167- Exploiting the Opportunity

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Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome,

episode 167:

Exploiting the Opportunity.

421 was a busy year for the Roman Empire.

The great general Constantius III had been elevated to the rank of Co-Augustus in the West, nearly launched an invasion of the East to defend his claim to the throne, and then keeled over dead before winter set in.

His would-be opponent in a nearly missed civil war, Theodosius II, had gotten married and then almost immediately announced that his new wife, who had changed her name to Elia Eudoxia upon marriage, was pregnant with the heir to the eastern throne.

But as these domestic imperial squabbles and celebrations were playing out, events in the Far East threatened to overshadow everything.

In early 421, the king of the Sassanids, a moderate, benevolent, and well-respected leader named Yazdigerd, suddenly died.

He had ruled since late 399, and among the great political feats to his credit was the fact that he had been the prime mover behind the peace talks with Rome that had concluded with the signing of a treaty in four hundred nine.

Yazdegerd was succeeded by his son, Bahram V, who, unfortunately, adopted a far less conciliatory posture, and upon his ascension he immediately launched a program of persecution against any Roman citizen or any Christian living in his kingdom, as he viewed both as potential fifth columnists preparing to fatally weaken the Sassanid Empire.

This immediate adoption of anti-Roman, anti-Christian policies was unfortunate all on its own, but it was doubly unfortunate because of who happened to be ruling the Eastern Roman Empire at that exact moment.

As we touched on last week, Elia Pulcheria, who was enormously influential at this point in her brother's reign, was a devout Nicene Christian, and her particular brand of devotion was not limited to the admirable bits about inward piety and outward promotion of beliefs.

No, it also included the far less admirable bit about persecuting those who do not share your beliefs.

She despised pagans, Jews, and heretics, and took active steps to make sure that they knew exactly how she felt.

For example, construction of new synagogues was banned, and in areas where it could be gotten away without too much civil unrest, existing synagogues were torn down.

Pagans, for the first time, were officially barred from holding public office or serving in the military.

Up until now, ambitious bureaucrats and soldiers had faced intense peer pressure to convert to Christianity, and at times those who resisted were denied promotion or given crappy assignments, but there had never been an outright ban on pagans serving the state.

Elia Pulcheria ensured that such a ban was now firmly in place.

So just at the moment when an anti Christian king was coming to power in Persia, a fervently pro Christian Augusta was controlling the Eastern Empire.

When she found out that the heathen king of the Sassanids was persecuting her religious brethren, she pressed Theodosius II to do something about it.

Theodosius responded by hinting to Bahram, as Constantine had once hinted to Shapur back in three hundred thirty six, that as the leader of world Christianity, the government of Constantinople would take any and all steps necessary to protect the lives, property, and rights of Christians wherever they may dwell.

Bahram responded to this threat to his sovereignty by launching a unilateral attack on Roman-held territory along the border between the two great empires.

Theodosius ordered his generals in Syria to return fire, and just like that Rome and Persia were at war again.

I do so love it when inflexible people get together like that and really just do the right thing for everyone.

Luckily for everyone, the war did not last long.

The advancing Persian army was driven back by the Romans, who then proceeded to lay siege to Nisbus until a reinforced Persian army arrived to relieve the city, and the Romans retreated.

Hostilities continued into 422, but by then it appears that the leadership of both empires realized what a hopeless waste of time and resources this pointless little war was.

The land the Sassanids had typically fought for in the past had been ceded by the Romans way back in the aftermath of Julian the Apostate's invasion.

So Bahram was pressing for lands he had almost no political or cultural claim to.

The Romans, meanwhile, who would have probably liked to renew their long-abandoned forward bases in Mesopotamia, were suddenly faced with a more dire threat from the north.

The Huns were once again crossing the Danube into imperial territory.

So cooler heads prevailed, and in 422 the peace treaty between Rome and Persia was renewed, on the same terms that had existed before the recent hostilities had begun.

Luckily for Constantinople, the Huns had not regained the sort of unity Olden had been able to forge, and this latest Hun invasion was driven back with, if not ease, then at least not too much difficulty.

But though both the major Hun incursions into Roman territory had ultimately been turned back, it was clear that the Huns could not be ignored.

Disunited, they were an exhausting foe who would require copious amounts of Roman blood and treasure to keep at bay, hence the belated realization that, oh my god, we really can't afford a war with the Sassanids.

United,

united, well, there was a very real fear in the court of Constantinople that the Romans would not be able to turn the

back.

