Galla Placidia

Galla Placidia was the daughter of Theodosius I, half-sister of Honorius and one of the most influential women of the late western Roman Empire. Captured during the sack of Rome, she married the Visigothic king Ataulf and later the Roman general Constantius III.

Their son became Valentinian III, and Placidia governed as regent during his minority. She supported churches and court politics at Ravenna but struggled with the rivalry between the generals Aetius and Bonifatius. Galla Placidia was born in Constantinople and died in Rome.

In Ian Hughes’ Constantius III, the return of Galla Placidia from the Visigoths led to her marriage to Constantius and linked military recovery with dynastic politics. In Ben Kane’s Rome, in AD 410, twenty-year-old Galla Placidia lives at the court of her half-brother, Emperor Honorius, but has little control over the decisions shaping the Western Roman Empire. Galla Placidia is treated fictionally in Faith L. Justice’s The Theodosian Women Omnibus and Faith L. Justice’s Twilight Empress.