14-7. In Which Gaul is Given to the Goths
The Goths, however, were not minded for peace. On the death of Ataulf (after the week's reign of Sigerich, memorable only for the humiliation he inflicted on Placidia, by forcing her to walk twelve miles on foot before his horse), there succeeded a new king, Wallia, "elected by his people," Orosius says, "to make war with Rome, but ordained by God to make peace." Harassed by want of supplies, Wallia resolved to imitate the policy of Alaric, and to strike at Africa, the great granary of the West. The fate of Alaric attended his expedition, his fleet was shattered by a storm during its passage, twelve miles from the Straits of Gibraltar, at the beginning of 416. Wallia now found that it was peace with Rome, which alone would give food to his starving army; and Rome was equally ready for peace, if it only meant the restoration of Placidia. In the course of 416 the treaty was made.
The Romans purchased Placidia by 600,000 measures of corn; Wallia became the ally of the Empire, and promised to recover Spain from the Vandals, Alans, and Sueves. In January 417 Constantius was once more created consul: in the same month he became the husband of the unwilling Placidia. She bore him two children, Honoria and Valentinian; and thus the problem of the succession was finally settled by the victory of the Roman Constantius, and the name of Rome was renewed by Roman strength. It was no undeserved triumph which Constantius celebrated in 417. The turmoil which had raged since Alaric's entry into Greece in 396 seemed to have ceased: the loss of the whole of the Gauls, which had seemed inevitable since the usurpation and the barbarian influx of 406, was, at any rate in large measure, averted. Constantius had recovered much of the Seven Provinces: Wallia was recovering Spain.
Constantius too was finally destined to settle the problem of the Goths, and to give them at last the quieta patria, in search of which they had wandered for so many years. For a time Wallia fought valiantly in Spain (416-418): he destroyed the Silingian Vandals, and so thoroughly defeated the Alans, that the broken remnants of the tribe merged themselves into the Asdingian Vandals. In the beginning of 416 the Romans had only held the east coast and some of the cities of Spain: by 418 the Asdingian Vandals and the Sueves had been pushed back into the north-west of the peninsula, and Lusitania and Baetica had been recovered. In 419 Wallia had his reward; Constantius summoned the Goths into Gaul, and gave them which became their capital, and other towns in the Narbonese province; and thus the Visigoths acquired a territory of their own, with an Atlantic seaboard, but, as yet, without any outlet to the Mediterranean.
We can only conjecture the reasons which dictated this policy. It may be, as Professor Bury suggests, that Honorius did not wish to surrender Spain, because it was the home of the Theodosian house and the seat of the gold mines: it may be that the imperial Government wished to invigorate with the leaven of Gothic energy the declining population of south-western Gaul. In any case the policy is of great importance.
For the first time the imperial Government had, of its own motion, given a settlement within the Empire to a Teutonic people living under its own king. But the policy becomes doubly important, when it is considered in connexion with the constitution of 418, which gave local government to Gaul, and enacted that representatives of all its towns should meet annually at Aries. Honorius was endeavouring to throw upon Gaul the burden of its own government, and in the new municipal federation which he had thus instituted he sought to find a place for the Goths. On the one hand, the council at Aries would contain representatives from the towns in Gothic territory, and would thus connect the Goths with the Roman name: on the other, the Goths, as foederati of the council, defending its territory, and supplying its troops, would give weight to its deliberations. The policy of decentralisation thus enunciated in 418, and the combination of that policy with the settlement of the Visigoths in 419, indicate that the Empire was ceasing to be centralised and Roman, and was becoming instead Teutonic and local.
The years that elapse between the settlement of the Goths and the death of Honorius in 423 are occupied by the affairs of Italy and the court history. of Ravenna. In 421 Constantius, who had been virtual ruler of the West since 411, was elevated by Honorius, somewhat reluctantly, to the dignity of Augustus and the position of colleague.
Placidia, to whose instance the elevation of her husband was probably due, had her own ambition satisfied by the title of Augusta, and began actively to exercise the influence on events, which she had already exercised more passively during the struggle between Ataulf and Constantius. The elevation of Constantius and of Placidia to the imperial dignity led to friction with the Eastern Empire, which refused to ratify the action of Honorius, and in 421 a war seemed imminent between East and West. But Constantius, whose rough soldier tastes made him chafe at the restrictions of imperial etiquette fell ill and died in the autumn of 421, and with his death the menace of war disappeared.
The influence of Placidia remained unshaken after her husband's death. The weak Honorius shared his affection between his beloved poultry and his sister; and scandalmongers even whispered tales about his excessive affection for Placidia. But by 422 the affection had yielded to hatred; and a struggle raged at Ravenna between the party of Honorius, and a party gathered round Placidia, which found its support in the retinue of barbarians she had inherited from her marriages with Ataulf and Constantius. The struggle would appear to be the old struggle of the Roman and the barbarian parties; and it is perhaps permissible to conjecture that the question at issue was the succession to the office of magister militum which Constantius had held. If this conjecture be admitted, Castinus may be regarded as the candidate of Honorius, and Boniface as the candidate of Placidia; and the quarrel of Castinus and Boniface, on the eve of a projected expedition against the Vandals of Spain, which is narrated by the annalists, may thus be connected with the struggle between Honorius and Placidia. The issue of the struggle was the victory of Honorius and Castinus (422). Castinus became the magister militum and took command of the Spanish expedition, in which he allowed himself to be signally defeated by the Asdingian Vandals, now settled in Baetica: Boniface fled from the Court to Africa, and established himself, at the head of a body of foederati, as a semi-independent governor of the African diocese, where he had before been serving as the tribune of barbarian auxilia.
The flight of Boniface was followed by the banishment of Placidia and her children to Constantinople (423); but in her exile she was supported by Boniface, who sent her money from Africa. This was the position of affairs when Honorius died (423). One of the weakest of emperors, he had had a most troubled reign; yet the last years of his rule had been marked by peace and success, thanks to the valour and policy of Constantius, who had defeated the various usurpers and recovered much of the Transalpine lands. The one virtue of Honorius was a taste for government on paper, such as his nephew Theodosius II also shewed; he issued a number of well-meant constitutiones, alleviating the burden of taxation on Italy after the Gothic ravages, and seeking to attract new cultivators to waste lands by the offer of advantageous terms.
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