While the ministers and generals of the Eastern Empire wrestled with what to do about the Huns, Theodosius II received a surprising letter from his cousin in Ravenna.

Not his fellow emperor Honorius, mind you, but the Western Emperor's sister, the recently widowed Galla Placidia.

The letter said simply that she would be leaving the West and traveling to Constantinople, where she hoped that she and her children would be welcomed with all due hospitality.

We do not have a rock-solid explanation for Galla Placidia's decision to suddenly leave Ravenna, but clearly there had been some sort of falling out between her and her brother, and it is sometimes suggested that Honorius had recently begun making untoward advances on his sister, if you catch my drift.

It is further noted that this quarrel at the top of the imperial food chain was being felt up and down the ranks.

As I've mentioned, and as we'll see again, Placidia had begun gathering up an enormous amount of influence for herself, and she was especially venerated by the auxiliary Goths stationed in Ravenna, who still saw her as something like their queen.

So, when rumors of Placidia's honor being threatened began to circulate, her supporters were quick to make threats of their own.

So, it could be that Honorius was actually exiling her to defuse the situation, or that she was leaving because she realized she had become a focal point for possible violence.

It is also possible that after a decade spent as a hostage and a political asset to be ordered around at will, the princess was simply looking to break free and establish her independence.

Whatever the real reason, Placidia and her two children, four year old Honoria and three year old Valentinian III, sailed for Constantinople either in late 422 or when spring arrived in 423.

Their timing could not have been worse.

When they arrived in the east, though, everything was still A-OK, and they discovered that the extended imperial family had grown yet again, as Elia Eudoxia had given birth to a healthy baby girl named Licinia Eudoxia, who would wind up being the only surviving child of the Eastern Emperor Theodosius II.

As soon as she was born, the older members of the Theodosian household got together and agreed that when they came of age, the newborn Licinia would marry her second cousin Valentinian III, arcing the family back in on itself, much as the Julio-Claudians had once so often done.

While the East was consumed with shutting down the war with Persia and deflecting the southbound thrust of the Huns, and Galloplacidia was consumed with trying to escape the oppressive atmosphere of Ravenna, the army of the West was consumed with dramas of its own.

Since 411, the Western legions had been unified in form and purpose by the iron will of Constantius III.

But now that he was dead, that unity began to unravel.

Specifically, there were two officers who had been one step below Constantius III in the chain of command, and who might reasonably presume that their general's death meant that they would rise to fill his shoes.

Unfortunately, these two officers, Castanus and Bonifacius, hated each other's guts, which, no, is not good for anyone.

The depths of their enmity became known as soon as Constantius was out of the picture.

In 422, the forces of the West were ready to make a concerted push into Hispania to defeat the Vandal army led by Gundric.

Castanus led one branch of the Roman army, composed primarily of Gothic auxiliaries, while Bonifacius led another branch, composed mostly of regular legionaries.

As soon as they were in country, however, it became clear that the two Roman generals were incapable of working together.

They squabbled over strategy and tactics and logistics, all to Gundaric's amusement, no doubt, until Bonifacius declared that he could take it no more, and withdrew with his forces south across the Straits of Gibraltar into North Africa.

With the Roman forces in Hispania now at least following a single leader, Gundric's amusement dissipated, and Castanus was able to make inroads against the Vandals and reclaim bits of occupied territory.

Gunduric's force was slowly being depleted day by day, and it actually looked pretty bad for the Vandals, until some kind of mutiny broke out in Castanus' army that brought a screeching halt to the whole campaign.

It is only mentioned that the Goths under Castanus' command betrayed him.

Whatever that actually means, he was forced to withdraw without having finished the job.

The next year, Castanus was back in Italy planning the next phase of the operation, when, on August 15, 423 AD, the Empire was rocked by the shocking news that Honorius had died from what later scholars have diagnosed as edema of the lungs.

He was 38 years old and had ruled the Western Empire, though ruled is really not the right word for it, for a kind of astounding 30 years.

All of the chaos of the last generation, the usurpations, the invasions, the palace coups, and somehow Honorius had managed to survive it all and die of natural causes.

It is probably the single most impressive thing about his imperial career, the simple fact that he managed to live through it at all.

Now, of course, as you are well aware, Honorius died without an heir of his own, which, as we've noted, was no big deal these days, because we've got a healthy young Valentinian III ready to step in and don the purple.

Sure, he was a baby, but of late, the Empire had come to accept minority emperors.

The point was, Valentinian III was the only living male relative of the dead emperor, and he was the only one with a valid claim to the throne.

