Placidia the Younger
440 – 484 · Generation XXII · Valentinian · Theodosian
Placidia (AD 440 – AD 484). Married Olybrius around AD 455. Through her marriage the Theodosian blood reached its last emperor. A daughter of Valentinian III and Licinia Eudoxia, born by estimate between 439 and 443, she took her name from her grandmother Galla Placidia. Her father had first meant to marry her to the future emperor Majorian, while the general Aetius pushed for a betrothal to his younger son Gaudentius. When the Vandal king Gaiseric seized Rome in 455, he carried her, her mother and her sister Eudocia off to Carthage. Six or seven years of captivity ended when the eastern emperor Leo I ransomed her in 461 or 462; Constantinople was apparently her home thereafter. During Olybrius’s few months on the western throne in 472 she stayed there with their daughter. That only known child, Anicia Juliana, lived at the Constantinople court, reputed exceptionally rich and well born. Last mentioned around 484, she is probably the final western empress known to us by name.
One of 18 people of Valentinian · Theodosian (321–493) in this archive. The last house to rule both halves of the empire at once.
Line of descent: Gratianus Funarius → Valentinian I Flavius → Galla Flavia → Galla Placidia → Valentinian III Placidus → Placidia the Younger.
Parents
- Valentinian III Placidus (419 – 455)
- Licinia Eudoxia (422 – 493)
Partners
- Married Olybrius Anicius (430 – 472) in 455
Life
- 440 — Born
- 455 — Married Olybrius
- 484 — Died