In 415, when the Goths in southern Gaul had been blockaded by Emperor Honorius’ naval forces for two years and were desperate for food supplies, they sent several embassies to Ravenna, and late that year (or early in 416) they traded their honoured hostage, Galla Placidia, for 600,000 measures of grain. To arrange such a large shipment, imperial officials probably drew on supplies from North Africa and/or Sicily. The princess, now about twenty-four years old, widow of the Gothic leader Athaulf, was escorted back to Rome by Honorius’ envoys, who also obtained the release of the other Roman hostages. She was accompanied and protected by a guard of Gothic soldiers, who remained with her thereafter.1
As the only daughter of Theodosius, and half-sister of both the emperors Arcadius and Honorius, Galla Placidia was the second highest-ranking woman of the dynasty, surpassed only by the reigning empress, Eudocia, in Constantinople. Before her arrival Honorius made arrangements for her future, and on 1 January 417 the emperor ‘took her by the hand and gave her to Constantius’, his favoured general, thus solemnizing their marriage. Olympiodoros records that this was done against her will, noting a rumour that Constantius had apparently wanted to marry her for a long time. Perhaps, as one of the negotiators with the Goths, he may have encountered her in Gaul. In any case she would clearly bring the most exalted rank to whoever married her, as well as the promise of children.2
Galla Placidia thus returned to the life of an imperial princess, now as the wife of a highly reputed military leader who divided his time between the imperial court at Ravenna, their home in Rome and his campaigns. She gave birth to a daughter, Honoria, in 417/18, followed by an all-important son, Valentinian, in July 419. Constantius’ presence at the imperial court probably required the family to reside in Ravenna yet she also kept in close contact with Rome. In 419, for instance, when news of a disputed papal election arrived in Ravenna, she not only persuaded Honorius to intervene but also wrote her own letters appealing to the bishops of Africa and Paulinus of Nola to assist in resolving the matter. Sadly, the letters do not survive. The rivalry between two candidates, Boniface and Eulalius, was eventually settled and Placidia’s close collaboration with Roman church leaders continued under popes Sixtus III and Leo I in the last years of her life.3
Four years after the marriage, on 8 February 421 Honorius elevated Constantius to the position of co-emperor of the West, and sent his imperial portrait to Constantinople to indicate his possible successor; he also crowned Galla Placidia empress, augusta, and named Valentinian, her young son, ‘most noble boy’ (nobilissimus puer) (Plates 3 and 4).4 These promotions were not accepted in the East, however, which greatly angered Constantius. But in September 421, before he could react, he died, leaving Galla Placidia a widow for the second time. In these uncertain circumstances her young son Valentinian now became the most likely successor to the childless Emperor Honorius.
The position of the western ruler was most unusual. Although twice married, Honorius had produced no children. With limited interest in imperial government, he had relied on Stilicho until 408, and then turned to Constantius and promoted him to imperial status, presumably with the full support of Galla Placidia. His weakness and inability to engage with the imperial role now took an unexpected turn, as he developed an excessive affection for his half-sister. According to Olympiodoros, ‘their immoderate pleasure in each other and their constant kissing on the mouth caused many people to entertain shameful suspicions about them’. The court scandal developed as rivalry between the empress’s Gothic praetorian guard, ‘the host of barbarians’, and Honorius’ imperial troops stationed in Ravenna provoked open fighting in the streets. In the same tense conditions Galla Placidia’s steward Leontius, her nurse Elpidia and another servant Spadusa, were accused of plotting against the emperor. It’s impossible to tell how these separate factors combined but the result was decisive: Honorius banished Galla Placidia and her family and servants from Ravenna. She fled to Constantinople and took refuge at the court of her nephew Theodosius II.5
When Galla Placidia, her children and servants arrived in the East in 423, they took up residence in a palace in Constantinople, later known by her name. She had returned to the city of her birth and for the first time met the emperor, then twenty-two years old, and his older sister, Pulcheria, who had prepared him for his imperial role. Pulcheria was also determined to prevent any challenge to Theodosius’ authority by devoting herself and her sisters to a life of celibacy, which would protect them from becoming pawns in marriage alliances. At the meeting of these two princesses, eastern and western, they discovered that they shared basic traits: both had a grasp of imperial administration, understood the significance of traditional male leadership and sought to wield power within its constraints; they also shared a commitment to Christian observance and patronized the church. Although Galla Placidia was six or seven years older than Pulcheria and had lived through very different experiences, both had invested in their male relatives: Pulcheria in her younger brother, Placidia in her son’s imperial inheritance.
