Honorius Flavius
384 – 423 · Generation XIX · Western emperor (r. AD 395–423)
Honorius (AD 384 – AD 423). Western emperor (r. AD 395–423). Rome was sacked in 410 while he sheltered behind the marshes of Ravenna; he died childless. For years the real defence of the West rested on Stilicho, the general of part-Vandal descent who married both his daughters to the young emperor in turn and repeatedly turned Alaric’s Visigoths back from Italy. In 408 Honorius was persuaded the general was plotting against him and had him executed; the purge that followed slaughtered the families of Stilicho’s federate soldiers, driving them en masse into Alaric’s camp — the road to the catastrophe that followed. It was Honorius who moved the court from Milan to well-defended Ravenna when Alaric first entered Italy, and Honorius who reputedly wrote to Britain’s cities telling them to see to their own defence. Late in the reign his general Constantius restored a measure of order, and a treaty of 418 settled the Visigoths in southwestern Gaul.
Parents
- Theodosius I the Great (347 – 395)
- Aelia Flaccilla (356 – 386)
Siblings
- Arcadius Flavius (377 – 408)
- Galla Placidia (392 – 450) (half)