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Honorius, Galla Placidia, and the Struggles for Control of the Western Roman Empire, 405-425 CE

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Honorius, Galla Placidia, and the Struggles for Control of the Western Roman Empire, 405-425 CE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Tennessee, Knoxville: Trace University of Tennessee, Knoxville Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2013 Crisis of Legitimacy: Honorius, Galla Placidia, and the Struggles for Control of the Western Roman Empire, 405-425 C.E. Thomas Christopher Lawrence [email protected] Recommended Citation Lawrence, Thomas Christopher, "Crisis of Legitimacy: Honorius, Galla Placidia, and the Struggles for Control of the Western Roman Empire, 405-425 C.E.. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2013. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1751 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Thomas Christopher Lawrence entitled "Crisis of Legitimacy: Honorius, Galla Placidia, and the Struggles for Control of the Western Roman Empire, 405-425 C.E.." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in History. Michael E. Kulikowski, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Christine Shepardson, Maura Lafferty, Thomas Burman Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) Crisis of Legitimacy: Honorius, Galla Placidia, and the Struggles for Control of the Western Roman Empire, 405-425 C.E. A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Thomas Christopher Lawrence May 2013 ii Copyright © 2013 by Thomas Christopher Lawrence All rights reserved iii Dedication For my mother, Mona Katherine Lawrence, whose seemingly endless supply of inspiration and encouragement carried me through to the end. iv Acknowledgements This dissertation is the result of a long and laborious process that began during my graduate research in the History Department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and continued through my employment in the History and Religious Studies Department at Pennsylvania State University. Throughout the various stages of research, writing, and editing, I have benefited enormously from the expert guidance and support of many individuals. I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Michael Kulikowski, for placing his encyclopedic knowledge of Roman history at my disposal. Thank you for your patience, your dedication to my work, and perhaps most of all, for your faith in my abilities. I would also like to thank Dr. Tina Shepardson and Dr. Maura Lafferty who offered valuable insights into several key points of this dissertation and worked tirelessly, especially in the final stage of this process, to ensure that I met the Graduate School deadlines. In addition to reading and editing these chapters, Dr. Shepardson brought much- needed attention to the religious implications of the various political changes discussed in this dissertation, while Dr. Lafferty applied her phenomenal linguistic knowledge to my translations of the primary sources. I would like to thank Dr. Thomas Burman who read and edited these chapters and brought an essential, outside historical perspective to my research on the late Roman period. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Kay Reed, Sarah Stone, and Julie Harden in the Graduate School for all of their help, guidance, and patience as I struggled to finish this dissertation on time. This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of these individuals. I offer my sincere thanks for their dedication to this project and their monumental efforts on my behalf. v Abstract This dissertation offers a new analytical narrative of the years from 405 to 425 C.E., a period which extends from the final phase of the general Stilicho’s control over the administration of the emperor Honorius, to the imperial accession of Honorius’ young nephew, the emperor Valentinian III, under the regency of his mother, Galla Placidia. The narrative places the many historical problems of this period, especially the rise of a whole series of usurpers and the influx of non-Roman, “barbarian” groups into the western empire, in the weakness of the western administration under the emperor Honorius. The imperial response to these challenges, in turn, led to fundamental changes in the political life of the western empire, including new notions of dynastic legitimacy, the integration of barbarian groups into Roman political life, and the rise of over-powerful generals operating in their own personal interests, with or without the consent of the imperial court at Rome or Ravenna. Such changes would come to characterize political life in the western empire for the rest of the fifth century, ultimately shifting the locus of power from the emperors themselves to their dominant military officials, and also to local sources of political authority. This dissertation therefore argues that we must see the later decline of imperial authority in the western Roman empire as a consequence of the challenges to the Honorian regime during in this period, and the political transformations that emerged as a result. vi Table of Contents Introduction 1 – 8 Chapter 1: Early History of Galla Placidia to 410 9 – 46 Chapter 2: Usurpers in Gaul 47 – 88 Chapter 3: Athaulf and Placidia’s Narbonese Regime 89 – 125 Chapter 4: Failure of Narbonne and Barcelona 126 – 159 Chapter 5: Reconquest of Spain to Visigothic Settlement 160 – 197 Chapter 6: Death of Constantius, Exile of Placidia 198 – 236 Chapter 7: Usurpation of John and the Rise of Valentinian III 237 – 270 Conclusion 271 – 276 Bibliography 277 – 294 Vita 295 1 Introduction This dissertation offers a new analytical narrative of the period from 405 to 425 C.E., which is to say from the final years of the general Stilicho’s control over the administration of the emperor Honorius between 405 and 408 to the restoration of the Theodosian imperial dynasty in the west by an army from the eastern empire. The end point is this restoration, and the installation of the young Valentinian III as western Augustus with his mother, the Augusta Galla Placidia serving as regent for her son. The narrative places the many historical problems of this period, especially the rise of a whole series of usurpers and the influx of non-Roman, “barbarian” groups into the western empire, in the weakness of the western administration under the emperor Honorius.1 The imperial response to these challenges, in turn, led to fundamental changes in the political life of the western empire, including new notions of dynastic legitimacy, the integration of barbarian groups into Roman political life, and the rise of over-powerful generals operating in their own personal interests, with or without the consent of the imperial court at Rome or Ravenna. Such changes would come to characterize political life in the western empire for the rest of the fifth century, ultimately shifting the locus of power from the emperors themselves to their dominant military officials, and also to local sources of political authority. We must therefore see the later decline of the western Roman empire as a major consequence of the challenges to the Honorian regime and the political transformations that resulted from them. 1 The term “barbarian” had a wide range of meanings for Roman writers. Among others, the term could signify not only individuals or groups living beyond the Roman limes, but also Roman citizens who had revolted from imperial control or had otherwise acted contrary to Roman law, such as bandits or thieves. Nevertheless, while the category was fluid, Roman presumptions on the superiority of Greco-Roman civilization always meant that term carried a derogatory implication. For discussion of the term, see Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 35-62. For the purposes of this dissertation, however, I have adopted the current scholarly usage of “barbarian” as a general, neutral term in reference to individuals or groups who were not Roman citizens. 2 Scholars have traditionally viewed the conflicts of this period through the lens of preconceived notions of ethnic identity, which often results in forced and overly simplistic narratives of “barbarian”/“Roman” antagonism. In contrast to that scholarly tradition, this dissertation takes an analytical and source-based approach to the political discord of the years 405-425, and abandons problematic notions of ethnic identity as an all-purpose explanation for political action. This approach results in a far more complex narrative that sees Roman/barbarian concord and cooperation behind many of the political actions of this period, both against and in support of the weak regime of the emperor Honorius. Moreover, an analytical narrative allows us to grant far more agency to individuals who are often depicted as passive actors in traditional narratives. In particular, the present study argues that Galla Placidia, the half-sister of the emperor Honorius, was a formidable political actor in her own right, far different from the mere captured Roman princess as she is portrayed in so many traditional narratives. Finally, this approach leads to more nuanced interpretations of the primary sources for this period, including the works of the historian Orosius, the poet Paulinus of Pella, and the chronicler Hydatius. The narrative model is well suited to the period covered in the present study because it allows analytical arguments to be set within the overall context of imperial history. In a period for which the sources are as fragmentary and conflicting as they are in the early fifth century, analysis is inseparable from the construction of a reliable narrative.
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