Gaudentius (son of Aëtius)

Gaudentius (c. 440 in Rome – after 455) was the son of Flavius Aetius. F. M. Clover has persuasively argued that his mother was Pelagia, a Gothic noblewoman and the widow of Bonifacius.^[1]

He was born in Rome, probably in 440, and was baptized before his first birthday. Scholars identify him as the unnamed subject of a poem of Flavius Merobaudes.^[2] In 454 his father and emperor Valentinian III arranged a marriage alliance, which included the marriage between Gaudentius and Placidia, but that year his father was killed by Valentinian himself.^[3] In 455, the Vandals sacked Rome; Gaundentius was one of the countless thousands made a prisoner and brought back to Africa. Gaiseric claimed that his following attacks to Italy were to recover Gaudentius's legacy.

Notes

1. F. M. Clover, "Flavius Merobaudes: a Translation and Historical Commentary", Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 61, No. 1 (1971), pp. 30 - 32
2. Clover, "Flavius Merobaudes", pp. 29f
3. Stewart I. Oost, Galla Placidia Augusta: a biographical essay (Chicago: University Press, 1968), p. 287

Further reading

• Arnold Hugh Martin Jones, John Robert Martindale, John Morris, "Gaudentius 7", The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, volume 2, Cambridge University Press, 1980, ISBN 0-521-20159-4, p. 494.