Galla Placidia, daughter of the Roman emperor Theodosius I, was a mother, tutor, and advisor to emperor Valentinian III. She was queen consort to Ataulf, King of the Visigoths from 414 until his death in 415, briefly empress consort to Constantius III in 421, and managed the government administration as a regent during the early reign of Valentinian III until her death.
The 420s decade ran from January 1, 420, to December 31, 429.
Valentinian III was Roman emperor in the West from 425 to 455. Starting in childhood, his reign over the Roman Empire was one of the longest, but was dominated by civil wars among powerful generals and the invasions of late antiquity's Migration Period.
Flavius Aetius was a Roman general and statesman of the closing period of the Western Roman Empire. He was a military commander and the most influential man in the Empire for two decades (433–454). He managed policy in regard to the attacks of barbarian federates settled throughout the West. Notably, he mustered a large Roman and allied (foederati) army in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, ending an invasion of Gaul by Attila in 451, though the Hun and his subjugated allies still managed to invade Italy the following year, an incursion best remembered for the Sack of Aquileia and the intercession of Pope Leo I. In 454, he was assassinated by the emperor Valentinian III.
Constantius III was briefly Western Roman emperor in 421, having earned the throne through his capability as a general under Honorius. By 411 he had achieved the rank of magister militum, and in the same year he suppressed the revolt of the usurper Constantine III. Constantius went on to lead campaigns against various barbarian groups in Hispania and Gaul, recovering much of both for the Western Roman Empire. He married Honorius's sister Galla Placidia in 417, a sign of his ascendant status, and was proclaimed co-emperor by Honorius on 8 February 421. Constantius reigned for seven months before dying on 2 September 421.
Gallia Belgica was a province of the Roman Empire located in the north-eastern part of Roman Gaul, in what is today primarily northern France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, along with parts of the Netherlands and Germany.
Chlodio, also Clodio, Clodius, Clodion, Cloio or Chlogio, was a Frankish king who attacked and then apparently ruled Roman-inhabited lands around Cambrai and Tournai, near the modern border of Belgium and France. He is known from very few records.
The Salian Franks, also called the Salians, were a northwestern subgroup of the early Franks who appear in the historical record in the fourth and fifth centuries. They lived west of the Lower Rhine in what was then the Roman Empire and today the Netherlands and Belgium.
Ripuarian or Rhineland Franks were one of the two main groupings of early Frankish people, and specifically it was the name eventually applied to the tribes who settled in the old Roman territory of the Ubii, with its capital at Cologne on the Rhine river in modern Germany. Their western neighbours were the Salii, or "Salian Franks", who were named already in late Roman records, and settled with imperial permission within the Roman Empire in what is today the southern part of the Netherlands, and Belgium, and later expanded their influence into the northern part of France north of the Loire river, creating the Frankish empire of Francia.
Bonifatius was a Roman general and governor of the diocese of Africa. He campaigned against the Visigoths in Gaul and the Vandals in North Africa. An ally of Galla Placidia, mother and advisor of Valentinian III, Bonifacius engaged in Roman civil wars on her behalf against the generals Felix in 427-429 and Aetius in 432. Although he defeated the latter at the Battle of Rimini, Bonifacius suffered a fatal wound and was succeeded by his son-in-law Sebastianus as patricius of the Western Roman Empire.
The Franks were a group of several related Germanic peoples who originally inhabited the northern and eastern banks of the fortified Roman border (Limes) along the northernmost stretches of the river Rhine. The Romans only began to refer to these tribes as Franks in the third century AD. In the fourth century the Roman also began to distinguish tribes further north with another new collective term "Saxons", although there are signs that the terms Frank, Saxon were not always mutually exclusive in the earliest period. The Franks lived for centuries under Roman hegemony, as the long-term neighbours of Germania Inferior, which was the most northerly Roman province in continental Europe, and contained much of what is now the Netherlands, the German Rhineland, and Belgium. Over centuries, the Romans recruited large numbers of Frankish soldiers, some of whom achieved high imperial rank.
Goar was a leader of the Alans in 5th-century Gaul. Around the time that the Vandals and other Alans under Respendial crossed the Rhine in 405 or 406, Goar's band of Alans quickly joined the Romans, and subsequently played a role in the internal politics of Gaul.
The crossing of the Rhine River by a mixed group of barbarians which included Vandals, Alans and Suebi is traditionally considered to have occurred on the last day of the year 406. The crossing transgressed one of the Late Roman Empire's most secure limites or boundaries; as such, it has been considered a climactic moment in the decline of the Empire. It initiated a wave of destruction of Roman cities and the collapse of Roman civic order in northern Gaul. That, in turn, occasioned the rise of three usurpers in succession in the province of Britannia. Therefore, the crossing of the Rhine is a marker date in the Migration Period during which various Germanic tribes moved westward and southward from southern Scandinavia and northern Germania.
Ascaric or Ascarich was an early Frankish war leader, who, along with his co-leader, Merogais, are the earliest known leaders explicitly called Frankish, although the name of the Franks is earlier.
The Kingdom of the Burgundians, or First Kingdom of Burgundy, was established by Germanic Burgundians in the Rhineland and then in eastern Gaul in the 5th century.
The Gothic revolt of Theodoric I was an uprising of the Gothic Foederati in Aquitaine during the regime of Emperor Valentinian III (425-455). That rebellion was led by Theodoric I, King of the Visigoths and took place in the South of France. The uprising took place between 425 and 426, in the period shortly after the death of usurpator John and was terminated by a military operation under the command of Aëtius.
The Frankish War was a short military conflict between the Frankish people and the West Roman Empire under Emperor Valentinian III. In this conflict, it can only be said with certainty that the Roman general Aetius was involved in it. The presence of King Chlodio of the Salians as captain of the Franks is an assumption and is not confirmed by contemporary sources. The war ended in a Roman victory.
The Frankish War of 431–432 was a short war between the Franks and the Western Roman Empire under Emperor Valentinian III. Like the previous Frankish war, the Roman army was led by the Roman general Aetius and the participation of Chlodio, the king of the Salian Franks is uncertain. The war ended in a Roman victory after which both sides agreed to a peace treaty.
Frankish War (441–446) was a multi-year military conflict in the provinces of Germania II and Belgica I during the reign of Emperor Valentinian. In addition to the Western Roman Empire, the two tribal associations of the Franks were involved: the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks. The main players in this conflict were Flavius Aetius and Chlodio.
The Frankish invasion of 388 was an armed conflict in northern Gaul and in free Germania east of the Rhine. A Frankish raid in 388 led to a short-lived war with the Western Roman Empire. Under the leadership of three rulers, groups of Franks crossed the Rhine border and invaded northern Gaul to plunder. The Roman response was not long in coming and resulted in a punitive expedition that was conducted deep into Frankish soil.
