Flavius Aëtius

Flavius Aëtius or simply Aëtius, (circa 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". 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. In this way he acquired the knowledge that enabled him to defeat them. There is also a school of thought 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. The illustration of Aëtius is in fact that of Count Stilicho, taken from a consular dyptich.

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. 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, 451Bury, J.B., 1923, Chapter 9, § 4.), 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.

After death

His final legacy has been filled with controversy 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. At the time of Aëtius' death all the provinces of Rome in western Europe had a significant barbarian presence. After his victories he had allowed the barbarians to stay inside the Empire's borders in exchange for peace, and their military service. But 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. //www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/gibbon-fall.html

Gibbon views Aëtius in a positive light. He 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 foederoti, 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.

J. B. Bury offers a different assessment from most historians in that he alleges that the battle of Chalons was fundamentally unimportant. 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. This view, however, is a distinctly minority one.

John Julius Norwich strongly disagrees with Bury, as does Gibbon, 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. Norwich, John. Byzantium: The Early Centuries 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, 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? 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. //www.standin.se/fifteen06a.htm

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., History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian, 1923.
Creasy, Sir Edward, Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,
Ferrill, Arther, The Fall of the Roman Empire: The Military Explanation. Thames and Hudson, London, 1986.
Jones, A.H.M., The Later Roman Empire 284-602. Oxford Press, Cambridge, 1964.
Norwich, John J. Byzantium: The Early Centuries. The Fall of the West. Knopf, New York, 1997
Oost, Stewart I., Galla Placidia Augusta. Chicago, 1968.
Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum ii.8, gives a condensed version of Aetius' character and career, using a lost history of Renatus Frigeridus.

Roman generals | Murdered Romans | 396 births | 454 deaths

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