Placidia had borne to Constantius two children, Placidus Valentinianus and Justa Grata Honoria, both of them a curse to the empire. Constantius indeed had extorted from Honorius his being acknowledged as Augustus; but he died immediately after, even before Honorius, at whose death Placidus was a boy of not more than four years old, and therefore not capable of taking to himself the throne. Arcadius also was already dead, and his rule was nominally in the hands of his very youthful son, Theodosius II., who his whole life long never became his own master, but really was in those of Pulcheria, the new emperor’s sister: thus the East was very badly governed. Galla Placidia fled with her children to Constantinople; but before succours arrived from thence, the government was seized by a usurper, Johannes, the first emperor with a Christian name.[73] He reigned two years. Theodosius, on the other hand, bestowed the crown on his cousin, the boy Valentinian III., and sent two armies to Italy under Ardaburius and Aspar, both of whom were Isaurians. This undertaking did not succeed at first, the fleet having been scattered by a storm; but Aspar advanced unresisted through Illyricum, which seems to have returned again beneath the sovereignty of the emperor, and Johannes was deserted by his troops, and Placidus[74] Valentinian proclaimed emperor. His mother Placidia now governed the West, in a way which indeed was not much to her credit, though things became worse after her death in the middle of the century, when her son ruled alone. Rome was then richer in distinguished men than it had been in the times of the better emperors; above all are the names of Boniface and Aëtius, neither of whom could have outvied the other without causing the fall of the empire. Who Boniface was, is little known: he seems to have been an Italian. Aëtius was from Scythia, that is to say, Lower Mœsia, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Silistria, and of Latin blood, notwithstanding his Greek name: his father was a man of rank who lost his life owing to treachery, or some tyrannical act of Alaric. The age of Aëtius cannot exactly be ascertained: he must have been between fifty and sixty, or more than sixty when he died; for as a young man he was with Alaric and the Huns as a hostage, and often afterwards as an ambassador: he commanded their respect, being their equal in bravery, and yet having the advantage of superior civilization as well. He was an extraordinary man, and those who were in power ought to have allowed him to have his own way; just as the Athenian people did Alcibiades: but he was by no means without blemish, and he behaved unjustly and spitefully towards Boniface, by which he brought the empire into great trouble. His influence over Placidia and Valentinian being unbounded, he got Boniface, who was governor (_comes_) of Africa, recalled, and summoned to Ravenna where the court then was. As Boniface had to expect to lose