Valentinian III.
_und_ihre_Kinder.jpg)
Valentinian III. (* July 2, 419 in Ravenna ; † March 16, 455 in Rome ), with full name Flavius Placid (i) us Valentinianus , was emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 425 to 455 . During his reign he was under the influence of his mother Galla Placidia and the powerful army master Flavius Aëtius for a long time .
Childhood and youth
Valentinian was the only son of the army master and short-term emperor Constantius III. and the Galla Placidia, daughter of Theodosius I and granddaughter Emperor Valentinian I . While his uncle Honorius was still alive , he was appointed nobilissimus by him soon after his birth . When Constantius died in 421, there was a conflict between Honorius and Galla Placidia, who eventually fled to the Eastern Roman court with her two children. Valentinian initially lost the title of nobilissimus there , but was raised to Caesar on October 23, 424 in Thessaloniki in the name of his cousin Theodosius II , the emperor of the east . Theodosius provided him with troops and sent him to Italy, where he was proclaimed Augustus of the West in Rome on October 23, 425 after a brief war against the usurper John , who had ascended the throne after Honorius' death . Theodosius II specially sent his magister officiorum Helio to Italy to perform the imperial coronation.
Valentinian called himself from now on Emperor Caesar Flavius Valentinianus Augustus . Since he was only six years old when he became emperor, he was under the tutelage of his mother, who was initially supported by the army master Felix and the comes Africae Bonifatius , during the time of his de facto minority (legally a Roman emperor was also legally competent as a minor) , then from 433 finally under the influence of the ambitious army master Aëtius , who had been able to eliminate his competitors Felix and Bonifatius.
437 married Valentinian Licinia Eudoxia (* 422, † 493), the daughter of his cousin Theodosius II and Aelia Eudocia . From 440 he was the first emperor since Maxentius to reside more frequently in Rome instead of Ravenna .
politics
As early as the end of the 4th century, Western Rome had been increasingly controlled by the military like Stilicho and Flavius Constantius ; this was made easier by the fact that the emperors Valentinian II , Honorius and even Valentinian III. were still children when they ascended the throne. The position of the strong man behind the throne was coveted and contested; In this competition, generals increasingly prevailed over members of the civil administration. They determined Western Roman politics.
Valentinian's reign was characterized by a further erosion of imperial authority and, related to it, the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the course of the so-called migration of peoples . Internal power struggles weakened the empire, and barbaric warrior associations took advantage of this. Bonifatius is said to have called the vandals under Geiseric for help in the course of the rivalry with Aëtius in 429 . However, this claim of the sources is mostly viewed very skeptically in modern research, as this news only goes back to Prokopios of Caesarea and Jordanes , but is not mentioned in contemporary sources. It is conceivable, however, that Boniface originally called the vandals into the country as foederati , but where they subsequently rebelled. In any case, the subsequent formation of an empire by the Vandals, favored by the small number of Roman troops, soon encompassed the entire province of Africa . The Eastern Roman General Aspar was able to put a stop to their expansion around 434, and in 435 they (again?) Formed a foedus with Valentinian III, but in 439 they succeeded in capturing Carthage, which meant a catastrophe for Western Rome: Sicily was devastated and cities attacked on the west coast of the Mediterranean by the Vandal fleet. In 441 an (East) Roman counterattack failed, and in 442 Geiseric was given the province of Africa , which was formally part of the Roman Empire, in a new foedus . From then on, the vandals controlled the grain supply to Italy, which almost entirely depended on African grain. In addition, the empire increasingly lost control of large parts of Hispania to the Suebi (and later the Visigoths ). Only in Gaul could the empire still become active. Aëtius made sure that this part of the empire was not lost, at least during his lifetime. De facto, however, the Romans only ruled the larger cities in northern Gaul. Meanwhile, the Franks sacked Trier, Reims and Bonn, and federated Anglo-Saxons began to take control of Britain around 440.
Aëtius was able to prevent a military collapse of Western Rome over several years , primarily due to his long good relations with the Huns and by skillfully playing off Germanic groups against each other and at the same time secured his own dominant position at the imperial court. He, not Valentinian, directed the fate of the empire. In 450, however, there was a conflict with the Huns under Attila , who was allegedly called upon to help against Aëtius by a court party led by Honoria , the sister of Valentinian III. Although Aëtius won a tactical victory over Attila and his allies in the battle of the Catalaunian fields in 451 , this was bought with enormous losses among the Ravennatic troops and also did not prevent Attila from invading northern Italy in the following year. Only with the death of Attila in 453 did the military pressure from the Huns collapse. Aëtius had already led further campaigns before 450 against the Visigoths in southern Gaul, with whom a peace treaty was concluded around 440, and against the Burgundians on the Rhine, who had conquered large parts of the province of Gallia Belgica . This warrior group was defeated in 436 with the help of Hunnic mercenaries and in 443 settled in what was later to be Savoy .
Relations with the eastern half of the empire were initially good, as Valentinian's empire was due to his cousin Theodosius II. In 437 the Western Emperor visited Constantinople to become his cousin's son-in-law. On this occasion he ceded the Illyricum , which had been disputed between the two imperial courts for four decades, to the East. Together both Augusti commissioned a collection of laws, the Codex Theodosianus , which was to apply to the entire empire and was put into effect in 438.
But when Theodosius II died in 450 without a biological heir and in Constantinople the military Markian, who was not related to the imperial family , was raised to the new Augustus without consulting Valentinian, he reacted with indignation and refused to recognize the new Eastern Emperor for two years. It was probably only in connection with the Hunnic attack on Italy in 452 that Valentinian officially accepted Markian as his fellow ruler; but according to the contemporary historian Priskos (fragment 30), he accused Aëtius in 454 of having compelled him against his will not to fight the usurper in the east.
