Roman military hierarchy. The fact that he was sent whilst still young, when he will have been less set in his ways and so have absorbed more than a fully grown adult, resulted in him knowing how the barbarians’ minds worked and allowed him to use their more aggressive tactics and strategies.1 His time as a hostage also allowed him to make close friends of the leading Goths and Huns of his own age and the extensive time he spent with the Huns resulted in these friendships remaining close when his friends rose to positions of power. These factors would be of vital importance in his future career.

  AS AN ‘ASSOCIATE’ GENERAL

  Aetius first came to prominence in 423. At this time the Franks were occupying large areas of Gaul on the imperial side of the Rhine, the Goths were occupying large areas of Aquitania and the Vandals had merged with the Alans to form a new ‘superpower’ in Spain. Also in Spain, the Sueves continued to act as an independent kingdom.

  There is no clear indication of the status of the barbarian leaders in the West. Although some may have had official posts within the imperial government, others did not. However, whether they did or didn’t, it would appear that they considered themselves to be independent of imperial control and free to engage in diplomatic activity on their own behalf, regardless of whether this conflicted with imperial aims.

  In the years between 423 and 433 Aetius was one of the three (later two) most influential men in the Western Empire. The civil conflicts between 424 and 433 were of much shorter duration than those following the rebellion of Constantine I in the early-fourth century.2 Unlike the earlier civil wars, in 423–424 and again in 432–433, there was paralysis at the political centre in Ravenna that allowed ‘untamed alien forces’ to ‘pursue their own agendas, largely unhindered’.3 Local troops facing the barbarians remained static, awaiting the outcome of the civil wars and relying on the victors to defeat the barbarians.

  Once appointed magister militum per Gallias Aetius spent his time reversing the local effects of the civil war. During the civil war the Franks had attempted to expand into vacant agricultural areas along the frontier, but were pushed back by Aetius, the Goths had attempted to extend their power in Gaul, but were defeated and forced to retreat by him, and the Burgundians attempted the same expansion but suffered the same fate.

  Away from Aetius’ command, in Spain the Sueves maintained their independence and also attempted to expand their sphere of influence. Yet the greatest danger was in Africa. In 429 the Vandals and their allies crossed from Spain to Mauretania before advancing along the coast to threaten Carthage and the province of Africa itself.

  SOLE RULE

  When Aetius took sole control of Western affairs in 433 he had many pressures to deal with. The Franks, the Goths, the Sueves and the Vandals all needed to be faced with the full might of the praesental army. Obviously, this was impossible. Fortunately for Aetius, in 435 his envoy managed to secure a treaty with the Vandals that gave them the less-productive areas of the African coast whilst reserving the most productive provinces for Rome. With peace in Africa Aetius was finally able to bring the Goths and Franks to heel, while at the same time, and with the help of his allies the Huns, the Burgundians were decimated and brought under the close control of the empire.

  The factors that helped Aetius and the West to recover from an almost impossible position are varied and interconnected. The main point to note is the generalship of Aetius. He had ‘learned warfare from the Scythians [Huns]’ and so did not conform to the stereotypical image of a late Roman general.4 The army commanded by Aetius was expected to take the initiative and assault enemy positions, which is very different from the standard late Roman tactic of ambush and siege – although Aetius was not averse to using these tactics when the situation required them.

  Furthermore, the army was constantly on the move. It was efficient and well supplied thanks to a successful logistic operation. Between 425 and 439 Aetius and his generals fought at least eleven campaigns, no doubt with losses in both men and material. The fact that the army continued to fight successfully can be attributed to a good replacement system, especially of trained troops.5 However, it is possible that the majority of the replacements were now mercenaries from outside the empire. The continuing success also demonstrates that Aetius appears to have trained and instilled a high level of discipline in his men, whatever their origin. It is possible, though not attested, that his successes may have partially eased the burden of recruitment, since an army that is winning will attract volunteers whereas a losing army will not.

