Aetius

Flavius Aëtius rose from the unstable politics of the early fifth century to become the dominant general of the Western Roman Empire. His youth as a hostage among the Goths and Huns gave him unusual knowledge of peoples who could serve as allies, recruits or enemies. Hughes follows his involvement in civil conflict, his consolidation of power under Valentinian III and his attempts to preserve Roman authority in Gaul while North Africa was lost to Gaiseric’s Vandals.

The biography culminates in Attila’s invasion of Gaul and the coalition battle on the Catalaunian Plains in 451, before examining Aëtius’s murder by Valentinian III three years later. Rather than presenting him simply as ‘the last of the Romans’, the book assesses the compromises behind his success: reliance on federate armies, personal diplomacy and a command system that could not easily survive the death of the commander who held it together.