The Rise of Aetius

[Murky]

There is a new episode of The History of Rome podcast

The Rise of Aetius -In the late 420s AD, the Roman General Flavius Aetius connived and backstabbed his way up the chain of command.
http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/the_history_of_rome/2012/02/168-the-rise-of-aetius.html

So what do you think of this man? Was he a heroic figure of the Roman Empire or just a conniving backstabber?

edit:

From Wikipedia:

Flavius Aëtius (c. 396–454), dux et patricius, was a Roman general of the closing period of the Western Roman Empire. He was an able military commander and the most influential man in the Western Roman Empire for two decades (433-454). He managed policy in regard to the attacks of barbarian peoples pressing on the Empire. Notably, he gathered a large Roman and barbarian army to win the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, ending the famous Hunnic invasion of Attila in 451.

Along with his rival Count Boniface, he has often been called "the last of the Romans". Edward Gibbon refers to him as "the man universally celebrated as the terror of Barbarians and the support of the Republic" for his victory at the Catalaunian Plains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavius_Aetius

Not covered in the podcast, perhaps next week.

Battle of Catalaunian Plains:

Before 449 Aëtius had signed an agreement with the Huns, allowing some of them to settle in Pannonia, along the Sava River; he also sent to Attila, the king of the Huns, a man called Constantius as a secretary. In 449, Attila was angry for an alleged theft of a golden plate, and Aëtius sent him an embassy under Romulus to calm him; Attila sent him as a present a dwarf, Zerco, whom Aëtius gave back to his original owner, Aspar.[27]

However, the good terms between Romans and Huns did not last, as Attila wanted to attack Gaul; he knew that Aëtius was a serious obstacle to his enterprise, and tried to have him removed, but in 451, when the Huns attacked, Aëtius was the commander of the Roman army in Gaul.[28] The large Hunnish army[29] captured several cities, and proceeded towards Orléans.

When the Alans living in the region were ready to defect to Attila, Aëtius, with the help of the influential Gallo-Roman senator Avitus, convinced the Visigoths of king Theodoric I to join him against the external menace; he also succeeded in preventing Sangibanus, a possible ally for Attila, from combining his army with the Hunnish one. Then the joint Roman and Visigothic armies moved to relieve the besieged city of Orléans, forcing the Huns to abandon the siege and retreat to open country.[30]

On September 20, 451 (some sources place the date at June 20, 451),[31] Aëtius and Theodoric defeated Attila and his allies at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.[32] Theodoric died in the battle, and Aëtius suggest his son Thorismund to quickly reach Toulouse (capital of the Kingdom of the Visigoths) to secure his throne; for this reason it is said that Aëtius kept all of the booty for his army.[33]

Attila returned in 452 to again press his claim of marriage to Honoria; Aëtius did not take the necessary precautions to block the Alpine passes,[34] and Attila invaded and ravaged Italy, sacking numerous cities and razing Aquileia completely, leaving no trace of it behind. Valentinian III fled from Ravenna to Rome; Aëtius remained in the field but lacked the strength to offer battle. Gibbon however says Aëtius never showed his greatness more clearly in managing to harass and slow Attila's advance with only a shadow force. Attila finally halted at the Po, where he met an embassy including the prefect Trigetius, the ex-consul Gennadius Avienus, and Pope Leo I. After the meeting he turned his army back, having gained neither Honoria's hand nor the territories he desired.

 

[plarq]

this is too short as OP.

 

[Murky]

this is too short as OP.

Fixed.

 

[Dachs]

That edit doesn't really make it much better, but whatever.

I consider Aetius to have been a consistently overrated general officer. In the nearly thirty years during which he was prominent, he achieved comparatively little and contributed in no small part to the intrigues and fratricidal conflict that tore the Western Empire apart.

We first see him on the scene as a traitor in support of the government of Iohannes, reconciled to Valentinianus by, effectively, force majeure. He spent much of the 420s engaged in plotting against other key officers in the service of the Ravennate court, like Felix and Bonifacius. Felix was successfully executed, but Bonifacius was driven to revolt (a distraction that allowed the Vandals to conquer Africa), in which he defeated Aetius on the field in southern Italy but died of his wounds.

