Valentinian III Placidus
419 – 455 · Generation XXI · Western emperor (r. AD 425–455) · Valentinian · Theodosian
Valentinian III (AD 419 – AD 455). Western emperor (r. AD 425–455). Married Licinia around AD 437. Thirty years on the throne while the West crumbled; murdered the general Aetius with his own hand and was cut down by Aetius’s men within months. Real power sat elsewhere throughout — first with his mother Galla Placidia as regent, then with the general Aetius. The heaviest loss of the reign was Africa: Carthage fell to Gaiseric’s Vandals in 439, cutting off the taxes and grain that supported Rome, and treaties conceded the conquest. Revenue ran so short that new taxes reached even the senatorial class, and the emperor gave up part of his own income for the war effort. His sister Honoria brought Attila down on the West by offering him half the empire if he would rescue her from an arranged marriage; Aetius’s coalition checked the Huns at the Catalaunian Plains, and when Attila entered Italy in 452 Valentinian sent Pope Leo I among the envoys who helped persuade him to withdraw.
One of 16 people of Valentinian · Theodosian (321–462) 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.
Parents
- Constantius III Flavius (370 – 421)
- Galla Placidia (392 – 450)
Partners
- Married Licinia Eudoxia (422 – 462) in 437 — one child together
Children
- Placidia the Younger (440 – 480)
Life
- 419 — Born
- 437 — Married Licinia
- 455 — Died