Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIX: The Fall of Rome
(5) WORST: VALENTINIAN III –
THEODOSIAN DYNASTY
(425 – 455 AD: 29 YEARS 4 MONTHS 21 DAYS)
Jeez – this guy. Arguably the worst Roman emperor ever (albeit not quite in my rankings), although you could easily shuffle him and my next entry, his predecessor, for that spot, as they are so uncannily similar as to be interchangeable.
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, with each having 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.
In the case of Valentinian III, that loyal subordinate was his general Aetius – who defeated Attila the Hun’s invasion of Gaul. One could argue that his betrayal of Aetius was even worse than the corresponding betrayal by his predecessor. Firstly, because he waited until Aetius had defeated the Huns and felt secure enough that he no longer needed Aetius. Secondly because the creep did it himself, the only time he ever drew a sword, striking down the unarmed Aetius and with a pack to back him up no less. And thirdly, he had the sheer hubris to boast that he had done well to dispose of Aetius in such a way, prompting a counsellor’s famous reply “Whether well or not, I do not know. But know that you have cut off your right hand with your left”.
Edward Gibbon summed it up best with this acid observation in his characteristic prose – “But the emperor of the West, the feeble and dissolute Valentinian, who had reached his thirty-fifth year without attaining the age of reason or courage, abused this apparent security to undermine the foundations of his own throne by the murder of the patrician Aetius. From the instinct of a base and jealous mind, he hated the man who was universally celebrated as the terror of the barbarians and the support of the republic.”
And in the case of Valentinian III, the notorious sack of Rome following shortly afterwards was the Sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455 AD – although he wasn’t alive to see it as fortunately karma had kicked in and he had been killed by two of Aetius’ loyal followers, orchestrated by Petronius Maximus.
And yes – Valentinian III was the predecessor to whom I was referring all the way back in my tenth place entry for Petronius Maximus. A disgrace to the proud name of Valentinian the Great, although Valentinian III hailed from that worst of classical Roman dynasties, the Theodosian dynasty.
“Valentinian’s reign is marked by the dismemberment” – DISMEMBERMENT! – “of the Western Empire; by the time of his death, virtually all of North Africa, all of western Spain, and the majority of Gaul had passed out of Roman hands. He is described as spoiled, pleasure-loving, and heavily influenced by sorcerers and astrologers and devoted to religion”. That’s right – Valentinian III, resorting to sorcery and astrology in the ghost dance of the Roman Empire.
That devotion to religion, of course being Christianity – somewhat inconsistent with the influence “by sorcerers and astrologers” – at least contributed to him giving greater authority to the Papacy, which might explain his only good decision, using Pope Leo as an envoy to Attila the Hun in the latter’s invasion of Italy, which succeeded (among other things) in persuading Attila to leave Italy without sacking Rome, never to return to attack Italy or the empire as it turned out.
RATING: 1 STAR*
F-TIER (WORST TIER)
EMPIRE BREAKER
MAXIMUS:
No, just no.
DAMNED:
He should have been – I’ll take his assassination as damnatio memoriae.
SPECTRUM RANKING COMPARISON:
As noted previously for Majorian and Petronius Maximus , Spectrum ranked the western Roman emperors after 395 AD separately, but stated that he would not only rank Valentinian III as the second worst of those emperors, he would rank him as second worst of all Roman emperors.