Flavius Aetius

Flavius Aëtius or simply Aëtius, (c. 396–454), was a Roman general of the closing period of the Western Roman Empire. Along with his rival Count Boniface he has often been called "the last of the Romans". (Though Bury says wryly that Boniface's inclusion delutes the honor for Aetius) His victory over Attila the Hun guarantees him, as Edward Gibbon states, immortality as "the man universally celebrated as the terror of Barbarians and the support of the Republic" of Rome.

Early years

Aëtius was born at Dorostolus in Moesia, late in the 4th century. He was the son of an Italian mother named Auraelia and of Gaudentius, who, many historians point out, was possibly of a Scythian or Germanic family. He rose in the service of the Western empire to be master of the horse, and later count of Africa. Aëtius passed some years as a hostage, first with Alaric and the Goths (probably 405–408), and later in the camp of Rugila, king of the Huns. There is a school of thought, advocated by Gibbons and other historians, that Aëtius's upbringing among vigorous and warlike peoples such as the Huns gave him a martial vigour lacking in Rome itself at that period. Certainly he learned every trick the Huns themselves utilized in battle, and he used that knowledge well in his conflicts with Attila.

Aëtius, Boniface and Placidia

In 425, Aëtius led an army of 60,000 Huns into Italy. He first moved to support Joannes, who had proclaimed himself emperor, but his arrival in Ravenna came three days after Joannes' defeat and execution. With his large force of Huns, Aëtius was able to secure a pardon and obtain the office of Magister militum per Gallias (or Master of Soldiers in Gaul) from Galla Placidia, the empress-mother and regent for Valentinian III.

In Gaul, Aëtius defeated the Visigoths at Arles, forcing them to return to Aquitaine. He then proceeded to reinforce the Rhine frontier and defend Noricum against German attacks. Meanwhile, in Africa, Count Boniface fell into disfavour with Placidia, perhaps partly due to the intrigues of Aëtius and other Roman generals.

Boniface was eventually returned to favour by Placidia, not before revolting in Africa and calling in the Vandals. In 432, Boniface was recalled to Italy and given the rank of patrician. Aëtius, believing that Placidia had decided to get rid of him, marched against Boniface and fought against him in a battle near Rimini. Boniface won the battle tactically but was mortally wounded and died a few months later. Aëtius escaped to Dalmatia, and, with the help of the Huns (for which they were rewarded with territory in Pannonia), was restored to power by Placidia in 433.

Ascendancy

From 433 to 450, Aëtius was the dominant personality in the Western empire. He continued to devote his attention to Gaul after his restoration to power. In 436 the Burgundians, taking advantage of disturbances caused by Bagaudae (bands of lawless brigands), tried to seize more territory. Aëtius responded by calling in the Huns to intervene, and 20,000 Burgundians were killed in a slaughter which became the basis of the Nibelungenlied, a German epic. In 443 Aëtius settled the remaining Burgundians in Savoy, south of Lake Geneva. His most pressing concern in the 440s was with problems in Gaul and Spain, mainly with the Bagaudae. He settled Alans around Valence and Orleans to control unrest around Brittany.

In 451 a large army of Huns, led by Attila, invaded Gaul and captured several cities, and proceeded towards Orleans. One of the great achievements of military history was the assembling of the coalition against Attila. Arthur Ferrill, addressing this issue, says

"After he secured the Rhine, Attila moved into central Gaul and put Orleans under siege. Had he gained his objective, he would have been in a strong position to subdue the Visigoths in Aquitiane, but Aetius had put together a formidable coalition against the Hun. Working frenetically, the Roman leader had built a powerful alliance of Visigoths, Alans and Burgundians, uniting them with their traditional enemy, the Romans, for the defense of Gaul. Even though all parties to the protection of the Western Roman Empire had a common hatred of the Huns, it was still a remarkable achievement on Aetius' part to have drawn them into an effective military relationship."[[1]]

When the Alans living in the region were ready to defect to Attila, Aëtius and the Visigoth king Theodoric I moved in to relieve the city. The Huns abandoned the siege and retreated to open country, where, on September 20, 451 (some sources place the date at June 20, 451^[1]), they and their allies battled the Romans and Visigoths, along with their Alan, Frankish, and Burgundian allies, on the Catalaunian Fields near Châlons-en-Champagne. Although tactically the outcome of the Battle of Chalons was indecisive, it was a great triumph for Aëtius and the Romans. Attila was forced to retreat beyond the Rhine and never threatened Gaul again, though he returned once more to Italy.