So, no post-Honorious civil wars for control of the Western Empire, right?

Except that, oh yeah, Valentinian III is not in Ravenna, or Italy, or anywhere in the Western Empire.

He is in Constantinople with his mother, which is about to complicate things.

I would guess that if Valentinian had been older, fifteen or twenty or something, there would have been no issue.

Word would have come over to Constantinople that Honorius was dead, Valentinian would have sailed at once for for Ravenna and stepped seamlessly into power.

But unfortunately, he had not yet been invested with any of the legal titles an heir usually receives.

You'll recall, for example, that Honorius himself was likewise a young boy living in Constantinople when his father died, but at that point he had already been made a Caesar and then an Augustus.

Valentinian was as of yet neither.

The Roman imperial family resembled a traditional royal family in almost every way, but they still defined the political power structure by titles rather than by blood, and the scrupulously litigious Romans couldn't help but notice that Valentinian did not yet hold any official title.

Everyone had assumed he would take over the west from Honorius, but now that that day was upon them, the matter was suddenly up for debate.

And without Gallop Lacidia and Valentinian physically present in Ravenna to clamp down on nonsense talk and drive the inheritance through, the nobility of Italy began to wonder if there was not an opportunity here to be exploited.

The one person who could have really killed this debate was Theodosius II.

Now technically the only Augustus in the Empire, he would have, by tradition, had the right to nominate his cousin to the now vacant throne in Ravenna.

But he declined to do so, possibly thinking that he too had an opportunity here worth exploiting.

But without a clear idea of how he wanted to exploit the opportunity, Theodosius' stalling merely emboldened the nobility in Italy to choose their own man.

With the general Castanus' backing, the chief notary of the Western Empire, a lifelong bureaucrat named Ioannis, was declared Augustus of the West.

This elevation was recognized in Spain, Gaul, and and Italy, all territories controlled by Castanus, but it was rejected by the North African provinces, which were under the control of Castanus' rival, Bonifacius.

Now, Bonifacius' refusal to recognize Joannes clearly stemmed, at least in part, from his hatred of Castanus.

But Bonifacius had also been helped into his high-ranking position in the army by his friend and benefactor, Galla Placidia.

So not only was he 100% opposed to Castanus, he was 100% supportive of the rights of Valentinian III,

which meant that Joannes was never, and I mean never going to get Bonifacius' support.

And Bonifacius controlled North Africa, and as you are no doubt sick of me reminding you, North Africa was where Italy got its food from.

So you guessed it, the minute Ioannis was elevated, Bonifacius cut off the the grain.

As had been the case when Gildo had cut off the grain during Stilico's reign, however, the severing of the food supply was not fatal to the self proclaimed regime in Ravenna.

Sure, it undermined Ioannis and Castanus a bit, but it was not so debilitating that it crippled them right then and there.

No one outright says this, but I reckon that this means Castanus followed Stilico's lead, and was able to organize relief grain shipments from Gaul to cover the shortfall for the time being.

This time being lasted for quite a bit longer than I would have thought Constantinople and the Western allies of the imperial family would have let it, and the entire year of 424 passed without any attempt to dislodge Ioannis being made.

There was probably some hope that the crisis could be resolved peacefully, and some fear that peeling off troops to escort Valentinian III to Italy would open up the Danube frontier to another Hun invasion.

And so it wasn't until the spring of 425,

getting close to two years since the death of Honorius, that enough finally became enough.

In the meantime, the only concrete step that had been taken to counter Ioannis and Castanus was the elevation of young Valentinian to the imperial rank of Caesar, which gave him the necessary legal authority he needed to claim the throne of the West, when it finally came time for him to make that claim.

So as I just said, in the spring of 425, this had all gone on long enough.

Constantinople mobilized an expeditionary force under the command of the general Artabor, the man who had just recently led the Roman forces in the far east during the brief war with Persia.

With Valentinian and Galloplacidia in tow, Artibor's mission was to march on Italy, destroy the upstart regime, and install Valentinian on the throne in Ravenna.

I'm not sure if the eastern forces took the land route in through the Alps, or if they sailed their way in, but whichever it was, they managed to penetrate whatever defenses stood against them, and establish a foothold on the peninsula.

But it was not all smooth sailing, or smooth walking, as the case may have been.

Shortly after arriving, the armies of East and West fought a brief and inconclusive battle, which probably would have passed little noticed, were it not for the fact that during the fighting, Artabor was taken prisoner and hauled up to Ravenna.

