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Justa Grata Honoria Author(S): JB Bury Source Justa Grata Honoria Author(s): J. B. Bury Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 9 (1919), pp. 1-13 Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/295986 Accessed: 15-02-2016 03:05 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies and Cambridge University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Roman Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 142.51.1.212 on Mon, 15 Feb 2016 03:05:08 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JUSTA GRATA HONORIA. By J. B. BURY. At a critical period of European history a princess of the Theodosian house played a brief but conspicuous and outrageous part. Her relationswith Attila have secured a scandalousnotoriety to the princess Honoria, who would otherwise have been as mere a name to us as her cousinsArcadia and Marina; for her action, if it did not alter the main course of events, determined the Hun king's policy during three critical years. But the true facts of an extra- ordinarilyinteresting episode have been obscured,as I hope to prove, by a curious error in one of our sources. Honoria cannot be dis- missed as a perverse or romantic schoolgirl, nor, with Mommsen, as ' eine liiderlichePrinzessin.' Justa Grata Honoria was the daughter of Galla Placidia and ConstantiusIII, and in conjecturingher characterwe must take into account the qualities she might have inherited from her parents. The youth of Galla Placidiawas stormy enough. She was a woman of strong character and will. In her teens she had voted for the execution-it seems to have been very like a legal murder-of her cousin Serena at Rome. Carried into captivity by the Goths, she had wedded the barbarianAthaulf, to the sore displeasureof her brother Honorius; an alliancewhich at Constantinoplewas regarded as a gross scandal, a ' decoloration,' as a contemporarysaid, of the dignity of the Roman state, aggravatingthe disgraceof the capture of Rome by Alaric. She had borne a son to the Goth, and been humiliated by his successor. Afterwardsher early adventureswere forgotten. She ruled over the West with supreme authority for more than a decade, and a chronicler, recording her death and rememberingonly her ability as a regent and her blamelesspiety, could speak of her irreprehensiblelife. Restored to Ravenna by king Wallia (A.D. 416), she reluctantly married her wooer Constantius, who was Master of Both Services and virtually ruler of the state, in January 417, when he entered upon his second consulship. Justa Grata Honoria was the elder child of this marriage. Justa and Grata were the names of Placidia's aunts,1 the two sisters of her mother Galla, daughterof ValentinianI and second wife of Theodosius. The date of her birth is not recorded; but as the second child, PlacidusValentinianus, was born on July 3, 419, we can date it as falling between October 417 and September 418. The emperor Honorius was persuaded to co-opt 1 Socrates, H.E. iv, 3I. This content downloaded from 142.51.1.212 on Mon, 15 Feb 2016 03:05:08 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 2 JUSTA GRATA HONORIA. Constantius as a colleague on February 8, 42I, and Placidia at the same time received the title of Augusta. From the description which the contemporary historian Olympiodorus gives of Constantius, he was evidently a man of unusual temperament. During the seven months of his reign, he endured rather than enjoyed the imperial dignity; its restraints irked him ; he was no longer free to come and go as he would. He died September 2, 421. The August rank of Placidia and her husband, and the nobilissimate which had been bestowed upon their child Valentinian, were not acknowledged by the colleague of Honorius reigning at Constantinople, his nephew Theodosius II. We cannot say whether this attitude was due to personal prejudice against the widow of Athaulf, or to some design of Theodosius eventually to extend his own authority over the western sphere, whenever Honorius should die. After the death of Constantius, Placidia seems to have exercised unbounded influence over her feebleminded stepbrother, but their intimate relations were succeeded by an estrangement which issued in an open rupture. We have only obscure hints as to the intrigues which went on at the court, but ultimately Ravenna was divided into factions, the partisans of the emperor and the partisans of the empress, and there were street fights. 