171 - The Gathering Storm

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Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome, episode 171, The Gathering Storm. Oh my goodness, the History of Rome tour is so much fun. We don't have firm dates for the next round, but historyofrometour.com. Check it out. It is so much fun. Also, as you may have noticed, a combination of jet lag and conflicting responsibilities have conspired to leave this episode a bit shorter than usual, but we will be back in full effect next week, I promise.

Okay, where were we? Ah yes, it's 447 AD, and Attila the Hun is loose in the Central Empire. The Theodosian walls have managed to hold him off, but unfortunately, almost nothing else was able to say the same thing. Forts, garrisons, cities, armies, all overrun, ransacked, and left dazed and traumatized. But consistent with the standard Hun policy of the last 15 years, Attila was not actually interested in annexing Roman territory, or in trying to conquer the empire per se. As you'll recall, the whole trigger for this lightning campaign had been Constantinople's experiment with not paying the indemnity they had agreed to, an experiment Attila hoped Constantinople now recognized to be a complete failure.

Also consistent with standard Hun policy, Attila took the opportunity to jack up the going rate for keeping the Huns out of the field, from 1,400 to 2,100 pounds of gold per year. And, oh yeah, we're going to need that 6,000 pounds of gold you already owe us up front. Left with no other choice, and probably just happy that there was a choice, besides the Huns kick the crap out of us indefinitely, Theodosius II agreed to the terms.

Now I haven't really talked about this yet, but the Huns' indemnity policy goes a long way towards establishing them as something more advanced than your average snatch and grab barbarians. They were not at all interested in killing the goose that laid their golden egg. Sure, sometimes you had to go down and kick the goose around a bit if it tries to stop laying golden eggs, but you don't kill it, you let it live. The Huns were farsighted enough to recognize that just blasting the Romans out of the water wouldn't be any good for anyone. They had this nice advanced economy that had long established trade networks crisscrossing the Mediterranean and that reached as far afield as India and China. Why mess that up? So as much as they could afford to, they didn't mess it up. They pushed it around some, sure, but it was imperative to leave the Roman economic structure intact, so that every year it could deposit 2,100 pounds of gold on their doorstep. So as much as the Huns have been portrayed as mindless barbarian demons rampaging mindlessly across late antiquity, they strike me as pretty savvy operators.

Meanwhile, off in the west, just as Theodosius and the Eastern Empire were agreeing to pay whatever the Huns wanted, Flavius Aetius was in the process of imposing his own terms on another branch of wayward Franks. Though the peripheral provinces of the west were slipping away, the central imperial authority was determined to hold on to the core provinces in Italy, Gaul, and Spain. So in 448, Aetius was in northwest Gaul once again, this time battling and defeating an independent-minded Frankish king named Clodio. This battle with the Franks is, in and of itself, not particularly important. But for those of you interested in long-discredited conspiracy theories that get plagiarized by hackwriters and turned into inexplicable bestsellers, you'll be happy to know that Clodio is on the short list of candidates for the title Founder of the Merovingian Dynasty.

According to official legend, it was Clodio's successor and possible son, Merovech, who founded the dynasty and gave it its name. But since Merovech is a semi-mythical figure whose actual existence is disputed, some scholars point to Clodio as the real founder of the dynasty. Which means that he, like, married the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene or something. I don't really know, it's been a long time since I read Holy Blood Holy Grail. Anyway, Aetius defeated Clodio and dragged one of the Frankish king's sons down to Milan to act as a hostage and keep the nascent Merovingians in check. Or maybe to keep the power of Jesus' bloodline for himself. Or something.

The other reason the battle against Clodio is important is that it marks the first appearance of two men who will shortly move to the forefront of our story, both of whom likely fought under Aetius in the battle. Julius Valerius Majorianus, who would, through a series of twists and turns, become emperor of the Western Empire in late 457, and Flavius Ricamar, the German general who would follow in the footsteps of Stilicho and Aetius, place his old friend Majorian on the throne at the beginning of a sixteen-year run as de facto ruler of the Western Empire.

Majorian, born in the 420s, was the grandson of one of Theodosius I's top generals, and was just at the point of his career where people were beginning to take notice. At the battle against Clodio, he rode at the head of a cavalry detachment that seized control of a critical bridge, helping to secure victory early in the fight. He was young enough, capable enough, and prominent enough that Valentini III seriously considered marrying his youngest daughter Placidia to Majorian in the early 450s. But Aetius, determined that his own son should marry Placidia, undermined his subordinate in court, and then expelled Majorian from the army. Majorian would remain in exile until Aetius' death in 454, whereupon he and Ricamar would come crashing back into the picture in the chaotic aftermath of Aetius' assassination.

Ricamar, on the other hand, was much older, probably born around 405. He was a noble goth related to the royal family by way of his mother, who was either the late King Wallia's daughter or sister, depending on which source you read. His date of birth means that he was likely born in Illyria, during the period of tension, and partnership, and then tension again, between Alaric and Stilicho. It also means that as he grew up, he was present for every step of the great and terrible goth migration. Into Italy, out of Italy, down to Saccharome, up to Gaul to defeat Jovinus, trapped in Spain, allowed to settle in Aquitaine, the works. Though he was just a boy, Ricamar witnessed firsthand what it meant to be a major player in the cunning and dangerous world of war and politics, and he appears to have learned his lessons well. When it came time for him to make his own bid for power in the mid-450s, he neither flinched nor slipped. We will have much, much more to say about Ricamar as we move forward. The man legendary Cambridge historian J. B. Berry called the first German king of Italy, the link between Stilicho and Odoacer.

