168- The Rise of Aetius

Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome. Episode one sixty eight, the rise of Aetius. In April, a six year old Valentinian the third became emperor of the Western Empire. He shared power with his cousin, the Eastern Emperor Theodosius the second, and together they ruled a united Roman Empire that was territorially speaking essentially the same empire that had been ruled by Augustus. At least, that's how it looked on paper. In reality, this united empire was anything but, as rival power centers with conflicting interests fought to control their little pieces of the pie and maybe grab some of their neighbor's pie if the opportunity arose. For the time being, the East was doing a better job holding on to their political integrity than the West, but the ministers of Constantinople knew that any major thrust by the Sassanids in the East or the Huns in the North would bring it all crashing down. The West, meanwhile, was a mess. The Franks controlled the Northeast Of Gaul. The Goths controlled the Southwest Of Gaul. The Vandals controlled whole swaths of Hispania. Bonifossius ruled North Africa as a quasi independent warlord, while the new commander in chief of Gaul, Flavius Aetius, now controlled tens of thousands of troops and his loyalty to Ravenna was dubious at best. A map of the empire in the fifth century may have looked like a map of the empire during the age of Augustus, but the first emperor, excuse me, first citizen, would not have recognized the land he once ruled. Even in the halls of the imperial palaces, the authority of the emperors was only paper thin as everyone knew that real power lay in the hands of two women. Valentinian's mother Galla Placidia in the West and Theodosius's sister, Aelia Polcariot in the East. This was an empire whose reality was clearly divorced from the happy propaganda offered daily to the public. That, at least, Augustus would have recognized. Of all these competing power centers, the first to butt heads following the ascension of Valentinian the third was Aetius and the Goths. In 04/27, Aetius entered Gaul with a force of about 40,000 soldiers and discovered that Theodoric had decided to take advantage of the recent chaos in the West and expand his territory beyond the confines of Aquitaine. Specifically, the Goths were in the middle of laying siege to the key Gallic city of Arles. Despite their prolonged intermingling with the Romans, however, the Goths had apparently gotten no better at siege craft. And by the time Aetius arrived, they had not yet managed to take the city. Aetius's veteran forces were fresh and easily drove the Goths back into Aquitaine. Aetius made no move to pursue them or even punish them for their siege. Just a few years removed from the settlement with Constantius, and already the question of the Gothic right to Aquitaine was not at issue. Their only crime was straying beyond the border of their …