1 We must, I think, connect this breach with the quarrel between Castinus, who had succeeded Constantius as Master of Soldiers, and Boniface, the officer who was afterwards to play such a prominent and ambiguous part in the affairs of Africa. Castinus was setting out for Spain to check the ravages of the Vandals and he ordered Boniface to accompany him. Boniface refused and sailed to Africa (A.D. 422). 2 Now Boniface was a strong partisan of Placidia, and Castinus, as the sequel showed, was not her friend. We may fairly conjecture that it was through the influence of Castinus that Placidia and her children were finally compelled to leave the Palace (423). The charge against her was, we are told, that she had invoked the aid of enemies against her brother. 3 It is not incredible, and, if it is true, the enemies were probably the Visigoths, now established in southern Aquitaine. Boniface supplied her with money to enable her to reach Constantinople. This journey must have been one of the earliest recollections of Honoria, then five or six years old. If Theodosius entertained prejudices against his aunt, she over- came them. She was made welcome; her rank as Augusta was recognised; the legitimacy of her husband's imperial status was acknowledged; complimentary coins, of which more will be said below, were issued in her honour. Above all, when Honorius died 1 Olympiodorus,fr. 40. Honoriopulsa ad orientemcum [Honoriaet Valen- This is in the 2Prosper, sub a. 4zz; compareHydatius. tinianol filiis proficiscitur. repeated Chronicleof Cassiodorus,but with the addition ob 3 Prosper,sub a. 423. PlacidiaAugusta a fratre suspicioneminvitatorum hostium. This content downloaded from 142.51.1.212 on Mon, 15 Feb 2016 03:05:08 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JUSTA GRATA HONORIA. 3 (August 27) a few months after her arrival, and an obscure official John was set up as emperor at Ravenna, Theodosius decided to support the claims of her son. We may take it as certain that John could not have assumed the purple without the support, open or secret, of the Master of Soldiers, Castinus, and we are expressly told that Castinus connived. The tyrant was not recognisedat Rome, and probablyhad few adherents except at Ravenna and in the army which Castinus controlled. It was not till towards the end of 424 that the forces of the East, com- manded by Ardaburius and Aspar, set forth to restore Theodosian dominion in Italy. Placidia and her children accompanied them, under the escort of Helion, the Master of Offices,and at Thessalonica Valentinian was created Caesar, Helion acting for the emperbr.1 When they reached Salona, the host divided, Ardaburius and the infantry embarkingin shipsand crossingthe Hadriatic,Aspar and the cavalryproceeding by road to Aquileia. It might be thought that the most natural arrangement would have been for the imperial party to take the sea journey and abide in loyal Rome the issue of the struggle. As a matter of fact they went with Aspar to Aquileia. But I conjecture that the other plan was the original intention. We know that on one occasionPlacidia and her children together suffered shipwreck. This might have happenedon their way to Constantinople in 423. But it seems more probablethat it was in returningto Italy, for on this occasionwe know that there was a storm. I suggest that Placidiaembarked at Salona,and that the same storm which shattered the transportsof Ardaburiusdrove her ship back and wrecked it on the Dalmatian coast. Saved from death, she did not wait for calm weather to tempt the sea again,but followedAspar to Aquileia. We know of the incident from the fact that in her peril she made a vow to St. John the Evangelist,in fulfilment of which she built his Basilica at Ravenna. The dedicatory inscription is preservedby Agnellus2: Galla Placidia Augusta cum filio suo Placido Valentiniano Aug. et filia sua Justa Grata Honoria Augusta liberationis periculum maris votum solvent (sic). It would be irrelevanthere to discussthe meagre details recorded of the operations which resulted in the execution of John and the sentence of Castinusto exile (Sept. 425). When her cause was won, Placidia hastened to Rome with her children, and on October 23 Valentinianwas crowned Augustus, Helion again taking the place of Theodosius in the performanceof the ceremony. It seems almost certain that Honoria was created Augusta about the same time or very soon afterwards. The evidence that she bore 1 Olympiodorus, fr. 46; Philostorgius, H.E. xii, 2 In Muratori, S.R.I. ii, 68; C.I.L. xi, 276. .3 ; Prosper suiba. For Honoria Aug. see also Dessau, 817.
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