  Yet the recruits his success attracted were not sufficient to maintain constant military campaigns on more than one front and the constant campaigning resulted in a steady attrition that slowly reduced the strength of the praesental army. To replace the losses Aetius needed the wholehearted support of the aristocracy, both to supply recruits and to pay the taxes needed for the upkeep of the army. It was not forthcoming. At this vital juncture:

  the two main groups in the [West] – the senatorial aristocracy and the Catholic Church – disassociated themselves from the fate of the Roman army that defended them. Both groups unwittingly sapped the s
trength of the army and of the imperial administration; and, having hamstrung their protectors, they found, somewhat to their surprise, that they could do without them.6

  The only way that Aetius could keep the army at the strength needed to campaign was to enlist foreign mercenaries. This was a feasible proposition when the empire was rich, but in the mid 430s the financial resources of the empire were becoming stretched.

  It appeared that by the end of the 430s Aetius was regaining control of the west. One event in 439 dashed his hopes. When the richest province of Africa was lost to the Vandals it sounded the death knell for the West. The imperial coffers, already low, could not stand the loss of the African income and with the failure of the African campaign of 441 the end was nigh. In 444 Valentinian was forced to admit that the West was bankrupt. Furthermore, the loss of Africa sent a signal to the other barbarians on Roman soil that the West was too weak to resist and internal conflict with the barbarians grew.

  War with the Huns

  Unfortunately for Aetius, this loss of political and military control occurred just as the Huns began to reach the height of their power under Attila. Attila now displaced Aetius as the main political focus in the West, largely due to the power of the Huns but also due to the apparent weakness of the West and Aetius’ inability to interfere in the workings of Germania. Attila was thus able to use his policy of divide and rule to ensure confused loyalties in the West prior to the invasion of Gaul.7 Fortunately for Aetius, Attila’s policy failed when confronted with the undivided and politically more mature Goths. Without the Goths, Gaul would almost certainly have been lost to the empire: although the Hunnic empire collapsed after Attila’s death, the West would not have had the strength to reconquer Gaul. Instead, the Goths, the Franks and the ‘Armoriciani’ would have moved into the vacuum left by the collapse of the Huns.

  Attila’s invasion of Italy almost reversed the result of Aetius’ victory in Gaul. Aetius’ decision to reinforce the garrison of Aquileia and await reinforcements from the East is an indication of the reduced strength of the praesental army in Italy. The decision could easily have resulted in a catastrophic defeat. Fortunately, Aetius had correctly judged that Attila would be forced to capture Aquileia and that with additional troops the garrison could hold out for a long time. Although the eventual sack was a catastrophe for the inhabitants, the length of the siege gave Marcian the time needed to collect his forces and launch an attack into the Hunnic homelands, as well as sending troops to help Aetius in Italy.

  Further, Aetius knew that time was on his side. He knew that the Huns did not have a large baggage train, instead relying to a large part on finding supplies as they campaigned. With the famine in Italy Aetius doubtless expected the Huns to suffer losses from hunger as well as the inevitable disease that accompanied famines. The Italian campaign demonstrates that Aetius was a realist with a strong grasp of strategy and tactics, both his own and those of his enemies.

  Up to 450, when Attila began to consider invading the West, Aetius had relied on a policy of ‘government through punitive expedition’, which enjoyed mixed success. Gaul was brought back under imperial control, but the situation in Spain was changed with the marriage of Rechiarius, king of the Sueves, and the daughter of Theoderic, king of the Goths. Aetius had relied on supplements of Gothic manpower to maintain the Roman position in Spain. With this lost, the Sueves were allowed to again extend their sphere of influence – much to the detriment of the empire’s prestige and coffers.8

  By 452 the empire in the West was in dire straits. By this date Britain, most of Spain, the richest provinces of Africa, and large parts of Gaul had either been lost to barbarian kingdoms that only accepted the nominal rule of Rome or had established virtual independence from Roman rule.9 Financially, the empire was in the last stages of bankruptcy. Despite this, to the people living at the time there were signs of recovery. Although only nominally subject to Rome, the Vandals and the Goths remained at peace and Aetius was able to gain their cooperation in both Gaul and Spain. Furthermore, the barbarians’ acceptance of Roman rule – however nominal – meant that politically Aetius could claim that Rome still ‘ruled’ all the West, with the possible exception of Britain.