This is not to say that Aetius was completely useless, or that he did nothing good whatsoever. His campaigns in the late 430s provided much of the foundation for that overblown legend of 'last true Roman of the West', the kernel of truth, as it were. His destruction of the Burgundiones was dramatic and immediately useful. He sent flying columns into northern Gaul for the first time since Exuperantius' expeditions under Constantius III.

But even these successes have to be tempered significantly. Aetius bought his victories against the Burgundiones by mortgaging the future of western Gaul; his government was the first to agree to a treaty of equals with the Goths (as opposed to a 'treaty' negotiated at swordpoint, as Constantius had done during the height of his power) and it is incontrovertible that a semiautonomous Gothic kingdom was established in Aquitania and Novempopulana from that point onward. It was a Gothic kingdom that saw its interests chiefly aligned with Rome's, to be sure; one that was beholden to provide troops and supplies for the Roman war machine, and one ruled by men who considered themselves part of the community of Gallo-Roman landowners. But it was an important and devastating development nonetheless.

Aetius also formalized the loss of Africa to the Vandals and it was during this period that Roman authority in the Spains began to suffer a terminal decline. The decrease in Roman power in Iberia was partly a consequence of military operations (e.g. Litorius' almost Wolfesque victory-and-death against the Goths at Tolosa) but more a consequence of a badly flawed strategy, what Guy Halsall calls "government through punitive expedition". Flying columns and raids may have sufficed for maintaining a fiction of Roman authority in lightly populated northern Gaul, but in the Spains they did nothing to combat the growing power of the Suebi and the attractiveness of alternative loci of native (i.e. Roman, anti-imperial) legitimacy. Aetius rightly saw the Spains as his first priority after the defeat of Attila, but with only a year of operations there before his assassination he did not accomplish much (a treaty with the Suebi and a bloody victory over the bacaudae, neither of which had lasting consequences).

The wars with the Huns and Rome's ultimate victory deserve a great deal less attention than they have gotten; while suitably dramatic, the campaigns of the campus Mauriacus and in Italy, much like Attila's empire in general, were flashes in the pan and held little long-term significance. Their repulse was obviously a Good Thing for the Western Roman Empire, but hardly the world-historical event that J. F. C. Fuller and others hailed. Aetius' role in defeating the Hunnic attacks, while prominent, was not the sort of magisterial feat of arms one might expect from a Constantius or a Herakleios.

Aetius was basically a competent - and only competent - general officer who accomplished some good things, but not enough of them, and whose intrigues damaged the Empire a great deal more than they helped it. If you're looking for a real late-Roman hero-general, try Constantius III.

 

[Antilogic]

Aetius was basically a competent - and only competent - general officer who accomplished some good things, but not enough of them, and whose intrigues damaged the Empire a great deal more than they helped it. If you're looking for a real late-Roman hero-general, try Constantius III.

How would you rate him in comparison to Stilicho (a couple decades earlier, but still a late Roman)? From your post, it sounds like they have served somewhat similar roles as effective field commanders but heavily involved in court intrigue. I get the impression that Stilicho was a more successful general but was less effective in politics, which led to his downfall.

 

[Dachs]

How would you rate him in comparison to Stilicho (a couple decades earlier, but still a late Roman)? From your post, it sounds like they have served somewhat similar roles as effective field commanders but heavily involved in court intrigue. I get the impression that Stilicho was a more successful general but was less effective in politics, which led to his downfall.

That's more or less an effective description, but needs some tempering. Stilicho, unlike Aetius, seems to have been more prone to picking fights he definitely couldn't win. He started a civil war with the ERE, for instance, which involved a great deal of fighting over Illyricum and which even saw Roman Africa occupied by Eastern forces. (What???) One line of speculation is that he did this because the WRE's army was so badly attenuated from the twenty previous years of civil war that he needed access to better recruiting grounds in the Balkans to shore up his manpower deficiencies. If so, it was a gamble that failed dramatically and simply extended the civil wars up into the fifth century, further weakening the Roman army in the West and preventing it from dealing effectively with Radagaisus (defeated), the Rhine invaders (out of reach), and Constantinus "III" (defeated, but not by Stilicho's hand and after a great deal of trauma) at the same time. If Stilicho hadn't wasted imperial manpower fighting against the East, there's no way the Rhine invaders succeed. Probably no way Radagaisus gets all the way to Faesulae, either. (I've never been particularly clear why Radagaisus' army was able to get through the Gap of Aemona, but apparently Alareiks was closely involved - and Alareiks' quarrels with the Roman government date back to Stilicho's campaigns in the Balkans as well.)

