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Updated: June 20, 2025
And upon considering this matter, it seemed to him that it was the better course to put Aetius out of the way first, paying no heed to the fact that the whole hope of the Romans centred in him. And since the eunuchs who were in attendance upon the emperor were well-disposed toward him, he persuaded the emperor by their devices that Aetius was setting on foot a revolution.
About the time that Genseric became king, the governor of the Roman province in the north of Africa, on the Mediterranean coast, was a man called Count Boniface. This Count Boniface had been a good and loyal officer of Rome; but a plot was formed against him by Aetius, the general who had fought Attila at Chalons.
Aetius was the sole guardian of the public safety; but his wisest measures were embarrassed by a faction which, since the death of Placidia, infested the imperial palace; the youth of Italy trembled at the sound of the trumpet; and the barbarians, who, from fear or affection, were inclined to the cause of Attila, awaited with doubtful and venal faith the event of the war.
Attila commanded his centre in person, at the head of his own countrymen, while the Ostrogoths, the Gepidæ, and the other subject allies of the Huns were drawn up on the wings. Some manoeuvring appears to have occurred before the engagement, in which Aetius had the advantage, inasmuch as he succeeded in occupying a sloping hill which commanded the left flank of the Huns.
Boniface sent to Gonderic, king of the Vandals in Spain, who, after the retreat of the Visigoths, were strong in that country, an offer of an alliance. Genseric, the Vandal leader, the brother and successor of Gonderic, landed in Africa in 429 with fifty thousand men. Too late the treachery of Aetius was explained to Boniface.
"You hear what he says, Martina, and the Emperor shall hear it too; aye, and so shall my ministers, Stauracius and Aetius, who supported him in this matter. I alone withstood him; I prayed him for his soul's sake to be merciful. He answered that he would no longer be governed by a woman; that he knew how to safeguard his empire, and what conscience should allow and what refuse.
His appointments were Arianizing, and he gave deep offence by the ordination of his old disciple, the detested Aetius. So great was the outcry that Leontius was forced to suspend him. The opposition was led by two ascetic laymen, Flavian and Diodorus, who both became distinguished bishops in later time.
But the impatience of the barbarians soon disdained these cautious and dilatory measures; and the mature policy of Aetius was apprehensive that, after the extirpation of the Huns, the republic would be oppressed by the pride and power of the Gothic nation.
The Roman generals, Bonifacius, Aetius, AEgidius, Syagrius, at one time fought the barbarians, at another negotiated with such and such of them, either to entice them to take service against other barbarians, or to promote the objects of personal ambition, for the Roman generals also, under the titles of patrician, consul, or proconsul, aspired to and attained a sort of political independence, and contributed to the dismemberment of the empire in the very act of defending it.
Two great generals who were really able men were her chief supporters Boniface, Count or Commander of Africa; and Aëtius, who is sometimes called the last of the Romans, though he was not by birth a Roman at all, but a Scythian.
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