Free Princesses Behaving Badly by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie Page A

to be the docile wife of a yes-man in service to her brother, Emperor Valentinian III, she sat down to write a letter. To Attila the Hun. Seeking help from Rome’s worst enemy didn’t endear her to the emperor. And it didn’t exactly solve her problem, either. But if the emperor thought hissister would take de facto banishment gracefully, he’d obviously forgotten who she was.
P RACTICING P ATIENCE
    Honoria was the daughter of strong-willed Galla Placidia Augusta, herself the daughter of the late Roman emperor Theodosius I, and Galla’s second husband, Constantinius III, emperor of the Western Roman Empire. About 424, Constantinius died, leaving Galla with two young children, 7-year-old Honoria and 6-year-old Valentinian, and a crisis of succession on her hands. By this time the Roman Empire was in deep trouble. External pressure from raiding barbarian hordes was fueling internal political combustion; the empire was already split in two and ruled by coemperors. Honoria grew up in an atmosphere of intrigue and uncertainty, witnessing her mother manipulate and bully those around her.
    Eventually, Galla’s faction prevailed, and Valentinian III was crowned emperor of the western half of the empire. Honoria was forced to live out her days in the dull but strategically important city of Ravenna. By order of her brother the emperor, she was forced into a life of Christian celibacy, a political rather than a pious decision, given that any man she married could lay claim to the empire. Adding insult to injury, Valentinian III was a “worthless man of pleasure,” according to one classicist, and by no means her intellectual equal. For Honoria, consignment to days of quiet desperation in a dead-end Roman village probably felt like a life sentence without parole. The situation became even less tolerable when Valentinian married and had two daughters, who quickly began to eclipse her in political importance.
    In 449, Honoria’s frustration reached a breaking point. Now 31 years old—about the same age as her mother when her second husband died—she became romantically involved with a man named Eugenius, steward of her estates. According to some less-than-kind, and probably less-than-accurate, biographers, Honoria plotted with Eugenius to murder her brother and seize the throne. It’s likely this accusation was a meritless effort on the part of a few Christian historians to cast Honoria as a ruthless grasper; how such a scheme could have succeeded is unclear. But engagingin unapproved sex with an imperial princess was considered high treason, and when the relationship was found out, Eugenius was executed.
H EY , H UN
    Honoria was sentenced to a kind of living death: her lover murdered, she was banished to Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, and betrothed to a boring Roman senator loyal to her brother. Unsurprisingly, Honoria was not pleased. And that was when she pulled out her stationery set and started writing. Her plan was to hitch her wagon to a man with a track record of success.
    Leader of the Huns since murdering his brother in 445, Attila was the most threatening of the barbarian invaders who had been eating away at the Roman Empire. The Western Roman Empire, under Honoria’s brother, was ready to fight him, but the East—where Honoria now resided—was somewhat more obsequious. They’d already tried, unsuccessfully, to pay off the Hun to avoid an invasion. Taking her cue from the eastern court, Honoria asked Attila to “avenge her marriage,” as fifth-century historian John of Antioch put it; her letter, conveyed by her trusty eunuch Hyacinthus, was accompanied by money and a ring.
    Attila eagerly agreed. This was his big chance to take a bite out of the Roman Empire and do it without too much trouble. Whatever Honoria promised him is unknown, but Attila claimed that she offered her hand in marriage. Producing the ring as evidence, he demanded half the Western Roman Empire as dowry from Theodosius