Everything about Galla Placidia totally explained
Aelia Galla Placidia (
392 -
November 27,
450) was the daughter of
Roman Emperor Theodosius I and his second wife
Galla, who herself was daughter of the Emperor
Valentinian I. Galla Placidia was half sister of Emperors
Honorius and
Arcadius.
She had spent much time in the household of
Stilicho the Vandal and his wife
Serena. Stilicho was effectively the military steward of the West, and according to himself also of the East. He was executed by Honorius, however, in
408 causing most of the non-Italians in Roman service to go over to
Visigoth chieftain
Alaric I - who promptly invaded Italy.
In either 409 or 410, during
Alaric's siege of
Rome, Galla became the captive of the Visigoths, who kept her with them as they sacked Rome (for three days beginning
August 24,
410), then wandered through Italy where Alaric died in the same year, and later
Gaul.
She married
Ataulf, brother-in-law of Alaric, and king of the Visigoths after Alaric's death, at
Narbonne in January
414, although the historian
Jordanes states that they married earlier, in
411 at Forum Livii (
Forlì). Jordanes's date may actually be when she and the Gothic king first became more than captor and captive. She had a son, Theodosius, by the Visigothic king, but he died in infancy and was buried in
Barcelona. Years later the corpse was exhumed and reburied in the imperial mausoleum in
St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. Athaulf was mortally wounded by a servant of a Gothic chieftain he'd slain, and before dying in the late summer of
415, instructed his brother to return Galla to the Romans. It was the Gothic King
Wallia who traded her to the Romans in return for a treaty and supplies early in
416.
Her brother Honorius forced her into marriage to the Roman
Constantius in January of
417. They had a son
Valentinian III, who became Emperor and a strong-willed daughter
Justa Grata Honoria. Constantius became emperor in
421, but died shortly afterwards. Galla herself, the former Augusta, was however forced from the Western Empire. Whatever the politics or motivations, the public issue was increasingly scandalous public sexual caresses from her own brother Honorius. She left with her young children to find refuge at
Constantinople. After Honorius died in
423, and after the suppression of
Joannes despite his ally
Flavius Aëtius' attempt to raise troops to his aid, her son Valentinian was elevated as Emperor in Rome in
425.
At first she attempted to rule in her son's name, but as the generals loyal to her one by one either died or defected to Aëtius, imperial policy came to rest in his hands by the time he was made patrician. Placidia apparently was the one who made peace with Aetius, who later was pivotal to the defense of the Western Empire against
Attila the Hun. Attila was diverted from his focus on Constantinople towards Italy as his target due to a foolish letter from Placidia's own daughter
Justa Grata Honoria in the spring of
450, asking him to rescue her from an unwanted marriage to a senator that the Imperial family, including Placidia, was trying to force on her. Placidia's last notable public act was to convince her son
Valentinian III to exile rather than kill Honoria for this. She died shortly afterwards at Rome in November 450, and didn't live to see Attila ravage Italy in
451-
453 in a much more brutal campaign than the Goths had waged, using Justa's letter as their sole "legitimate" excuse.
Throughout her life Galla remained a devout
Catholic, and in her later years endowed or enriched several churches in
Ravenna. Her
Mausoleum in Ravenna was one of the
UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in
1996.
Bibliography
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