On 15 August 423 Honorius died. News that John, the chief secretary (notarius) in Ravenna, sought to usurp imperial power reached Constantinople in October. Placidia realized immediately that her son Valentinian had a much better claim to rule the western half of the empire than any bureaucrat and set out to persuade the eastern court that he should be recognized and installed as ruler in Ravenna. In 424 Theodosius II agreed and confirmed Valentinian as nobilissimus puer ; he also issued gold coins in the names of Galla Placidia, her daughter Honoria and his own sister Pulcheria. All these carried the title of augusta around their profile images with symbols of victory. The alliance between the two branches of the imperial dynasty was sealed by the betrothal of Valentinian (aged five) to Theodosius’ daughter Licinia Eudoxia (aged two), in an attempt to unify and restore imperial order in the West, wrecked by Honorius and the Goths.6
In the summer of 424 Galla Placidia’s family, accompanied by a large armed force led by the Germanic generals Ardabur and his son Aspar and a group of experienced civilian administrators, set off back to Italy. After surviving a terrifying storm at sea (later believed to account for Placidia’s devotion to St John the Evangelist), they reached Aquileia in the spring of 425 where the usurper John was defeated and executed. They then proceeded to Ravenna, where Valentinian was acclaimed as emperor and prepared for his formal inauguration, which took place that October in Rome. Although seasoned political commentators, officials and military men were quick to warn that setting up a child as nominal ruler suggested weakness rather than strength at a time when strong government in the West was essential, the court in Constantinople had backed Galla Placidia.7 For she ensured the continuity of dynastic succession in both halves of the one Christian Roman empire.
Empress Galla Placidia was now determined to exercise her authority within the West and for the following twenty-five years she proceeded to exploit it for her own ends. In Ravenna, the powerful group that arrived to establish the young prince Valentinian further reduced the status of the local city council and provincial administration to mundane daily activity. Any notables, such as general Castinus, who had supported John’s promotion from chief secretary to emperor lost power as the praetorian commanders, Aetius and Boniface, took charge of western military forces, while administrators from Constantinople handled civilian matters. Yet the empress mother maintained a marked influence.
Through the second quarter of the fifth century, when Galla Placidia was empress in the West and her niece Pulcheria dominated the court in the East, non-Roman forces made a more determined effort to invade, occupy and settle on imperial territory. To resist this Constantinople relied not only on military strength: it also staved off attacks by diplomatic means, including payments of large amounts of gold and desirable goods like silk clothing and pepper. In the West, Ravenna was less well supplied with precious metal and, even before the sack of 410, Rome had been almost emptied of its surplus wealth by the huge payments made to Alaric. As we have seen, the military strength of the western provinces had been greatly reduced by fourth-century revolts and the capacity to recruit replacement forces dwindled as the empire shrank and tax revenues declined. Nonetheless, the court in Ravenna had to rely on Roman armies to deter the incoming forces, which gave military commanders enormous powers and responsibilities.