449 AD, the year after Theodosius' settlement with Attila and Aetius' victory over Clodio, was the calm before the storm. However, the storm that would break in 450-451 was not the one that an objective observer likely would have predicted. Thus far, Attila's attention had been focused entirely on the Eastern Empire. Neither he nor his predecessors had shown much interest in moving west, and you would think that any temptation Attila might have had to go poke that golden goose would have been tempered by two facts. First, that at this point the Western Empire was neither as rich nor as stable as the Eastern Empire, it was clearly the inferior imperial twin. And second, he was on excellent terms with Aetius, the ruler of that inferior twin. Far from viewing the Western Empire as a potential adversary, Attila almost certainly considered the Western Empire to be a stable ally. And absolutely nothing about Aetius' conduct indicated that the Hun king should think any different.

So you take those two basic points, and you add them to the fact that in mid-449 the imperial chamberlain of the Eastern Empire made a ham-fisted attempt to assassinate Attila with like exploding cigars or something, you would think that the crisis that began in 450 would have been a second invasion of the East by Attila. But it wasn't, was it? Attila's decision to invade the West, rather than put another boot to the throat of the East, is quadruply hard to wrap your head around because of a massively destabilizing horseback ride that took place in July of 450. While out on a ride, Theodosius II fell from his horse, broke his neck, and died. He was 49 years old and had ruled the East for a kind of astounding 42 years. Just as suddenly as you please, the Eastern Empire had no emperor. Which is exactly the sort of thing you'd think a ticked-off and opportunistic-minded Attila might want to take advantage of. But he never did.

Theodosius II had just one living daughter, Licinia Eudoxia, and she had gone west to Milan after marrying Valentinian III. Thus far, Valentinian and Eudoxia had two children of their own, both girls, 11-year-old Eudoxia and 7- to 9-year-old Placidia. This meant that the next ruler of the Eastern Empire was going to have to be chosen, a moment fraught with extreme danger, and a moment the East had not dealt with in almost 60 years. This particular moment was even more dangerous, because while neither of Theodosius's granddaughters were married, Eudoxia had been betrothed in the mid-440s to, wait for it, Huneric, the son of the Vandal king Genseric. His engagement had been a political arrangement to help ease tensions between the Vandals and Romans, but right now it suddenly meant that Huneric might be in line for the throne of Constantinople. Luckily, the wedding had not taken place yet. Eudoxia's younger sister, Placidia, was too young for anyone to have settled on a future husband for her yet, although, as I just mentioned, Aetius was likely angling from the start for his own son to get the nod.

So where did that leave the Eastern Empire? Who was going to step up, and how were they going to be legitimized? The answer finally came from the late Theodosius's powerful sister, Elia Pulcheria. Though she was no longer the all-powerful figure she had been early in her brother's reign, Pulcheria had lost none of her brains or backbone, and she had remained an influential force in Eastern politics. When Theodosius died, Pulcheria immediately stepped into the power vacuum and began issuing orders as the official sovereign of the empire, sort of the same way she had stepped in as a 15-year-old girl back in 412 and declared herself regent over her younger brother Theodosius.

For about a month, the single and loving-it Pulcheria acted as ruler of the East, until the Senate in Constantinople finally broke under the weight of their own incredulity. Things cannot go on like this. The Augusta has to find a husband. We'll ratify whoever you choose and make him emperor, but seriously, please, we cannot handle the embarrassment of being ruled by a woman. I'm sorry, we wish it didn't have to be like this, but we're a patriarchal society full of unrepentant misogynists, so please, please, find a husband.

So Pulcheria plucked someone close at hand who wouldn't cause her too much trouble, Captain of the Household Guard Flavius Marcianus. Marcian had been born in Illyria around 392, and had risen up the ranks through the bureaucratic wing of the imperial governing apparatus, rather than the military wing. But that did not mean he was completely inexperienced with the art of war, or disdained by the eastern generals. Indeed, his main sponsor for Pulcheria's hand in marriage was the General Aspar, who had led the campaign in North Africa that had led to the first settlement between the Vandals and Rome back in 435. According to legend, Marcian had been on that campaign, and had actually been captured by the Vandals. Brought before Genseric, the Vandal king had a premonition that Marcian would one day rule the eastern empire, and so the king released the young officer on the promise that he would never again make war on the Vandals. A story that I'm sure is 100% accurate, and not at all contrived after the fact propaganda.

Another story that I'm sure is 100% accurate, and not at all contrived after the fact propaganda is the one about a dying Theodosius with his last breath naming Marcian to be his heir. Uh-huh, and if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Marcian was crowned in August 450, and making sure that no one missed the point, Elia Pulcheria was the one who placed the diadem on Marcian's head. Point taken, your highness.

So we're going to leave it there for this week. But next week, another arranged imperial marriage. This one, between Valentini and the third sister Honoria, and a bland and upstanding Roman senator named Bossus Herculanus, would suddenly lead to one of the greatest crises in the history of the Roman Empire. The Hun invasion of the West. How are these two events linked? Well, if an imperial princess who doesn't want to marry a bland and upstanding Roman senator sends you a plea for help, and includes in the package a ring, aren't you going to take that as a marriage proposal? A marriage proposal? Yes. A marriage proposal? Yes. A marriage proposal?