The act for which the reign of Marcian is best remembered by posterity is the assembling of the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon. The decisions of this council gave deep satisfaction to the Emperor and Empress; they could not foresee the political troubles to which it was to lead. Pulcheria died in A.D. 453.107 By a life spent in pious and charitable works she had earned the eulogies of the Church, and she left all her possessions to the poor. Among the churches which claimed her as foundress may be mentioned three dedicated to the Mother of God. One was known as the church of Theotokos in Chalkoprateia,108 so called from its situation in the quarter of the bronze merchants, not far from St. Sophia. The church of Theotokos Hodegetria,109 Our Lady who leads to victory, which she built on the eastern shore of the city under the first hill, was sanctified by an icon of the Virgin which her sister-in-law sent her from Jerusalem. More famous than either of these was the church which she founded shortly before her death at Blachernae. This sanctuary was deemed worthy to possess a robe of the Virgin, brought from Jerusalem in the reign of Marcian’s successor, who built a special chapel to receive it.110 In later days the people of Constantinople put their trust in this precious relic as a sort of palladium to protect their city.
Marcian died in the first month of A.D. 457,111 and with him the Theodosian dynasty, to which through his marriage he belonged, ceased to reign at New Rome.
CHAPTER VIII: THE DISMEMBERMENT OF THE EMPIRE IN THE WEST
§ 1. Regency of the Empress Placidia. The Defence of Gaul (A.D. 425-430)
DURING the first twelve years of the reign of Valentinian, the Empress Placidia ruled the West, and her authority was not threatened or contested. Unbroken concord with her nephew Theodosius, who considered himself responsible for the throne of his young relative, was a decisive fact in the political situation and undoubtedly contributed to her security. The internal difficulties of her administration were caused by the rivalries of candidates not for the purple but for the Mastership of Both Services, the post which gave its holder, if he knew how to take advantage of it, the real political power.
The man whom Placidia chose to fill the supreme military command was Felix, of whose character and capacities we know nothing. He remained in power for about four years (A.D. 425-429),1 and, so far as we know, did not leave Italy. He did not attempt to play the active and prominent part which had been played by Constantius and by Stilicho. The Germans, who had penetrated into the Empire, were the great pressing problem, and in the dealings with them during these four years it is not the name of Felix that history records, but those of the two subordinate officers whom we have seen taking opposite sides in the struggle for the throne of Honorius — Boniface and Aetius.
Flavius Aetius was the son of Gaudentius, a native of Lower Moesia,2 and an Italian mother. The career of his father, who fought with Theodosius the Great against the tyrant Eugenius, had been in the west, and Aetius had been given, in his childhood, as a hostage to Alaric,3 and some years later had been sent, again as a hostage, to the Huns, among whom he seems to have remained for a considerable time, and formed abiding bonds of friendship with King Rugila. This episode in his life had a considerable effect upon his career.
A panegyrical description of this soldier and statesman, on whom the fortunes of the Empire were to lean for a quarter of a century, has come to us from the pen of a contemporary.4 He was “of middle height, of manly condition, well shaped so that his body was neither too weak nor too weighty, active in mind, vigorous in limb, a most dexterous horseman, skilled in shooting the arrow, and strong in using the spear. He was an excellent warrior and famous in the arts of peace; free from avarice and greed, endowed with mental virtues, one who never deviated at the instance of evil instigation from his own purpose, most patient of wrongs, a lover of work, dauntless in perils, able to endure the hardships of hunger, thirst, and sleeplessness.”
That Aetius should take a German to wife was characteristic of the age in which an Imperial princess wedded a Goth and an Emperor was on the throne who had Frank blood in his veins. The lady was of royal Gothic family, “a descendant of heroes,”5 and they had a son, Carpilio, who was old enough in A.D. 425 to be delivered as a hostage to the Huns.6
It was to Aetius that the defence of Gaul was now entrusted; he commanded the field army and soon received the title of Magister Equitum.7 He had to defend the southern provinces against the covetous desires of the Goths, and the north-eastern against the aggressions of the Franks. King Theoderic was bent upon winning the Mediterranean coast adjacent to his dominion, and Aetius established his military reputation by the relief of Arles, to which the Goths had laid siege in A.D. 427.8 Hostilities continued, but a peace was made in A.D. 430 confining the Goths to the territories which had been granted to Wallia. On this occasion the Roman government gave hostages to Theoderic, and it has been suggested that at the same time the Goths were recognised as an independent power, the Roman governors were withdrawn from Aquitania Secunda and Novempopulana, and the Gallo-Roman inhabitants of those provinces passed under the direct rule of Theoderic.9 It may be doubted whether this change came about so early, but in any case the attitude of the Visigoths towards the Imperial government for the ensuing twenty years was that of an independent and hostile nation.
The Salian Franks had been living for nearly seventy years in the north-eastern corner of Lower Belgica, in the district known as Thoringia, where they had been settled as Federates by the Emperor Constantius II and Julian. In these lands of the Meuse and Scheldt they seem to have lived peacefully enough within the borders assigned to them by Rome. They were ruled by more than one king, but the principal royal family, which was ultimately to extinguish all the others, was the Merovingian. They seemed to be the least formidable of all the German peoples settled within the Empire, though they were destined to become the lords of all Gaul. The first step on the path of expansion seems to have been taken by Chlodio, the first of the long-haired Merovingian kings whose name is recorded. Taking advantage of the weakening of the Roman power, which was manifest to all, he invaded Artois. Aetius led an army against him and defeated him at Vicus Helenae, about A.D. 428.10 But before his death Chlodio seems to have succeeded in extending his power as far as the Somme, crossing the Carbonarian Forest (the Ardennes) and capturing Cambrai.11 This annexation was probably recognised by the Imperial government; for the Salians remained federates of the Empire and were to fight repeatedly in the cause of Rome.
If the units of the field army with which Aetius conducted the defence of Gaul were up to their nominal strength, he had somewhat less than 45,000 men under his command. We do not know whether he had the help of the federate Burgundians in his operations against Visigoths and Franks. But it is certain that the most useful and effective troops, on whom he relied throughout his whole career in withstanding German encroachments in Gaul, were the Huns, and without them he would hardly have been able to achieve his moderate successes. Here his knowledge of the Huns, his friendship with the ruling family, and the trust they placed in him stood the Empire in good stead.
The prestige which Aetius gained in Gaul was far from welcome to the Empress Placidia, who never forgave him for his espousal of the cause of John. But now he was able to impose his own terms, and extort from her the deposition of Felix and his own elevation to the post which Felix had occupied. He was appointed Master of Both Services in A.D. 429, and it is said that he then caused Felix to be killed on suspicion of treachery.12 It was, no doubt, the power of the Hunnic forces, which he could summon at his will, that enabled him to force the hand of the Empress. The one man whom she would have liked to oppose to him was Boniface, formerly her loyal supporter.