Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome, Episode 174, the sack of Rome, Part 2.

Last time, we left off with the assassination of Valentini in the Third, last of the Theodotians,

and the subsequent elevation of Petronius Maximus, first of the so-called Shadow Emperors,

those pale imitations who bickered over an ever-shrinking imperial pie in the last days of the Western Empire.

Petronius Maximus would get this terminal phase started in fine style by raining for just 77 days in 455 AD,

his major accomplishment, provoking the vandals to sack Rome.

We are indeed a long way from the golden age of the Antonines.

Maximus' problem was that he didn't really have any inherent imperial legitimacy.

He had killed the previous emperor and had spread some bribes around, but that was really all he had going for him.

So as I mentioned last week, he forced the Emperor's widow, Lysinia Eudoxia, to marry him.

After all, she was not just the wife of the late Western Emperor Valentini in the Third,

she was also the daughter of the late Eastern Emperor Theodotius II.

So she was just oozing legitimacy.

And marrying her was not only practical, it was kind of necessary given the circumstances.

But Maximus was not content to stop there.

He wanted to firmly intertwine his own family with the Theodotians and spawn a new dynasty.

So Maximus named his son Caesar, and then married the boy to Valentinian and Lysinia Eudoxia's eldest daughter,

she now 15-year-old Eudoxia the younger.

Except that if you'll recall, her hand had already been promised to the vandal prince, Huniric.

This wedding had not yet taken place, but neither had it ever been called off.

Maximus obviously thought that with Valentinian dead, he could start rearranging dynast marriages as he saw fit.

But, well, King Gensaric did not take kindly to the change in plans.

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