Attila returned in 452 to again press his claim of marriage to Honoria, invading and ravaging Italy along the way; his army sacked numerous cities and razed Aquileia completely, leaving no trace of it behind. Valentinian fled from Ravenna to Rome; Aetius remained in the field but lacked the strength to offer battle. Gibbon however says Aetius never showed his greatness more clearly in managing to harass and slow Attila's advance with only a shadow force. Attila finally halted at the Po, where he met an embassy including the prefect Trigetius, the consul Aviennus, and Pope Leo I. After the meeting he turned his army back, having claimed neither Honoria's hand nor the territories he desired.

Assassination

Although in 453 Aëtius had been able to betroth his son Gaudentius to Valentinian's daughter Placidia, Valentinian felt intimidated by Aetius, who had once supported Joannes against him and whom Valentinian believed wanted to place his son upon the imperial throne. The Roman senator Petronius Maximus and the chamberlain Heraclius were therefore able to enlist Valentinian in a plot to assassinate Aëtius. On September 21, 454, when at court in Ravenna delivering a financial account, Aëtius was slain by Valentinian's own hand. Edward Gibbon credits Sidonius Apollinaris with the famous observation, "I am ignorant, sir, of your motives or provocations; I only know that you have acted like a man who has cut off his right hand with his left" (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 35).

Maximus expected to be made patrician in place of Aëtius, but was blocked by Heraclius. Seeking revenge, Maximus arranged with two Hun friends of Aëtius, Optila and Thraustila, to assassinate both Valentinian III and Heraclius. On March 16, 455, Optila stabbed the emperor in the temple as he dismounted in the Campus Martius and prepared for a session of archery practice. As the stunned emperor turned to see who had struck him, Optila finished him off with another thrust of his blade. Meanwhile, Thraustila stepped forward and killed Heraclius. Most of the soldiers standing close by had been faithful followers of Aetius and none lifted a hand to save the emperor.

Military Legacy

All historians, including Bury, acknowledge Aetius as a great military commander, though Bury challanges the perception that the Battle of Chalons was the macrohistorical event most historians maintain it was.

J. B. Bury offers a different assessment from most historians in that he alleges that the battle of Chalons was fundamentally unimportant. Bury argues Aëtius attacked the Huns when they were already retreating from Orleans, so Gaul was not in immediate danger; and he declined to renew the attack, the next day, to preserve the balance of power. (This point of view neglects to mention that the reason the Huns abandoned the siege was the advance of the allied armies led by Aetius, and that Chalons is viewed by the vast majority of historians as crippling Attila by destroying the aura of invincibility around him) Bury alleges the important battle was three years later, when the Germans rose up against the Huns after Attila's death, and defeated them at the Nedao, in 454. This decided that there would be no Hunnic Empire, which Bury thinks would have been unlikely even if they had crushed the Germans that time. In this light, Chalons determined chiefly whether Attila spent his last year looting Gaul or Italy.

It is again notable that Bury's view is a distinctly minority one, and that this Battle is considered of macrohistorical importance by virtually every other reputable major historian. Additionally, it is vital to note that while Bury questions the macrohistorical importance of the Battle of Chalons, he certainly does not challange the majority view that Aetius was a vital macrohistorical figure, who singlehandedly held up the dying Empire for three decades. As to Challons, Gibbon states the majority view quite eloquently:

"(Attila's) retreat across the Rhine confessed the last victory which was achieved in the name of the Western Roman Empire."^[2]."

John Julius Norwich also strongly disagrees with Bury, as does William E. Watson, Sir Edward Creasy, and Poke, saying that "the entire fate of western civilization hung in the balance" in the campaigns of Attila, and that Chalons was a pivotal turning point in history. He also caustically referred to the assassination of Valentian by his own guards as an act he brought on himself by his foolish execution of Aetius, the "Empire's greatest commander." ^[3] Certainly Aetius military legacy will always be defined by the Battle of Chalons even though he effectively ruled the western empire from 433-450, and attempted to stabilize the european borders under a deluge of barbarians, including foremost and first, the Huns and their dreaded Lord, Attila.

