Flavius Aetius

Flavius Aetius (c. 390 – 21 September 454) was a Roman general and statesman active in the final years of the Western Roman Empire. For two decades, from 433 to 454, he was the empire’s most powerful figure, commanding its armies and shaping policy toward the barbarian federates living within its borders. His greatest military achievement came in 451, when he assembled a large force of Romans and allied foederati to defeat Attila’s invasion of Gaul at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. However, Attila and his subject allies still invaded Italy the following year, an event remembered for the Sack of Aquileia and the intervention of Pope Leo I. Aetius was killed in 454 on the orders of Emperor Valentinian III. Aetius was born around 390 at Durostorum in Moesia Secunda (modern Silistra, Bulgaria). His father, Gaudentius, was a Roman general from the province of Scythia; his mother, whose name is unknown, was a wealthy aristocratic woman from Rome or another Italian city. Before 425, he married the daughter of Carpilio, with whom he had a son also named Carpilio. Later he married Pelagia, the widow of Bonifacius, and had another son, Gaudentius. He may also have had a daughter; her husband, Thraustila, later avenged Aetius’s death by killing Valentinian III. As a boy, Aetius served in the imperial court as a member of the Protectores Domestici and was later made tribunus praetorianus partis militaris. Between 405 and 408, he was held as a hostage at the court of Alaric I, king of the Visigoths. In 408, Alaric asked to keep him, but was refused, and Aetius was instead sent to the court of Uldin, king of the Huns, where he remained through much of the reign of Uldin’s successor, Charaton. Some modern historians believe his upbringing among these militaristic peoples gave him a martial energy uncommon among Roman generals of the time. In 423, Emperor Honorius died. The powerful general Castinus chose Joannes, a high-ranking officer, as his successor. Joannes was not a member of the Theodosian dynasty, so the Eastern emperor Theodosius II sent a military expedition under Ardaburius and his son Aspar to install his cousin Valentinian III on the Western throne. Aetius served Joannes as cura palatii and was sent to seek help from the Huns. Joannes lacked a strong army and was killed in Ravenna in the summer of 425. Aetius returned to Italy with a large force of Huns, only to find Valentinian III and his mother Galla Placidia in power. After fighting Aspar’s army, he reached a compromise with Galla Placidia: he sent his Huns home and received the rank of comes et magister militum per Gallias, commander in chief of the Roman army in Gaul. In 426, Aetius arrived in southern Gaul and took command. The Visigoths under King Theodoric I were besieging Arelate. Aetius defeated them, lifted the siege, and drove them back to Aquitania. In 428, he fought the Salian Franks, defeating King Chlodio and recovering territory along the Rhine. In 429, he was promoted to magister militum, likely the junior of the two offices of comes et magister utriusque militiae; the senior was the patrician Flavius Constantinus Felix, a supporter of Galla Placidia. In early 430, the Goths under Anaolsus attacked Arelate again but were defeated by Aetius. In May 430, Aetius and the army accused Felix of plotting against him; some sources say Aetius had Felix, his wife, and a deacon killed. With Felix dead, Aetius became the highest-ranking magister militum, though he had not yet received the title of patricius or the senior command. During 430 and 431, he campaigned in Raetia and Noricum, re-establishing Roman control on the Danubian frontier, fighting the Juthungi, and defeating the Bagaudae at Augusta Vindelicorum. In 431, he returned to Gaul, received Hydatius, bishop of Aquae Flaviae, who complained about Suebian attacks, then defeated the Franks and recaptured Tournacum and Cambriacum. He sent Hydatius back to the Suebes in Hispania. While Aetius was in Gaul, a power struggle continued among him, Felix, Bonifacius, and Galla Placidia. In 427, while Bonifacius was governor of Africa, Felix caused him to fall out of favor with Placidia. Bonifacius was eventually restored to favor, but only after Felix had sent Sigisvult and two other armies against him—and after Aetius warned Bonifacius of Felix’s intentions. In 429, the Vandals exploited this conflict to cross into Africa.