#75 emperors

[katarhema]

My daily emperor posts are going on hiatus.

Two reasons. Well, three. First, because 75 is a nice, even number, and seems as good a place to pause as any. Second, because I was going to have to stop soon anyway, because while I could carry on to the end of the west, I know practically nothing about the eastern emperors after that point. If I'm going to keep going, I have to do more research of my own!

And third, because I'm about to have my wisdom teeth taken out, which will be hilarious, and I don't want to have to worry about writing anything coherent for a few days. 

I dunno how many people actually care... hopefully a nonzero number. But there you go. 

[katarhema]

Day 75: Avitus

Wait I actually made it to 75 already? In my head it wouldn't be until this weekend... weird.

Anyway, Avitus! 

Avitus was Petronius Maximus's sort-of right-hand man, as much as someone who never really got to exercise power could have a right-hand man. When Petronius Maximus was killed and Rome sacked, Avitus was off befriending the Visigoths. That served him well, because Theodoric II, the king of the Visigoths, named Avitus as the new emperor.

It's very telling a Visigoth could determine such a thing. In the east, Marcian was busy not caring about the west, but even so, it's a blunt reminder of how much western Rome has already fallen.

For his part, Avitus had amibitions of trying to expand the empire back out a bit--the only truly Roman territy at this point was Italy, but Avitus wanted to take back some parts of Gaul, probably because he himself was Gallic. 

Because of his focus on Gaul, because he was foreign, because he was too friendly with the Visigoths, Avitus was not terribly popular among the Roman officials. It wasn't too long before a rebellion threw Avitus out of power--unusually, he was not killed immediately, but essentially shunted sideways out of politics into a position in the church. Then he was killed. 

The guys behind the rebellion? Ricimer and Majorian, who would go on to continue the fine tradition of puppetry, with Majorian on the throne and Ricimer behind it. 

[katarhema]

Day 74: Petronius Maximus

So, things were starting to look up for the east. Not so for the west.

Patronius Maximus finagled his way into becoming emperor after Valentinian III, mostly by marrying Valentinian's widow, but he never had any real power. Not because there was someone pulling his strings--no, but because everyone was busy panicking about all those Germanic tribes, and he was only ostensibly emperor for a couple of months before he was killed for committing the crime of being in charge during a disaster. 

The disaster in question? The Vandals invaded Italy.

After Petronius Maximus was killed, the Vandals spent a couple of weeks sacking the city of Rome, and then went away, as if to prove the point that Rome was now so irrelevant it wasn't even worth occupying for any longer. 

The Roman empire was no longer the most important cultural entity in Europe. There were a whole lot of other people in the area who followed other rulers, other kings. The balance of power was teetering precariously. 

Home stretch for the west, guys. 

[katarhema]

Day 73: Marcian

With Marcian, who became emperor of the east after Theodosius III died (hilariously by falling off a horse), we have the first emperor who really, truly believed in a hard divide between the Eastern and Western empires. 

While technically a member of the Theodosian dynasty, he was not related to his predecessor by blood. Instead, he was married to Theodosius II's sister at the behest of Aspar, the guy who was pulling the strings at the end of Theodosius's long reign. 

Aspar remaining in his position of prominence behind Marcian, but Marcian was no puppet-emperor, and he started the next wave of imperial authority that would be solidified by his own successor.

Perhaps the most important change Marcian brought to the table is that, as mentioned, he cared only for the east. To him, the west was not his concern, and he ignored requests for help against Attila the Hun. Considering Attila may well have conquered the entirety of the western Roman empire had things unfolded a little differently, there's no real way to interpret that beyond Marcian actually not caring if that happened. 

He knew he was emperor of the Roman empire--and the fact that his empire no longer included the city that gave it its name was simply not relevant. 

[katarhema]

Day 72: Valentinian III

Johannes was dead. Valentinian III was secure in his position as emperor of the west, with his mother, Galla Placidia, acting as regent and, naturally, the effective power behind the throne. 

Then Aetius arrived with a whole big army of Huns. 

Instead of war, however, Aetius and Galla Placidia agreed to negotiate, and in the end, the Huns were paid to go away and Aetius was made general of the Roman army in Gaul. Over the next few years, he fought against the plentiful enemies in Gaul, and his power grew until eventually he controlled all of the armies, making him, not Galla Placidia, the most important power behind Valentinian III.

It is probably all thanks to Aetius that the west did not fall in the early 450s. He turned Attila the Hun away from Gaul in 451 (which has been called the last major military victory of the western Roman empire), and when Attila came back to invade Italy a bit later--there's actually a hilarious story there involving a rebellious young woman, an engagement ring, and an assumed dowry--Aetius slowed the Hunnic force down with a brilliant (though tactically unwinnable) campaign. 

