We already talked in another article about the Gemitus britannorum , the Wail of the Britons, a dramatic plea for help made to Rome by the rulers south of Hadrian's Wall in the mid-5th century AD. to face the raids of Picts, Scots, Saxons and Franks. According to the cleric Gildas, author of De excidio et conquestu Britanniae (On the ruin and conquest of Britain ), the recipient of the message was Flavio Aetius, a character who had become the most powerful general of his time, responsible for having stopped the Visigoths of Theodoric, the Burgundians of Gundacar and the Huns of Attila, among other barbarian peoples that threatened the integrity of the empire, earning him the nickname Last Roman .
Ultimus Romanorum it was a term that, beyond its literal interpretation, was used in ancient Rome to designate those men who embodied classical values and virtus in extreme moments and that, in that sense, left a void behind them -at least until the emergence of another-. Among those who became creditors to such grace are Julius Caesar -the first of whom there is documentary evidence, ironically in the words of his disloyal godson, Brutus-, Gaius Cassius Longinus (one of his assassins), Valentinian I (the last emperor of the West) , Flavius Belisarius (general of the Eastern Roman Empire) and Flavius Stilicho (a general of Vandal origin).
Stilicho's is a particularly interesting case because it has certain parallels with Aetius's. Both were children of Roman mothers married to soldiers of Romanized barbarian descent, both becamemagister militum (the highest position in the late imperial army), both had to defend the limes -successfully- and both became the strong men of their time, depending on them the emperors. Likewise, their respective deaths, one murdered and another executed, meant the decomposition of the empire, leaving them at the mercy of those barbarians they had contained.
Flavius Aetius was born at the end of the 4th century AD. in Durostorum, the current Bulgarian city of Silistra, which was then part of the Roman province of Scythia Minor. He was the son of Flavio Gaudencio, a general from a Gothic or Scythian family who had married a Roman lady of rank, whose name is not certain, although it is possible that it was Aurelia. As a child, Aetius trained at court with the Protectors Domestici , an elite military unit that acted as the emperor's personal guard, although its members could also handle administrative matters.
His lineage, linked to the imperial position and to the fact that the father was magister equitum per Gallias (chief of the cavalry in Gaul) between the years 400 and 407, were determining factors for the young Aetius, who had already been appointed tribunus praetorianus partis militaris , was sent as a hostage to the Goths in 405. The exchange of hostages was common when an alliance or treaty was signed to guarantee its fulfillment and, in effect, Gaudencio had reached an agreement between the Visigoth king Alaric I and the emperor Honorio to collaborate in the defense of the borders against the pressure of other peoples. What Aetius did not know was that he would spend three years there and then add a few more with the Huns, during the final part of the reign of Uldin and much of that of his successor, Charaton.
He probably did not imagine then how useful that stage would be to him in the future, since he became familiar with Hun customs and, above all, learned war tactics from him. Thus came 423, the date on which Honorius died, precipitating the usual events in such cases regarding the succession to the throne. The most influential patrician of the moment, Flavio Castino, arranged for the chosen one to be a high-ranking soldier named Juan. However, the Eastern Emperor, Theodosius II, refused to recognize him because he did not belong to the royal dynasty and tried to impose by force on his cousin, Valentinian III, who, in addition to being the nephew of the late Honorius, was the son of Constantius III ( who shared the imperium with the former for seven months until his sudden death).
For this he sent an army to Italy under the command of his magister militum , Ardaburio, of Alano origin, who was accompanied by his son Aspar. John entrenched himself in Ravenna, the capital at the time, and among his defenders was Aetius as curopalate ( cura palatii , a position that changed over time and that at that time had the protection of the palace as its mission). Given his experience, he was sent to seek help from the Huns, but when he returned with them in 425 John had already been defeated (he was betrayed by the garrison and ended up tortured, publicly humiliated and beheaded) and replaced by Valentinian III.