The murder of Aëtius and Valentinian's end
With the shrinking of Western Roman power, the tax burden became more and more unbearable and the loyalty of the remaining provinces was severely weakened: the Western Empire ran out of funds to finance the necessary troops. This led to the loss of further areas and thus in turn to further shrinking income. Ravenna was Valentinian's main residence after 440, but he spent over a quarter of his long reign in Rome. In the meantime, Westrom had turned into a state dominated by the military, in which the civil administration, and with it the emperor, was increasingly powerless. Aëtius effectively ruled as a military dictator, and after Attila's death there seemed to be no one left who could pose a threat to him.
Valentinian III. does not seem to have come to terms with this situation. After Attila died in 453, it seemed to the emperor that the moment had come to get rid of his overpowering army master. In September 454, Aëtius, whose son was to marry Valentinian's daughter Eudocia and thus be linked to the imperial family, was murdered during an audience with Valentinian on the Palatine Hill in Rome - according to contemporaries Hydatius of Aquae Flaviae and Priskos:
As Aëtius was explaining the financial situation and calculating the tax receipts, Valentinian suddenly jumped from his throne with a scream and roared that he would no longer bear to be offended by such frauds. He claimed that Aëtius wanted to deprive him of power in the west by blaming him for the problems, as he had already done with the east; for it was only because of Aetius that he had renounced at that time to remove Markian from the throne. While Aëtius stood there paralyzed in the face of this outbreak and only tried to dampen this unreasonable attack, Valentinian was already pulling his sword from its scabbard and fell together with Heraclius, who had an ax hidden under his cloak (for he was the chief eunuch) , on him (…). After killing Aëtius, Valentinian also killed Prefect Boethius, who had been in Aëtius' favor. He had their bodies presented unburied on the forum and immediately summoned the Senate , where he made serious accusations against both men for fear of a revolt over Aëtius ( Priskos , fragment 30.1 in the edition by Roger C. . Blockley ).
The emperor apparently saw no other way out: his means were no longer sufficient to legally pull the overpowering army master out of circulation. Then he took over the supreme command of the troops himself and tried to restore the reputation of the empire. But Valentinian could not profit in the long term from the murder of the magister militum , with whom the praefectus praetorio Boethius (the grandfather of the philosopher of the same name ) died, on the contrary: On March 16 of the following year, the emperor and Heraclius were won two former followers of Aëtius slain when he wanted to attend a military exercise in Rome. No one from his guard stepped in to defend him.
After Valentinian's death, his wife Licinia Eudoxia was forced to marry the senator and usurper Petronius Maximus in Rome. Allegedly thereupon the vandals under Geiserich are said to have been summoned by Valentinian's widow; whether this is the case is a matter of dispute. Politically, there were enough other reasons for the Vandal King Geiseric to intervene, since after Valentinian's death the previously good relations between West Rome and Carthage had deteriorated considerably and Italy was largely bared from troops and therefore defenseless. The Vandals raided the city of Rome in 455 , with Petronius Maximus being killed, and brought Licinia Eudoxia and her two daughters, Eudocia and Placidia , to Africa . Eudocia (* 439; † 471/72) was engaged to Geiserich's son Hunerich (* 430/440 ?; † 484), whom she married in 455 or 456 , since 442 . Placidia married the senator Olybrius in 454 at the latest , who himself was briefly emperor of the West in 472.
Modern evaluation
As it turned out in 454, Valentinian did not fundamentally lack the strength to rule the empire in this time of crisis, but he never really succeeded in emancipating himself from his surroundings, although his person has been typical of the mostly weak late antique emperors of the west Honorius must apply: How much he intervened in government business is completely unclear. When he finally tried to emancipate himself by murdering Aëtius in 454, this resulted in his own death, a further weakening of the empire, and another civil war. On the other hand, his formal 30-year reign was one of the longest in the Roman Empire, as was that of his dynasty , which went back to Valentinian I (364 to 375). With the end of this dynasty, the western Roman part of the empire rapidly lost its stability. That it was Valentinian III. Failure to restore the authority and ability to act of Western Augustus vis-à-vis the military had far-reaching consequences: the following emperors, some of whom were quite energetic figures such as Majorian and Anthemius , no longer succeeded in establishing themselves permanently on the throne. The legacy of Aëtius as patricius and imperial general came in 456 Ricimer , who was to remain the strong man in the crumbling western empire until his death in 472, who forced his will on the emperors and sometimes even had them killed.
literature
- Henning Börm : Westrom. From Honorius to Justinian . 2nd Edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2018, p. 71 ff.
- Alexander Demandt : The late antiquity. 2nd Edition. CH Beck, Munich 2007, p. 183 ff.
- Mark Humphries: Valentinian III and the City of Rome (AD 425-55): Patronage, Politics, and Power. In: Lucy Grig, Gavin Kelly (eds.): Two Romes . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, pp. 161 ff.
- Edgar Pack: Valentinian III. In: Manfred Clauss (Ed.): The Roman Emperors. CH Beck, Munich 1997, p. 395 ff.
- Otto Seeck : History of the fall of the ancient world. Vol. 6. Stuttgart 1920 (classic but outdated representation).
- Timo Stickler : Aëtius. Scope of design for an army master in the late Western Roman Empire. CH Beck, Munich 2002.
Web links
- Works by and about Valentinian III. in the German Digital Library
- Ralph W. Mathisen: Short biography (English) at De Imperatoribus Romanis (with references).
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| John |
Western Roman Emperor 425–455 |
Petronius Maximus |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Valentinian III. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Flavius Placidus Valentinianus |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Emperor of the Western Roman Empire |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 2, 419 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ravenna |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 16, 455 |
| Place of death | Rome |