the CAMPVS

On this day in 460, Aelia Eudo­cia, wife of the emperor Theo­do­sius II, died in Jerusalem (see here and here).

In addi­tion to being Augusta, Eudo­cia, the daugh­ter of the Athen­ian sophist Leon­tius, was a poet who wrote about Roman mil­i­tary vic­to­ries over Per­sia, a poem about the mar­tyr­dom of Cyprian, a para­phrase of part of the Old Tes­ta­ment, and cen­tones com­posed of Home­ric verses (which, along with the poem on Cyprian, survive).

Sep­tem­ber 27^th is the anniver­sary of Theoderic’s defeat of Odovacer at the Bat­tle of Verona in 489:

Odovacer must have known for some time of Theoderic’s advance, and his send­ing of a vic­tory lega­tion to Zeno after his defeat of the Rugians in 487 implies a desire to con­cil­i­ate him, while the accep­tance in the East of Odovacer’s nom­i­nee as con­sul in 490 may indi­cate that his star had not set as far as Con­stan­tino­ple was con­cerned. He is described as hav­ing called forth all the nations against Theoderic, so many kings com­ing to fight with him that their sol­diers could scarcely be sup­ported. The iden­tity of these kings is unknown, but any help they may have given was not evi­dent when Theoderic appeared at the river Isonzo to the east of Aquileia on 28 August, for Odovacer, per­haps alarmed at the size of Theoderic’s forces, retreated, pos­si­bly before bat­tle had been joined. He made his way to Verona where, on 27 Sep­tem­ber, he pre­pared a for­ti­fied camp. Verona was prob­a­bly a pre­dictable site, for, located as it was at the junc­tion of the viae Clau­dia Augusta, Gal­lica, and Posthu­mia, it was a key cen­tre for the defence of Italy, and was sub­se­quently to become impor­tant to Theoderic for this rea­son. But Odovacer was quickly fol­lowed, and Enn­odius describes Theoderic on the night before the bat­tle look­ing at the fires of his ene­mies, which shone like stars. But he knew no fear, and the next morn­ing, when his mother and sis­ter, tossed between hope and fear, came to see him, he sup­plied reas­sur­ance: it was a true man (vir) to whom his mother had given birth, and on that day he was going to show him­self a man; the glo­ries won by his ances­tors would not per­ish through him! He asked the women to bring his best clothes, such as would make him more eas­ily rec­og­nized, and on a field b y the River Adige bat­tle was joined. Both sides sus­tained heavy losses, but Odovacer was finally obliged to quit the field, leav­ing vic­tory to Theoderic. The field was cov­ered with bod­ies; some 18 years later Enn­odius com­plained that hun­gry cat­tle were destroy­ing evi­dence of the vic­tory pro­vided by the bones that still lay there. Odovacer fled, almost cer­tainly to Ravenna. (John Moor­head, Theoderic in Italy, pp. 21–2)

Today, Sep­tem­ber 23^rd, is the anniver­sary of the birth of the Roman emperor Augus­tus in 63 BC dur­ing the con­sul­ship of Cicero. Sue­to­nius includes the date of his birth in his Life:

[5] Natus est Augus­tus M. Tul­lio Cicerone C. Anto­nio conss. XIIII. Kal. Octob., paulo ante solis exor­tum, regione Palati, ad Capita bubulo, ubi nunc sacrar­ium habet, ali­quanto post quam exces­sit con­sti­tu­tum. Nam ut sen­a­tus actis con­tine­tur, cum C. Lae­to­rius, adulscens patricii generis, in dep­re­canda grav­iore adul­terii poena praeter aetatem atque natales hoc quoque patribus con­scrip­tis alle­garet, esse pos­ses­sorem ac velut aed­i­tuum soli, quod pri­mum Divus Augus­tus nascens attigis­set, peteretque donari quasi pro­prio suo ac pecu­liari deo, decre­tum est ut ea pars domus consecrareur.

Sep­tem­ber 21^st or 22^nd, 454, was the date on which the Roman gen­eral Flav­ius Aetius was assas­si­nated, after the defeat of Attila and the Huns:

The most imme­di­ate effect of the col­lapse of the Huns was that the emperor Valen­tin­ian III, thirty-​​five years old in 454, felt no fur­ther need of Aetius. Aetius him­self woul seem to have sensed this, since in that year he pressed the emperor into a mar­riage alliance. Aetius’ son Gau­den­tius was to marry Valentinian’s daugh­ter Placidia. Since Valen­tin­ian had no son, this would have rein­forced Aeitius’ polit­i­cal pre-​​eminence by mak­ing his son Valentinian’s likely suc­ces­sor. Valen­tin­ian, how­ever, resented the move, and there were other west­ern politi­cians wh ochafed under Aetius’ long-​​standing pre­dom­i­nance, not least the sen­a­tor Petro­n­ius Max­imus who encour­aged the emperor to act. Valen­tin­ian assas­si­nated Aetius per­son­ally, we are told, on 21 or 22 Sep­tem­ber 454. Valen­tin­ian him­self was mur­dered the next March by two of Aetius’ body­guards. The dis­ap­pear­ance from the scene of Aeitius, Valen­tin­ian and, above all, Attila marked the open­ing of a new (and final) era in the his­tory of the Roman west. (Peter Heather in Cam­bridge Ancient His­tory vol. 14 (2000), p. 18)