19.3 Europe: a.d. 401 to 500  (Page 2/7)

Upon the death of Honorius in 423 the Emperor Theodosius II of Constantinople became the sole ruler of both East and West. The usurper John was proclaimed Western emperor by the Ravenna court in 424 but Eastern armies under the Alan General Ardabur and his son Aspar, defeated the forces at Ravenna, executed John and made Valentinian III the emperor. John had expected help from 60,000 Huns who had been recruited in Pannonia by Aetius, but they arrived too late and were sent back. From this time on the military had the greatest power and used increasing numbers of Germanic and Hunnic auxiliaries. Aetius became the senior general in 430. Under Emperor Valentinian III, Leo I, surnamed the Great, became the Bishop of Rome and in essence the Pope of Western Christendom. By courage and statesmanship he raised the Apostolic See to new heights of power and dignity and we should note that this, in effect, marks the beginning of the very definite separation of the head of the western Christian Church, soon to be known as the Pope, from the few remaining weak Western Roman emperors. For the record these emperors are as follows:

• 455 - Petroneus Maximus
• 456 – Avitus
• 457 - 461 Majorian
• 461 - 465 Libius Severus
• 467 - 472 Anthemius
• 472 - Olybrius
• 473 - 474 Glycerius
• 474 - 475 Julius Nepos
• 475 - 476 Romulus Augustulus. End of the Roman Empire, West

To return to our narrative, in 440 the Vandals landed in Sicily and in 452 Attila invaded Italy with his Huns. After plundering Etruria, however, he retreated because of famine and epidemic and apparently some gold payment from Rome. General Aetius was murdered in 454 by Valentian III and his associates, but then the emperor himself was murdered a year later and the Vandals attacked Rome again, plundering the city for two weeks. No aid came from the East, and the new Emperor Petronius Maximus was killed. The next emperor, Avitus with some allies from Gaul won some victories over the Vandals in Sicily and off Corsica, but then Avitus' general, Ricimer, revolted and deposed the emperor. But Ricimer was a German and could not become emperor, so Majorianus assumed that role. He built a navy and beefed up the army with Ostrogoths and restored some vestige of imperial prestige in Gaul. But he was decapitated by the wily Ricimer after loss of a sea battle off the coast of Spain. The Western Roman Empire was now in poverty. In this one century Rome shrank from a population of 1,500,000 to 300,000 as Italy was invaded six times. Finally in the sixth decade of this century the Eastern emperor, Leo I (not to be confused with the Bishop of Rome), decided to help defend Italy against the Vandals and sent a large eastern army and fleet to join with the western Emperor Anthemius' forces. In 468 an army of 100,000 and navy of 1,100 ships still lost to the Vandals.

As indicated above, the line of Western Roman emperors came to an end and Zeno in Constantinople had jurisdiction over all. The Germans who had been brought into Italy in ever increasing numbers now, as a result of their multiplication and intermarriage, became a very prominent faction in Italy. Within 20 years southern Gaul, Dalmatia and Italy were all German kingdoms. Odoacer, the son of Edecon, a minister of Attila but himself from German tribe under Attila's rule, governed Italy as "Patricius", under the distant Emperor Zeno. The latter soon became afraid of the power of Odoacer and actually encouraged the Ostrogoth King Theodoric to invade Italy. After four years of war, from 489 to 493, Theodoric became master of an enlarged new Gothic-ltalian kingdom with a court at Ravenna. The Ostrogoths were Arians and this religious heresy situation became a part of the civil wars that disrupted the political unity of the empire. (Ref. 137 , 127 , 136 , 8 )