His mother (widow of Constantius III), Gala Placidia, agreed with Aetius to dismiss the Huns in exchange for his appointment as magister equitum per Gallias, the position his father had held (who had been killed during a riot). As such, in 426 he had to stop manu militari the expansionist attempt of the Visigoths towards Narbonense (and he would do it again four years later), to later recover the lost territory on the Rhine before the Salians (a subgroup of the Franks) of King Clodio. In 430 Aetius was already consecrated as a capable commander who dared to take a decisive step:having his superior, the magister militum , killed. Flavio Félix, accusing him of conspiring against him.
Of course, that meant he took over from him, multiplying his growing power. However, for the time being he continued to defend the limes against Burgundian, Swabian and Frankish attacks. That period lasted two years, at the end of which, in 432, he acceded to the consulate in the face of the possibility that another rising general, Boniface, who had been governor in the diocese of Africa, would overtake him -which gave him control over the wheat supply to Rome - and by supporting Valentinian III from the beginning he had the favor of Galla Placidia. In fact, this one, pressured by Bonifacio, dismissed Aetius and led everyone to a new confrontation on the battlefield.
The clash took place in Rimini and ended with the defeat of Aetius, who had to seek refuge in Pannonia, in the court of the Hunnic king Rua. Now Boniface had been fatally wounded in combat and died a few months later, again paving the way for Aetius to seize power in practice, aided by his barbarian allies. He expelled Sebastiano, the deceased's son-in-law who had succeeded him as magister militum , and forced de facto Gala Placidia to accept those fait accomplis. It was the year 433 and thus began a decade and a half of personal and imperial heyday; as Goldsworthy explains, "if a problem wasn't dealt with by him, it was unlikely that someone else would solve it" .
It was then that the victories against the barbarians followed one another, sometimes helped by the Huns as foederati , as against the Burgundians, who were massacred and this probably gave rise to the epic of the Nibelungs that Wagner would later gloss. Then the armies of the rebellious Bagaudae, the Swabians, and the insistent Visigoths fell, one after another. The latter put him in trouble by defeating and killing Litorio, the magister militum per Gallias , forcing Aetius to personally intervene, beat them at Mons Colubrarius and sign a peace treaty with them in 438 that earned him two things:a statue in Rome and a eulogy written by the Hispano-Roman poet and soldier Merobaudes. "However -Goldsworthy insists- the high frequency of operations reveals that his successes were limited in scope and almost never decisive » .
A year earlier he had renewed his consulship and attended the emperor's wedding to Licinia Eudoxia, the daughter of Theodosius II. The only mole in the midst of that apotheosis was the controversy that caused his decision to allow the settlement of the Alans in Gaul, around the Rhône, and the Vandals in North Africa. Of course, the tranquility did not usually last long and the recalcitrant bagaudae revolted both in Armorica and in Tarraconense, being repressed, as we said before, with the help of allies; in this case, from the Alans and Vandals respectively, although in Hispania the Swabians supported the revolts. On the other hand, the death of Clodius in 449 marked the end of hostilities with the Franks and his son Meroveus was adopted by Aetius himself, already almighty after Galla Placidia died in 450.
The best-known episode of the character's life was about to come. As we saw earlier, the Huns had settled in Pannonia (a flat region north of the Danube) and had a good relationship with Rome. But the new king, Attila, aspired to settle in Gaul and there he set out, at the head of a coalition with other vassal barbarian peoples (Ostrogoths, Heruli, Lombards, Sciri, Avars, Franks, Scythians, Thuringians and Gepids) . Aetius responded to that alliance with another no less; thanks to the diplomatic work of the Gallo-Roman senator Avito, a former magister militum per Gallias retired ( who would end up being emperor), managed to gather under his leadership, to face the invader, Visigoths, Alans, Salians, Saxons, Sarmatians, Burgundians, Gauls from Armorica and Romans.
