425 - Valentinian III is elevated as Roman Emperor, at the age of 6.

Historical Event on this Day in History

Flavius Placidius Valentinianus (July 2, 419 – March 16, 455), known in English as Valentinian III, was among the last Western Roman Emperors (425-455).

After the death of his father in 421, Valentinian followed his mother and his sister (Justa Grata Honoria) to Constantinople, when Galla Placidia broke with her half-brother, Emperor Honorius, and went to live at the court of Theodosius II.

In 423, Honorius died, and the usurper Joannes took the power in Rome. To counter this menace, Theodosius nominated Valentinian Caesar of the west (October 23, 424), and betrothed him to his own daughter Licinia Eudoxia (Valentinian would marry her in 437). In 425, after Joannes had been defeated in war, Valentinian was installed Western Emperor in Rome, on October 23, at the age of six.

Given his minority, the new Augustus ruled under the control first of his mother, and then, after 433, of the Magister militum Flavius Aëtius. Valentinian's reign is marked by the dismemberment of the Western Empire; the conquest of the province of Africa by the Vandals in 439; the loss of great portions of Spain and Gaul, in which the barbarians had established themselves; and the ravaging of Sicily and of the western coasts of the Mediterranean Sea by the fleets of Geiseric.

As an off-set against these calamities, there was the great victory of Roman general Aëtius over Attila the Hun in 451 near Chalons. Aëtius had also campaigned successfully against the Visigoths in southern Gaul (426, 429, 436), and against various invaders on the Rhine and Danube (428-431).