It was therefore unfortunate that the two leading generals, Aetius and Boniface, refused to cooperate. In addition to this harmful division in the military command, nearly all the units of the late fourth- and early fifth-century Roman army were staffed by non-Romans and often commanders identified by their non-Roman names as mercenaries. The troops that marched against ‘barbarian’ invaders of imperial territory in the Balkans and the West included ‘barbarian’ contingents from the same background, who spoke the same language and had the same customs and military skills. Not surprisingly, in cases of clear military incompetence or failure to pay, these units were tempted to desert or go over to the enemy. The military and civilian leaders who welcomed Galla Placidia and Valentinian to Ravenna in the spring of 425 knew full well how dangerous the ‘barbarians’ were. So did the senators in Rome.
The first and most symbolic task undertaken by Empress Galla Placidia was the inauguration of her son as emperor. After his acclamation at Ravenna, his presentation to the Senate in Rome was essential to both of them: it would confirm Valentinian in his imperial role and his mother as empress mother. On 23 October 425 the six-year-old was duly dressed in his imperial robes, crowned and hailed by the Roman population with long acclamations.8 The imperial family remained in the city until the New Year when Valentinian took up his second appointment as consul in an extravagant ceremony with popular entertainment organized by the four circus factions: the Greens, Blues, Whites and Reds. In addition to chariot racing, a particular Roman passion, these performances also provided an occasion for the ruler to distribute gold coins, and extra supplies of bread, wine and clothing – all part of the much-loved tradition of ‘bread and circuses’.9 As the mother of the new, very young emperor, Galla Placidia signalled her position at the head of the government. The family then returned to Ravenna, where the empress ruled in the name of her son and built some of the most famous early Christian churches.
When Placidia set up her court in Ravenna, only the most elderly officials would have remembered previous empresses like Justina (her grandmother, who died in 388), but powerful women were not an unfamiliar feature of Roman imperial history. Flaccilla, the first wife of Theodosius I, and Serena, his niece and adopted daughter, who was also Galla Placidia’s foster mother, had maintained this tradition. Emperor Arcadius’ wife Eudoxia participated actively in imperial philanthropy and public service in the East before her daughter Pulcheria adopted the same role. They may well have taken further inspiration from stories about Helena, Constantine I’s mother, who had been singled out as a major patron of the church by Ambrose, bishop of Milan.10 At the imperial court of Ravenna the empress’s authority appears to have been respected from the very beginning of her son’s reign. The basic imperial machinery of the early fifth century was in place, sustained by imperial notaries who recorded all governmental decisions. Court officials, often eunuchs, knew how to organize the ceremonial aspects of imperial administration, and they adapted and rearranged previously male roles almost spontaneously. The essential feature was that the position of emperor was filled, and, in his name, government could continue even when directed by a woman. We can legitimately imagine the young Valentinian seated on the imperial throne, with his mother on another throne beside him, while leading officials and guards stood in their set positions around them.
Coins, both gold and copper, minted in Placidia’s name after 425 display her regular profile portrait on the obverse and show her seated on a throne with her feet on a cushion and her arms crossed over her breast on the reverse. While this image is a modified version of coins commemorating male rulers, it shows the empress mother enthroned with the inscription, Salus Reipublicae, the safety of the Roman state. This symbolic association had been introduced to the coinage by Empress Eudoxia in the early fifth century, with the hand of God crowning her on the obverse – a major advance in the status of imperial wives.11 Through Galla Placidia’s coinage, minted in Ravenna, Rome, Constantinople and elsewhere, especially the bronze issues that were used for everyday purchases, inhabitants throughout the Roman empire learned of her authority. And they could see her as she would have presided over the imperial court at Ravenna, seated on a throne beside her son Valentinian III.
