Galla Placidia: Part 2

Read Part I

After her husband was killed in 415 AD, Galla Placidia found herself widowed in a foreign land, caught in the power struggles of the Visigothic court. The new ruler, Sigeric, treated her cruelly. He humiliated her by forcing her to march on foot for miles, reportedly behind his horse and alongside other captives. It was a public display meant to degrade an imperial Roman woman before Gothic eyes.

But Sigeric’s reign was short-lived. After just seven days, he was assassinated, and a more moderate leader took control. Under his leadership, Galla was finally returned to Roman territory as part of a diplomatic agreement that included prisoner exchanges and the provision of grain. In early 416 AD, after nearly six years among the Visigoths, Galla came back to the Roman world.

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On the surface, Rome still looked as glorious as she remembered. Its temples and arches, the marble colonnades and crumbling palaces - these remnants of grandeur could still inspire awe. But the splendor was largely an illusion. Beneath the majestic façade lay a crumbling empire, falling desperately into ruin due to poor leadership.

The Western Roman Empire was now a brittle fragment of what it had been in her youth. The sack of Rome in 410 AD by Alaric and the Visigoths not only marked a military and political failure but also shattered the psychological belief in Roman invincibility. The city, long thought eternal, had been breached. And that moment, combined with Rome’s official abandonment of Britain in the same year, signaled a turning point, marking the first visible fracture in the empire’s once-global reach. Though the city remained revered, its influence waned.