Still holding out hope that if they said and did all the right things that Constantinople would recognize their regime, Ioannis and Castanus decided to let Artabor live as a sign of their good faith, a decision that would prove to be their undoing.

While in captivity, Artabor chatted up the guards and ministers who came and went, and he managed to get his hooks into a member of Joannis' inner circle.

Probably explaining that it was just a matter of time before the self-proclaimed regime was toppled, and wouldn't it be better to help said toppling and live than to oppose it and die, Artaborg convinced the minister to betray Joannis.

Details are sketchy, but the next thing you know, Artabor is free, and Ioannis has been kidnapped from the imperial palaces of Ravenna and spirited off to Aquilea, which the Eastern forces had seized control of.

Artabor was not interested in showing Ioannis the same consideration that the general himself had been shown after his own capture, and following a prolonged cycle of torture, the would-be emperor was beheaded.

With Ioannis dead, the fight went out of his supporters, and they rolled over.

Castanus was tracked down and either killed or exiled, depending on which source you read, and I would personally lean toward the former interpretation.

And Artibor got green check marks up and down the board.

He had marched on Italy, defeated the upstart regime, and placed Valentinian on the throne in Ravenna.

Loading Next Level

The next level began with word coming in that before the Eastern forces had arrived, Joannis had sent one of his commanders off beyond the Danube frontier to raise a relief army from among the Huns, who this particular commander had had fairly extensive contact with during his career.

That commander had succeeded in his mission and was now riding into northern Italy at the head of a Hunnic army.

But he was exactly three days too late, and when the Huns arrived in Ravenna, they found that it had already been seized by Artibor.

The question of whether this newly arrived force would carry on the fight hung in the air until Galliplacidius stepped in and put this little civil war to bed once and for all.

The Huns were to be paid handsomely for their time if they agreed to head back to their homes north of the Danube, and the commander would be given a high-ranking position in the Western Legions if he agreed to swear his loyalty to Valentinian.

The commander agreed, and the crisis that had been sparked by the death of Honorius was stamped out.

So who was this commander, who had been able to mobilize a force of Huns to fight for him, and who was about to become one of the commanders-in-chief in Gaul?

He was a one Mr.

Flavius Aetius, who was well on his way to becoming the most powerful man in the Western Empire, and the man who would dominate the reign of Valentinian III politically and militarily.

Aetius had been born around 390 in Moesia.

He was the son of a prominent Dacian soldier and an aristocratic Roman mother.

So unlike many of the Illyrian soldiers who had risen to prominence over the years, he did not come from obscure peasant stock.

As a result of his essentially noble status, his early years did not follow the same arc as his fellow soldiers, who endured the hard scrabble life of being a poor laborer before escaping into the ranks of the army when they came of age.

Aetius was instead considered valuable enough that he was drafted to serve as a hostage on behalf of the Roman Empire.

The exchange of hostages between allies, usually children to ensure maximum compliance with the terms of whatever treaty, was an ancient tradition, and in 405, Aetius was one of the hostages sent off by Stilico to live with Alaric's Goths.

The teenager lived with Alaric for three years, until in 408, the chaos that resulted from the fall of Stilico led to his release.

Shortly thereafter, he was once again drafted as a hostage and sent to live with a branch of the Huns, who the Empire had recently come to an agreement of mutual understanding with.

Aetius lived with these Huns for an indeterminate amount of time, but likely for at least a few years, before he returned to Roman territory and followed his father into the army.

These early experiences, the positive ties he forged with the barbarian communities he lived with, put Aetius in a unique position to manage the fifth century empire as it wrestled with the question of how to fight and how to live with the barbarian tribes inside and outside of their territory.

Next week, Aetius will begin to show his savvy and his metal when he arrives in Gaul to take over his new command.

The Goths, now under the vigorous King Theodoric, had recently grown restless and were looking to expand their territory beyond the confines of Aquitaine.

These were, of course, the very same Goths Aetius had spent three years of his life living with twenty years earlier, and though he would show a remarkable firmness in putting the Goths back into their place, he recognized the folly of treating them as anything less than a powerful ally who had temporarily overreached.

The fifth century was a dangerous place, and enemies lurked behind every shadow.

Aetius was going to make darn sure he didn't make new ones if he did not have to,

especially when they might be needed to counter the biggest enemy on Aetius' radar.

No, not the Huns or the Vandals or the Franks, but the general Bonifacius down in North Africa, who despised Aetius as he had despised Castanus, and who would likely stop at nothing until Aetius was driven driven from power.

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