Initially Galla Placidia probably resided close to the imperial palace where Honorius had established his court. Clearly, she would have had to work with the council of regency that probably included leading military and civilian officials and formally ruled in the name of her son. In practice, between 425 when Valentinian was acclaimed as emperor and 437 when, aged sixteen, he was married to his cousin Licinia Eudoxia, he merely approved decisions taken by others, often by his mother. She would have attended meetings of the council in the imperial palace and presided at every formal announcement that her son made as emperor. Since her entire life (apart from the few years with the Goths) had been spent close to the circles of government and she had observed how emperors performed in both the western and eastern courts, she now stepped into the role that Honorius had neglected, and engaged more effectively in the business of imperial administration: issuing laws and enforcing them, maintaining peace through the law courts and internationally through diplomatic activity, raising taxation and paying the military, minting coins and sustaining markets, appointing and dismissing officials if they failed in their responsibilities or adopted corrupt practices, nominating western consuls, and all the other tasks normally undertaken by emperors.
Much of this governmental business was conducted through reports received and responses given at Ravenna, demanding attention to written documentation as well as oral argumentation. Six tiny fragments of papyrus dating from 433, that had been re-used much later, reveal one aspect of this administration, as we have seen earlier. Two local men had appealed to the emperors, Theodosius II and Valentinian III; the particular nature of their quarrel with a church is not preserved, but a response was recorded. This must have been an order (rescript) signed off by Galla Placidia in her capacity as the official representative of the young western emperor (then aged fourteen). The appeal was settled by a fine, probably to compensate for some loss suffered by the church, and the complete document was then registered in the city’s archive.12 In addition to such routine administration, an earthquake shook Ravenna on a Sunday in September 429 and she had to deal with the damage caused. The Annals of Ravenna preserve a tiny drawing of this regular hazard, imagined as a monster emerging from the earth (Plates 25 and 26).13
From the very beginning of her son’s nominal rule, Galla Placidia undertook to direct the government from Ravenna, while reassuring the Roman Senate of her great respect and good intentions. She issued a series of laws in the name of Valentinian III designed to protect the traditional rights of senators and to maintain the accepted divisions in civil society: a hierarchy of slaves under their masters’ control, peasants (coloni) tied to the land, freedmen excluded from even the lower levels of imperial service, and free citizens. She also abolished part of the traditional gift of gold offered by the Senate to the emperor at New Year. For thirteen years, from 425 until 438, she managed the civilian and ecclesiastical administration and introduced important legal reforms. After 438, when Valentinian III assumed authority, she remained in Ravenna as the retired empress mother and, for a further twelve years, devoted herself to religious matters, philanthropy and building projects.
It is in the first period, when she acted as de facto ruler, that we can observe Galla Placidia’s contribution to the survival of the western Roman empire. She rewarded her own supporters such as Boniface, who had sent her funds when she was banished from the court by Honorius – he was confirmed as count of Africa (comes Africae) – and nominated others whom she considered reliable to key positions, men such as Bassus, a member of the aristocratic Roman family of the Anicii, who was given the post of imperial treasurer (comes rei privatae) in August 425, when the imperial family was still in Aquileia. One year later he was Praetorian Prefect of Italy, a post he returned to again in 435, after serving as consul in 431.14 From Honorius she inherited other reliable men, such as Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus, prefect of Rome, who had refused to recognize John the notarius and usurper of 423; he was appointed to the same post in July 425, and is named in five laws issued at Ravenna between 425 and 428. In 437 Placidia sent him to Constantinople to negotiate Valentinian’s marriage to Licinia Eudoxia. The empress’s reliance on the Anicii family was balanced by the appointment of others, such as Petronius Maximus, twice Praetorian Prefect, and Consentius, an official from Narbonne who held office at Ravenna between 437 and 450 and became Valentinian III’s notary (tribunus et notarius).15 But she seems to have had difficulty filling several of the key civilian administrative positions, which were left vacant. A similar neglect continues under Valentinian III (437–55), suggesting that imperial administration in the West could not compare with that in the East, where all these posts were regularly filled.16
Although the eastern court had provided a strong military and civilian contingent to establish Valentinian as titular emperor, none of the advisers from Constantinople could handle the rivalry among the military commanders that surfaced almost immediately. Galla Placidia tried to separate the two leading generals by sending Aetius to Gaul and leaving Boniface in Africa. In 425 she appointed a less celebrated general, Constantius Felix, as the military leader for Italy, but in May 430 he was killed on the steps of the cathedral at Ravenna with his wife and one of the cathedral deacons. Rumour held Aetius responsible for these murders. Two years later, Boniface died of a wound inflicted during a violent fight with his rival, though Aetius continued loyally to combat numerous challenges to imperial control in Gaul.17 His persistent refusal to cooperate with other military leaders, however, weakened the court at Ravenna.
