The Assassination of Flavias Aetius

The Assassination of Flavias Aetius

      Flavias Aetius was the Roman commander at the Battle of Chalons (451), where along with forces of the Visigothic Empire, it under the command of its King, Theodoric , the Huns under Attila were defeated.  Flavias  had been appointed magister militum (essentially “supreme commander” of all Roman military forces) by Valentinian III, a particularly weak (and in this era that is saying something) emperor.  While Boethius is oft identified as the last gasp of the Roman Empire’s (or at least its western components’) intellectual life, Flavius Aetius can equally be described as the last of the great western Roman generals.  Gibbons called him the Last of the Romans.

 

      Only three years after Chalons on September 21, 454, Aetius was assassinated by Valentinian.  Within the year, Valentinian would in turn be assassinated by friends of Aetius while Valentinian’s guard watched; the members of the guard had been followers of Aetius.