Controversial Final Legacy

His final legacy has been filled with controversy somewhat similar to that of Stilicho. The two best Roman generals of their time, both were killed by jealous emperors, and both left the Empire significantly weaker when they died. The main difference between the two was that all major historians hail Aetius as a loyal Roman and piller of the Empire, while Bury finds Stilcho an unwitting traitor. Aetius's historical flaw, if it can be laid at his feet, was that the Empire simply had no one to take his place. At the time of Aëtius' death all the provinces of Rome in western Europe had a significant barbarian presence. But this had begun a full three generations earlier, when the barbarians were allowed to stay inside the Empire's borders in exchange for peace, and their military service. Edward Gibbon maintains that he could not have expelled them if he had wanted to, as he lacked Roman troops to do the task, and the barbarians were the only army he had to keep the peace. Gibbon points out in great detail how Roman citizens had lost their martial vigour, with the consequence that the only troops available to Stilicho or Aëtius were virtually all barbarians. [2]

Gibbon views Aëtius in a positive light, as does Norwich, Creasy, Ferrill, and Watson. Gibbon believes it was not indifference but rather his preoccupation with the Huns and other barbarians that limited Aëtius' attention to a navy the crumbling Empire could not maintain in the West. The subsequent loss of Africa came after Boniface invited in the Vandals. Gibbon makes clear that Aëtius simply lacked the means to preserve the declining Western Empire in its entirety, while Norwich concludes that he guarded the Empire for three decades and that the after-effects of Aëtius death lie at the feet of the Emperor who foolishly killed him. At a time when Romans did little or none of their own fighting, and no effective Navy existed in the West, Aëtius had all he could do to preserve some vestige of order in continental Europe.

Certainly one could argue that later Emperors Majorian, Leo I and Anthemius saw the necessity of regaining African provinces. Should Aëtius have concentrated his efforts on saving Africa, to the detriment of maintaining some vestige of Empire in Europe? Michael Grant in his "History of Rome" states flatly that Aëtius was powerless to stop the loss of Africa. In point of fact, Aetius had begun moving against the Vandals when those forces had to be recalled during the invasions of Attila. Since Aëtius relied on barbarian federates, and as no other Roman General had the respect of those barbarian troops, his death left the Empire bereft of virtually any army in the west.

It is highly notable that Bury, who does not believe the Battle of Chalons to be of macrohistorical importance, does believe Aetius rule in general was, saying "From the end of the regency to his own death, Aetius was master of the Empire in the west, and it must be imputed to his policy and arms that Imperial rule did not break down in all the provinces by the middle of the fifth century."

In the end, there is some disagreement among historians as to the historical place of Aetius. Was he the protector of Rome for three decades described by Gibbon, Norwich and Bury, the hero of Chalons described by Sir Edward Creasy, or should he be condemned for the loss of Africa, though most historians say he was powerless to stop that loss? In point of fact, though Bury is cited a critc of Aetius, he was not, and said of Aetius death: "Who was now to save Italy from the Vandals?" The answer was no one. There was not one figure in the Empire able to take Aetius place as the champion and defender of the West. The certain thing about Aëtius's place in history is that he will forever be remembered as the last great Western Roman General, and the General who defeated the dreaded Attila the Hun. [[3]]

In the arts

Aetius is the protagonist of Handel's opera Ezio (the Italian form of his name).

Aetius is played by Powers Boothe in the 2001 miniseries Attila. Here he is portrayed as a villain who accomplishes his goals through trickery and deceit. On the other hand he is portrayed as the heroic 'Last of the Romans' in William Napier's riveting 'Attila' trilogy (2005), uniting the Romans and the Goths in one final, titanic battle to stop the Huns in their tracks, in the epochal Battle of the Catalaunian Fields.

References

^ Bury, J.B., 1923, Chapter 9, § 4.
^ Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The Modern Library, New York, volume II, p.1089.
^ Norwich, John. Byzantium: The Early Centuries