Within the imperial capital, Galla Placidia found a committed supporter in Bishop Peter, later called Golden-word (Chrysologus), one of the few church leaders not elected from the local clergy but brought in from nearby Imola. Because this was so unusual, his promotion is recorded as a miracle in the Book of the Pontiffs of Ravenna and is attributed to Pope Sixtus III’s vision of Sts Peter and Apollinaris. A delegation from the priests and ‘the whole assembly of the people’ had gone to Rome to request the consecration of their own candidate, but the pope had insisted on Peter, the deacon from Imola.18 The pope’s (and empress’s) candidate prevailed and Peter ‘the golden word’ became famous for his sermons, which were copied by later church leaders as models of outstanding preaching. Although he condemned Arians among many other heretics, the Gothic and Germanic Christians appear to have maintained their Arian worship in their own churches at Ravenna, protected by the empress. With the co-operation of the Catholics under Bishop Peter, the two Christian communities co-existed in the capital.
In matters relating to the law, Galla Placidia also made a decisive contribution in an imperial speech delivered on 7 November 426 to the Senate in Rome. Although the author of the speech and the person who actually gave it are not recorded, it was probably due to the empress’s intervention. It set out a series of new rules, which have been described as a mini law code: a serious reform of a wide range of problems in testamentary law, gifts and transfers of property through the emancipation of slaves, including both general principles and specific instances. This so-called Law of Citations also attempted to clarify which ancient legal authorities were to take precedence over others and how discrepancies between them were to be settled.19 It states that the opinions of five classical lawyers of the first and second centuries might be cited, and others, provided that the texts were accurate, and in the case of disputes, the commentaries of Papinian were to be adopted, because he was ‘superior to any other’.
This speech, of remarkable competence, was given in the name of the seven-year-old Valentinian III. The text originated in the West with no relation to other comparable efforts in the East, although it does seem to be in some way connected to the first legal commission set up by Theodosius II in Constantinople only three years later in 429. Normally such legal pronouncements were drafted by officials – expert lawyers – with the title quaestores sacri palatii, but none are recorded in the West after 412. So, who was the author of this wide-ranging initiative? Galla Placidia has been proposed as the initiator and Antiochus, quaestor of the eastern court, as the author; others see Galla Placidia as the chief author.20 Her understanding of the importance of written law can be traced back to the time when she was a hostage of the Goths and influenced Athaulf to add some Roman legal principles to his rule.21 She surely also discussed legal matters with experts in Constantinople during her stay there. And she must have had trained legal counsellors around her in Ravenna, even if no official was granted the title of quaestor, chief legal adviser to the emperor. Among her other early rulings, one suggests a personal interest: it was designed to facilitate the right of mothers to inherit their children’s estates and reflects her own experience of the insecurity of widowhood.
Some hint of Galla Placidia’s commitment may be seen in another important imperial oration, of 3 January 426, just after Emperor Valentinian assumed the consulship, which stated that emperors are bound by the law. A later one, of 25 February 429, declared that the law should be ‘common to us and to private persons’, that is, emperors are not above the law (which was the Hellenistic view) but are bound by it (the republican Roman view), an oration repeated on 11 June 429. This suggests that in the first four years of Valentinian’s rule, when his mother had a determining influence, legal reform was strongly promoted by the imperial administration. It coincides with an even more vigorous reform of legal practice in the eastern Roman Empire. Galla Placidia’s 426 Law of Citations echoes concerns that had resulted in changes to the professional teaching of law in Constantinople. In 425 two posts were established at the university of Constantinople, one for law and the other for statutes. Freelance teachers of law were barred from practising and approved professors were given much higher status, equivalent to senior governors and top civil servants. In this reorganization of higher legal education professorial salaries were fixed and specific facilities established. Four years later, in 429, Theodosius II set up the first commission to explore a complete reform of imperial law, which resulted in the Legal Code that bears his name.
