(4) WORST: HONORIUS –

THEODOSIAN DYNASTY

(395 – 423 AD AD: 28 YEARS 6 MONTHS 29 DAYS)

 

Chicken boy.

“Honorius continued on living as he always had, laying around, babbling like an idiot as the world around him fell apart, but for one exception. One day Honorius turned it all around and decided, for once, to do the best possible thing he could do for the empire and died, after ruling Rome for a godawful thirty years.”

Arguably the worst Roman emperor ever, although you could easily shuffle him with Valentinian III – a.k.a Honorius II – for that spot, as they are so uncannily similar as to be interchangeable. I know I said it before for Valentinian III but it’s worth saying again for Honorius – each was a model of supine inactivity as the empire crumbled, except for betraying the loyal subordinate who was the one holding things together and stabbing that man in the back, as well as each with one of the two notorious sacks of Rome following shortly afterwards. Between the two of them and their inexplicably long reigns, almost 60 years in combination, they broke the western Roman empire and presided over its fall. It’s like the Roman Empire cloned its crappiest emperor, just so it could have him reign twice to ensure its own fall.

Now I have ranked Honorius as worse than Valentinian III as Honorius came first and you know how it is for the diminishing returns of sequels – Valentinian III hit all the same beats and even tried to have some new twists but it just wasn’t up to the original. Less flippantly, Valentinian III inherited the wreckage of the western empire from Honorius – in particular, the barbarians firmly ensconced within the empire as they had not been before Honorius. Not that Valentinian III would do or was ever going to do anything but wreck it further.

In the case of Honorius, the loyal subordinate was his general Stilicho, who had also been his regent and was his father-in-law. Now I have argued that Valentinian’s betrayal of Aetius was worse, but that is more a matter of his direct personal involvement – killing Aetius himself – being more despicable. The betrayal by Honorius of Stilicho was more destructive for the empire.

Firstly, at least Valentinian III waited until the threat of Attila and his Huns had receded from Italy (and the empire itself as it turned out) before his betrayal of Aetius. Honorius betrayed Stilicho when the threat of Alaric and his Visigoths to Italy and Rome was still very much dire. Secondly – and worse – Honorius’ betrayal of Stilicho strengthened that threat, both by removing Stilicho as the one effective deterrent to it and with the defection of Stilicho’s foederati troops en masse to Alaric following Honorius’ massacre of their families as Stilicho’s camp followers.Thirdly, at least Valentinian’s betrayal of Alaric had the prompt consequence of Valentinian’s own assassination, where Honorius continued to burden the empire with his reign for another fifteen years.

Although Honorius didn’t have to wait that long for the sack of Rome which followed as a consequence of his betrayal of Stilicho. That betrayal led in a direct line to the sack of Rome by Alaric and the Visigoths in 410, which again was arguably worse than the corresponding sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455.

Firstly, the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410 was a profound shock to the empire, the first such sack for eight centuries. While the sack of Rome by the Vandals was more destructive – such that the Vandals lent their name as a synonym for destruction ever since – it lacked that same sense of shock given the recent occurrence of the first sack. Secondly, at least Valentinian wasn’t still alive to injure Rome further with his continued existence for its sack in 455 AD. Thirdly, Honorius added insult to injury with his initial alarm that Rome had “perished” was a reference to his favorite pet chicken he had named Roma, where he was relieved to find out it was only in reference to the actual city. That story has been identified to be likely an apocryphal one, but it’s just too true to his character and symbolic with respect to it involving a chicken that I accept it anyway.

The only distinction between Honorius and Valentinian III that led to the former reigning fifteen more years after his betrayal of Stilicho was that Honorius was fortunate enough to have a capable general (and briefly co-emperor) in Constantius III to substitute for Stilicho propping up him and the empire. All Valentinian III had after Aetius was Petronius Maximus and we’ve seen how well that went – his own assassination and the sack of Rome.

Also, Honorius was literally the creepy uncle to Valentinian, albeit more to Valentinian’s mother (and his half sister), so I blame Honorius somewhat for how Valentinian turned out.

As usual, Edward Gibbon had the best snark about Honorius, which I can’t resist quoting in all its glory –

“His feeble and languid disposition was alike incapable of discharging the duties of his rank…the amusement of feeding poultry became the serious and daily care of the monarch of the West, who resigned the reins of empire to the firm and skilful hand of his guardian Stilicho…The predecessors of Honorius were accustomed to animate by their example, or at least by their presence, the valour of the legions; and the dates of their laws attest the perpetual activity of their motions through the provinces of the Roman world. But the son of Theodosius passed the slumber of his life a captive in his palace, a stranger in his country, and the patient, almost the indifferent, spectator of the ruin of the Western empire, which was repeatedly attacked, and finally subverted, by the arms of the barbarians. In the eventful history of a reign of twenty-eight years, it will seldom be necessary to mention the name of the emperor Honorius”.

 

RATING: 1 STAR*

F-TIER (WORST-TIER)

EMPIRE BREAKER

I’m not going to even bother with imperial victory titles or deification – he had none and deserved less. I’m not sure the Senate was doing damnatio memoriae by then.

SPECTRUM RANKING COMPARISON:

Spectrum ranks Honorius separately as the worst western Roman emperor, but consistently states that he also ranks him as the worst emperor for all emperors. I’m inclined to agree, but while my three worst Roman emperors were not quite the empire breakers Honorius was, their legendary depravity trumps it for me.