So, uh, not really a coherent opinion on Stilicho, there. Decent officer, I suppose - when in personal command at Faesulae, he won a textbook victory against a slightly larger force while under serious political pressure - but made some very wrong decisions that really hurt.

 

[Ajidica]

That seems to be a recurring theme among late Roman military/political people. They weren't all that bad, but made some really poor decisions.

 

[Glassfan]

It's been a while since I listened to Mike Duncan on my ipod. Thanks for reminding me, Murky - I'll have to carch-up.

 

[Dachs]

That seems to be a recurring theme among late Roman military/political people. They weren't all that bad, but made some really poor decisions.

Yeah, except for all the people that it doesn't apply to?

 

[Agent327]

I consider Aetius to have been a consistently overrated general officer. In the nearly thirty years during which he was prominent, he achieved comparatively little and contributed in no small part to the intrigues and fratricidal conflict that tore the Western Empire apart.

I´m not sure why you keep repeating this, when a discussion of this in another thread remained inconclusive - at best.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I´m not sure why you keep repeating this, when a discussion of this in another thread remained inconclusive - at best.

Why do you think you're grand poobah of deciding what is and is not conclusive?

 

[Dachs]

I´m not sure why you keep repeating this, when a discussion of this in another thread remained inconclusive - at best.

I have no interest in a quote war and even less interest in attempting to change the mind of somebody whose mind is obviously made up already regardless of the state of modern scholarship on the matter. (Hell, ignore modern scholarship - historians have been highlighting the importance of the civil wars since Gibbon and beyond.) So I didn't even read your post - just saw it, decided it wasn't worth the bother, and ignored it.

 

[Agent327]

That would result in inconclusion, I reckon. It further shows that my last post on the matter wasn´t the only one you actually didn´t read. The importance of civil wars wasn´t an issue. And Gibbon surely didn´t think civil war the key cause, so you don´t quite show being up to date there. (Not the first time, as I already mentioned a similar oversight earlier.) Not too mention that I wasn´t the only one concluding that the actual cause (not the catalyst) of the fall of the Western Roman empire might be something deeper.

Why do you think you're grand poobah of deciding what is and is not conclusive?

See above.

 

[ParkCungHee]

That would result in inconclusion, I reckon.

Your reckoning is of no consequence to the conclusion of the thread, I reckon.

 

[Masada]

ignorance is bliss. strength in silly.

 

[Agent327]

Ignorance indeed: in reality there is no consensus among historians about the causes of the fall of the Western empire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Roman_Empire

But please keep on with non-relevant posts, by all means.

 

[Masada]

a wiki link? own goal much.

 

[Agent327]

If you´d bothered to actually check it out, you might have noticed some discrepancies between what historians think and Dachs asserts about the end of the Western empire. (It´s that easy.)

But please, don´t let me stop you from spamming; I quite enjoy your attempts at broken English.

 

[General Pilates]

If you´d bothered to actually check it out, you might have noticed some discrepancies between what historians think and Dachs asserts about the end of the Western empire. (It´s that wasy.)

You claim there is no consensus, then say 'what historians think', as if there is a monolithic group of them challenging Dachs.


Though I don't think that Dachs has ever made a claim that it was only civil wars, and why should his opinion have to rest on what 'historians think' based on a wiki article?

 

[Agent327]

His opinion (you can simply check his post on it) is that the civil wars were the direct cause of the empire ending in the West. Historians don´t even agree on a singular cause. Just about every historian writing about it has an opinion on it. I don´t see the problem; anybody can have an opinion.