Both imperial courts, therefore, had been concerned to clarify the contradictions inherent in the vast number of legal rulings issued over centuries. These included imperial decrees, called constitutions, which resulted from judicial decisions taken by the emperor or by magistrates in his name, and rescripts, which were imperial responses to petitions sent by individuals.22 When the eastern commission requested copies of all the constitutions issued by emperors in the West since the time of Constantine I, Galla Placidia was ready to provide them and the Code contains a preponderance of western laws. Her officials also appear to have taken great care in the laws prepared in her son’s name. In Constantinople the task of sifting through all the accumulated legal enactments was entrusted to a second commission of fourteen experts, who worked remarkably quickly to produce a compendium of Roman imperial law in just over two years.
This was the impressive work Valentinian approved in 437 when he went to the eastern court to marry Eudoxia (Plate 5). The new Code of Roman Law, prepared in Constantinople, was named after the eastern emperor (the Codex Theodosianus).23 After the very grand wedding in Thessalonike, Faustus, the praetorian prefect, accompanied the young couple back to the West, sailing around Greece via the imperial palace at Split to Ravenna. He presented the codex to the Senate in Rome on 25 December 438.24 For the first time the entire body of Roman law was made available in a compact and manageable form; it was to have an enormous influence in the barbarian kingdoms of the West.25 Indeed, the first five books of the Theodosian Code, which are incompletely preserved, can be reconstructed from the Breviarium of Alaric, a Visigothic king who compiled his own law code in 506 for the Roman population under his control. This copy includes the Law of Citations. While Justinian’s Codex of Civil Law may be better known to legal historians today, the Theodosian Code made a more lasting impact on the formation of European legal principles, and Galla Placidia’s efforts were incorporated into it.26
The Theodosian Code of 437 provided clear guidance for solving myriad legal problems ranging from disputes over land ownership and trade contracts to the punishment of thieves, murderers and rebels, observance of traditional religious cults and the regulation of correct weights and measures. Family affairs and inheritance laws were fully covered, for example, the rights of children of a first marriage in relation to those of a second, and appropriate punishments laid down for disloyal servants and runaway slaves. The final book, Book 16, devoted to matters of religion, included a law issued in 386 by the fifteen-year-old Valentinian II to protect the right of Arian Christians to hold their services without disturbance. Those agitators who disturbed the peace of the church (by attacking the Arian community) were identified as ‘authors of sedition . . . they shall also pay the penalty of high treason with their life and blood’.27 The law reflects the tense situation in Milan at the time when Valentinian II’s mother, Empress Justina, campaigned against the Catholic Christians. Although the situation had changed radically by the 430s, all previous laws had to be included in the Code, and the notion of free assembly for religious purposes remained relevant.
In 438 the newly married couple returned to Ravenna and moved into the imperial palace, obliging Galla Placidia to retire to her own palatial accommodation in the north-west of the city near the church of S. Croce (the Holy Cross), where she probably took a less prominent role in the administration. Yet she remained a formidable force and power within the West. Valentinian III, now aged nineteen, took over the major tasks of government, aided and sometimes bullied by Aetius, the military supremo of the 430s to 450s. But neither Aetius nor any other adviser foresaw Vandal ambitions and took firm steps to prevent this ‘barbarian’ tribe from conquering and, eventually, occupying the western provinces of Africa, Mauretania and part of Numidia. In 439, devastatingly, they captured Carthage. The loss of the richest areas of North Africa brought with it further serious decline in imperial power in the West.