The Fall of the Roman Empire Read Online Free PDF Page B

king, Theodoric 1, was one of the many who fell. Yet Attila was defeated and withdrew from Gaul. This was the one and only defeat of his lifetime, and the greatest success of Aetius' career.
    But Gaul's gain meant terror for Italy, which the Huns invaded in the following year, sacking Milan and other major cities. This time, Aetius had no Imperial army to send against him. But as Attila was about to cross the River Mincio, a tributary of the Po, Pope Leo 1 arrived from Rome and persuaded him to withdraw -a scene perpetuated in a picture by Raphael in the Vatican. Presumably the Pope gave a warning that there was famine and pestilence in Italy, so that Attila would not be able to feed his army off the land. At all events, the Huns abandoned their onward march, turned back, and left the country.
    In 453 Attila, after his marriage banquet, burst a blood-vessel and died during the night. Thereupon, the Hunnish Empire fell abruptly apart. Attila's numerous sons, who had divided it up, began to quarrel violently among themselves. This encouraged their German subjects to band together and fight them.
    In the ensuing engagement at the unidentified River Medao south of the Danube, the Huns were overwhelmingly defeated. From this time onwards, they were never a great power again. Yet the Romans, too, were still losing ground in central Europe, where Germans had pressed forward once more in the neighbourhood of Lake Constance.
    But meanwhile Aetius had died. He had recently strengthened his position at court, when his son became engaged to the daughter of Valentinian III. Yet courtiers were now whispering to the Emperor that he would perish at the hands of his minister unless he himself struck first. One day, therefore, while Aetius was presenting a financial statement at the palace, Valentinian suddenly leapt from his throne and accused him of treason. He then drew a sword and rushed upon the defenceless man, who was simultaneously attacked by one of the Imperial chamberlains and fell lifeless at their feet.
    As one of the Emperor's advisers subsequently warned him, 'you have cut off your right hand with your left'. For the sixth-century Byzantine chronicler Marcellinus had good reason to call Aetius 'the great safety of the Western Empire' - in so far as it still had any safety at all. With his murder its terminal crisis had begun.

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    Only six months after Aetius' death, two of his barbarian retainers avenged him on the Field of Mars at Rome by striking down his Imperial assassin, Valentinian III. In spite of that Emperor's personal insignificance, his death was, in its way, an event no less decisive than the murder of Aetius. For Valentinian possessed no male offspring, so that his stable dynasty, which had lasted for so long, was now at an end.
    The West now had just twenty-one more years to live. And during that period there were as many as nine more or less legitimate Western Emperors, each from a different family. Most of them could claim only a minimum of power and six came to violent ends.
    The death of Valentinian in was followed at once by a major catastrophe. The fleet of the Vandal Gaiseric had extended the range of his influence far beyond northern Africa; and now the King disembarked at Ostia, the port of Rome, and captured the city itself. He remained for fourteen days, extracting plunder far beyond Alaric's casual looting, and when he finally departed, the many thousands of prisoners whom he took away included the widow of Valentinian in and her two daughters.
    Within the Imperial government itself, the pre-eminent figure was now the commander-in-chief Ricimer, who made and unmade Emperors continually during the next fifteen years. At last a German had become the supreme commander again. True, his German birth was still felt to disqualify him from occupying the Imperial throne in person. Yet, in so far as anyone was able to maintain control, it was himself. It was he who had to grapple with the problems of the