Both sides clashed in 451 in the Catalaunian Fields (an undetermined site of the current Châlons-en-Champagne) and, although there was a slight superiority of Attila's, their adversaries entrenched themselves in an orographic elevation and resisted the attacks without giving in nor when the Visigothic king, Theodoric, died, since his son Turismundo succeeded him right there, in the middle of the battle, and ordered a counterattack that broke up the enemy's right flank. Attila and his allies fled to Germany; Aetius did not pursue them, perhaps because Turismund reneged on his late parent's promise and retreated with his forces, perhaps because the Roman general felt that destroying the Huns outright left the Visigoths in a dangerously strong position.
In fact, Aetius encouraged Turismundo to go to Tolosa to secure his throne, although his idea was surely the opposite:that he would be immersed in the usual spiral of succession conspiracies. But the following year the threat worsened:Attila reorganized his army and returned, only this time he was not targeting Gaul but Rome itself. The casus belli was the demand to marry Justa Grata Honoria, the older sister of Valentinian III, who upon learning that the emperor planned to marry her to a Roman senator, wrote a letter to the King of the Huns offering himself as her wife.
Attila, who had accepted in exchange for receiving half of the western empire as a dowry, now presented himself demanding the fulfillment of the commitment. Valentinian was obviously unwilling to compromise and denied that Honoria, whom he had banished, had any legitimacy to have made such a promise. But for the Hun it was the perfect excuse and, without anyone being able to stop him, he crossed the Alps, devastated the Italian peninsula and planted himself before the walls of Rome, where the emperor had entrenched himself after fleeing from Ravenna. Aetius, with insufficient forces, could not face him with more than minor ambushes.
As is known, an embassy made up of Pope Leo I, ex-consul Genadio Avieno and Prefect Trigecio, managed to convince Attila not to attack the city and to withdraw, something that contemporary historiography attributed to divine action but that was probably It was due to a series of contextual factors:the epidemic that affected the invading army, the lack of provisions, the insufficient means for a siege, the constant harassment of Aetius and the campaign initiated by General Marciano -another future emperor- against Pannonia, that threatened to cut off supply lines to the Huns. Five centuries later, the story of Hannibal was repeating itself.
This made Valentinian III grow up, that although he was already free from the absorbing presence of his mother, who died in 450, he was still impressionable, something especially delicate in that court. Always suspicious of the power of Aetius, after all a man who had supported the usurper John, took advantage of his weakening, as a consequence of there no longer being any danger on the horizon that required his military genius, once the Huns were annulled and Attila died. in 453, to confront him and get him out of the way
It was no use that the magister militum tried to strengthen his position by connecting with the imperial family by marriage, by marrying his son Gaudencio (whom he had with Pelagia, Bonifacio's widow, whom he had married when he died) with Placidia, the emperor's daughter . It should be added that Aetius and Pelagia would have been a second marriage, since it is believed that a decade earlier he had another wife, the daughter of Carpilio (the comes domesticorum of the imperial guard), who bore him a son also named Carpilio.
The fact is that in September 454, when the court was reinstated in Ravenna, Valentinian III had an administrative meeting with Aetius in which they argued, progressively escalating until the emperor, blind with anger, accused him of pretending to the throne, piercing him with his sword with the help of Heraclius, his chamberlain, alleged inducer of crime along with senator Petronio Máximo. According to Edward Gibbon, the writer, poet and future bishop Sidonius Apollinaris later told Valentinian that with that death he had cut off his right hand with his left.
And indeed, six months later the emperor was assassinated by Optila, a Scythian friend of Aetius who was instigated by Petronius Maximus. At the same time Transtila, another Scythian equally loyal to the deceased, was in charge of taking Heraclius's life, clearing the path to the throne for the senator. It is interesting to point out two facts:apparently, Transtila was married to the only daughter of Aetius; and Petronio Máximo could only reign for two months, dying lynched by the people when he tried to escape from Rome before the imminent arrival of Genseric's vandals.
A period was beginning in which another figure emerged who shone with his own light, a new "strong man" who set up and deposed emperors:Ricimer, whom we talked about on another occasion.