VALENTINIAN III (Placidius Valentinianus), the son of Constantius III and Placidia, was declared Caesar by Theodosius II in A.D.424, when he was about five or six years old. The following year he was elevated to the rank of Augustus under the regency of his mother Galla Placidia, who received the title of Augusta. In A.D.437, Valentinian III, then eighteen years old, went to Constantinople to marry Licinia Eudoxia, the daughter of Theodosius II. During his long reign the dissolution of the Western Empire steadily continued. Theodoric, King of the Goths, laid siege to Arles (Arelate), Richila, King of the Suevi, took Merida in Spain, Attila, King of the Huns caused great trouble in Italy, but the greatest disaster was the loss of Africa to the Vandals when, led by their king, Genseric, they seized Carthage.
During the early years of Valentinian III's reign the government fell under the control of the great general Aetius who was victorious over the Huns at the famous battle of Mauriacus, but, fearing the general's power and influence, Valentinian murdered him in cold blood (A.D.354). The following year Valentinian III was himself murdered, the victim of a plot by the senator Petronius Maximus, who had accused him of violating his wife.
Valentinian III left two daughters, Eudocia, who was married to Hunneric, King of the Vandals, and Placidia, who was married to Anicius Olybrius, but there are no extant coins for either of them.
