Promotional Information

A soundly researched and elegantly written history of Rome's decline and one of its most important empresses. Joyce Salisbury successfully aims to provide a more complete picture of Galla Placidia by looking at politics, warfare, and theological controversy. Her multifaceted approach and impressive knowledge of Roman social and cultural history makes Rome's Christian Empress a significant contribution to Late Antique scholarship-and a pleasure to read. Salisbury deftly describes the political machinations of an Empire in decline and introduces her characters in very 'human' terms. Very few scholars could weave a narrative that incorporates the complexities of Hunnish travel, the methods of Late Antique midwifery, the political intrigue of the Theodosian court, and the theological struggles of Nestorianism within an emerging Christian orthodoxy. -- Mary F. Thurlkill, University of Mississippi

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Introduction
1. The "Most Noble" Princess
2. Orphan Princess in Stilicho's Shadow
3. Held Hostage by the Goths
4. Queen of the Visigoths
5. Wife and Mother in Ravenna
6. Empress of the Romans
7. The Empress Mother and Her Children
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Joyce E. Salisbury is professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She is the author of Perpetua's Passion: Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman and The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages.

Reviews

A useful, scholarly, and engaging examination of Placidia and late antiquity. Choice