The Misunderstood #RomanEmpress Who Willed Her Way to the Top

A fresh view of #GallaPlacidia, who married a barbarian and ruled when the world power fell into chaos

by Romy Blümel, January/February 2023

Excerpt: "It was around midnight that the cataclysm began. #Placidia would have heard distant sounds of Gothic horns and growing pandemonium around the Salarian Gate in the city’s northwest; not long afterward, flames could be seen rising from the nearby Gardens of Sallust.

"The Goths had breached the walls. The British-born monk Pelagius, who was also trapped in Rome that same night, used language that echoed the biblical vision of Judgment Day to convey the horror of the moment: 'Rome, the mistress of the world, shivered, crushed with fear, at the sound of the blaring trumpets and the howling of the Goths.'

"St. Jerome, when he heard the dreadful news from Roman refugees, captured the sense of shock: 'It is the end of the world!' he wrote. 'Words fail me; sobs prevent me from speaking. The city that once subjugated the world has been subjugated in its turn!'

"For Romans, it was the beginning of the end. But for Placidia, it was just one more twist in an astonishing life saga that could have inspired a subplot of 'Game of Thrones.' After the sack, the pampered and beautiful princess would be taken from her gilded palace as a prisoner of the Visigoths. Four years later, Placidia shocked Romans by marrying one of her captors. Then, by age 26, she was back in Italy, re-inventing herself to rule as the last empress of the Western Roman Empire.

"And yet, she has been treated mercilessly by historians, who have either vilified or ignored her for most of the last 1,500 years. This has left her today all but forgotten, even though the final decades of the Western world’s most enduring empire cannot be understood without her.
#Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Catherine the Great — to the roster of history’s unfairly maligned women leaders must be added the name of #GallaPlacidiaAugusta.

Although her name in Latin means
'placidity' or 'peace,' Placidia’s life was anything but; she experienced more adventures than Marie Antoinette and Amelia Earhart combined. Perhaps no other figure, male or female, enjoyed such an intimate view of the Western Roman Empire’s operatic death throes or influenced events for such a prolonged period. But the attacks on her reputation began not long after her death, with authors like Cassiodorus denouncing her rule as the nadir of Rome’s fortunes. Only in recent years have scholars gone back to read the contemporary sources with more objectivity, revealing Placidia as a far more sympathetic figure, a strong-willed leader with radical ideas on how to save the crumbling empire.

"It’s part of a general reassessment of her era, known as late antiquity, once dismissed as a gloomy saga of 'decline and fall' to the Middle Ages, including a fresh look at so-called #barbarians, who were far more sophisticated than Romans alleged.

" 'Placidia had an amazingly adventurous life,' explained Paola Novara, a scholar at the National Museum of Ravenna, who has written about Placidia’s legacy, including her influence on art and architecture throughout Europe. 'She was a hostage for years. She was married twice, to a Gothic king, then to Rome’s most powerful general. She had one child who died, another who became emperor. She must have been a very strong and powerful character. But there has long been a negative image of Placidia,' she continued. 'She was not a bad sovereign. She was brave and capable. In fact, Placidia was the last significant ruler of the Western Roman Empire. She managed it for 25 years!' "

Read more:
smithsonianmag.com/history/mis…

Archived version:
archive.ph/JPuze

#WomenRulers #RomanWomen #RomanHistory #FallOfRome #History #Histodon