(Attila ended up just ending his invasion and leaving after talking to a few ambassadors sent to convince him to do just that. We don't really know what happened there.)

By the mid-450s, Aetius had been in effective control of the west for nearly two decades. Valentinian III, long since an adult, and apparently feeling overly secure after the departure of Attila, decided to take power for himself by assassinating Aetius.

He was then killed himself by Aetius's supporters, so good job there, Valentinian. 

[katarhema]

Day 71: Johannes

Johannes is a brief blip in the puppet-emperor narrative. He did not make himself emperor--he was elevated to the position by another official after Honorius died--but he did, more or less, attempt to rule on his own behalf. 

The people behind Theodosius II wanted an emperor they could influence more easily, so they ignored Johannes's admittedly tenuous claim to the throne and appointed in his place Valentinian III, the son of Constantius III and the nephew of Honorius. Thus, war.

Johannes lost that war, but before he did, he did something really important: he sent a young man named Aetius to go ask the Huns for help.

Aetius returned with a whole army of Huns, but it was too late--Johannes was dead and Valentinian III had been installed as emperor of the west.

What happened next? I'll tell you tomorrow!

[katarhema]

Day 70: Theodosius II

Theodosius II was the only son of Arcadius.

He is also a prime example of a curious fact: the whole puppet-emperor thing going on was actually really good for the imperial lifespan. Consider Honorius, for example, who ruled for 28 years.

There are of course two main reasons for this trend of long reigns. The first is that these emperors are starting young. It's easier to avoid dying for thirty years if you're not starting the clock when you're already fifty years old. The other is that political enemies have no real reason to target them. If you don't like how the empire is being run and think you could do a better job yourself, for once the person to kill is not the emperor, but rather whoever happens to be manipulating the emperor. 

Even given those things, Theodosius II's forty-two year reign is stupefying long. Especially once you count the fact that Arcadius actually named Theodosius II as co-emperor when the latter had not even had his first birthday, if you happened to be ranking Roman emperors based purely on how long they held the title of Augustus, yes, Theodosius II beats even Augustus himself.

In any event, Theodosius did do things other than avoid death (though not even for that long, considering he didn't even reach 50 years old). In my opinion, two are worth mentioning. First, he instigated the collection of laws into a single document, a decently impressive feat that would go on to inspire a much more impressive feat by the emperor Justinian later on. Second, he kept the eastern Roman empire from jumping off the cliff the western empire was rapidly sliding down. That may seem trivial, but just ask yourself: what if he'd failed?

[katarhema]

Day 69: Honorius (and Constantius III)

Honorius, the younger brother of Arcadius, became emperor of the west when he was ten years old. Yes, as you might imagine, he was quite the puppet emperor.

The most significant of his puppetmasters was a general named Stilicho, who was content to be the man behind the man largely because he was half-Vandal, and it would have been difficult for him to be emperor when the Vandals were one of the many Germanic tribes the west was so worried about. Given that disadvantage, though, Stilicho is also an example of how puppetmastery was not inherently bad--or, at least, if you're gonna have a puppet emperor, you should try to get the best guy around to pull on the strings.

The biggest problem during this initial period of Honorius's reign was Alaric, king of the Visigoths, one-time ally of the Roman army, and prime example of how maybe letting all those Goths just be inside the empire might not have been such a great long-term decision. 

Alaric marched on Italy a couple times, but was pushed back by Stilicho--though, admittedly, not always by military means; once, Stilicho employed the time-honored Roman tactic of paying the enemy to go away. 

Unfortunately, being a puppetmaster does not make you immune to political infighting, and Stilicho ended up dead in 408--the same year as Arcadius, actually.

The next guy behind Honorius, who by all rights should by now have been able to rule for himself, was a guy named Olympius.

Olympius did not do so good a job at protecting Italy.

Alaric saw an opportunity and took it.

Result: The city of Rome was sacked by a foreign enemy for the first time since 390 B.C. Check it: Eight. Hundred. Years. 

The next truly significant puppetmaster was another general, Constantius, who was reasonably successful at fighting back the Germanic tribes... from Italy, at least. He also, very unusually for a puppetmaster, decided he didn't want to just be the power behind the throne anymore. He wanted to actually be an emperor, too. So he had Honorius name him co-emperor.

Theodosius II, the emperor in the east--or, more accurately, the people behind his throne--were not going to sit back and let that happen. They refused to acknowledge "Constantius III" as emperor. There would have been a war over it had Constantius not conveniently died.

Honorius died shortly after. By the time he died, the Roman empire had lost effective control over Britain and most of Spain and Gaul.