  AETIUS AND STILICHO

  Modern historians have tended to view Stilicho as a Vandal who helped to bring about the fall of the West, largely due to the perception that he was willing to do deals with his fellow-barbarian Alaric and was preparing to start a civil war against the East in 406 rather than defending the West against invasion. The fact that the Vandals, Alans and Sueves crossed the Rhine frontier and stopped the projected invasion of Illyricum is perceived as highlighting Stilicho’s failure as a military commander, bent on causing an unnecessary civil war instead of monitoring the borders and anticipating the barbarian attack.10

  Conversely, Aetius has tended to be viewed in a more sympathetic light than Stilicho. No doubt this is mainly due to both his long tenure in control of the West and the fact that throughout that time he continuously fought to maintain the West’s integrity, on several occasions – and in contrast to Stilicho – even gaining military support from the East.

  Yet there are several parallels between the two commanders. Both had contacts with powerful barbarians – Stilicho with Alaric and Aetius with Rua – and at times were forced to rely on these contacts to support their position. Both also had to deal with weak emperors who had come to the throne at a young age and never displayed the necessary ability to rule independently of the magister militum.

  Furthermore, both had tried to arrange marriages to ensure that their grandchildren were heirs to the throne. Stilicho had managed to arrange two marriages with Honorius, first with his elder daughter and then, after her early death, with his younger daughter. The first of these had been accepted, but the second had caused opposition to grow in the Senate. Neither had resulted in the hoped-for offspring. Aetius (or possibly his wife) had forced Valentinian to accept the betrothal of his daughter with Aetius’ son. Again this had provoked a growth of opposition at court, but in this case the resistance had coalesced and Aetius had been killed before the marriage had taken place.

  Finally, shortly after their deaths Rome – the symbolic capital of the empire – was sacked, in 410 by Alaric and in 455 by Gaiseric. Historians have blamed the sack of 410 on Stilicho, accusing him of failing to eliminate Alaric when he had the chance in 402. On the other hand, Aetius’ success in repeatedly defeating barbarians and the good fortune he experienced when Attila died before him has resulted in blame for the sack of 455 by Gaiseric being laid elsewhere: principally with Valentinian for killing his vastly experienced and capable magister militum, and with Eudoxia for inviting Gaiseric to intervene in Italy after Maximus had been crowned emperor.

  In spite of these assumptions, a close analysis of events has shown that Stilicho was not really to blame for the events of 408, but rather the Italian troops, as they played into Alaric’s hands when they massacred the families of Stilicho’s foederati, forcing thousands of the foederati to change their allegiance and join Alaric.11 Moreover, Eudoxia cannot realistically be blamed for Gaiseric’s sack of Rome in 455: there can be little doubt that he would have attacked the city whether invited by her or not.

  Although neither general was perfect, the majority of the blame must be laid at the feet of the two emperors who removed their capable generals without having either the ability to lead the troops themselves nor the strength of purpose to promote a capable warrior from within the court to take control of the army and defeat the invaders.

  Stilicho and Aetius, who certainly knew each other, although they were from different generations, were responding to the specific, and vastly different, problems with which they were faced. Neither could find all of the answers.

  THE BARBARIAN SETTLEMENTS

  In recent years there has been a revolution concerning interpretations of the effects of the barbarian invasions that took place mainly during the period of Aetius’ lifetime. H
istorians have tended to highlight the continuity between the Roman and the ‘barbarian successor’ kingdoms, especially with regard to the Goths and the Vandals. The apparent continuity of imperial institutions has allowed historians to downplay the dislocation and bloodshed caused by both the invasions and the almost-continuous civil wars.

  This has been overplayed. Having no administrative structures of their own, when the barbarian kingdoms came into existence they naturally adopted and adapted the imperial structures that were in place, with the ‘king’ taking the place of the emperor and the nobles the place of the absentee aristocracy. As a result, the administrative structure continued, and is now being interpreted as a sign that the takeover was (relatively) peaceful, which has concealed both the level of warfare that continued to take place and the fact that in many places in the West imperial power had actually collapsed and the burden been assumed by local ‘warlords’, whether of barbarian or Roman origin, prior to the foundation of the barbarian kingdoms.12