82 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE time the Burgundians established a kingdom in territory granted to them on the Rhone. It may be worth while to pause for a paragraph to con- sider the period of invasions from a woman's experience, Galla especially since the ladies of the imperial family Placidia are frequently mentioned in the pages of the Greek historians of this time. Galla Placidia, the sister of Honorius, had a career that was both influential and full of adventure. She was at Rome when Alaric first besieged it, and she agreed with the senate at that time in executing Stilicho's widow on the charge of conspiracy with Alaric. When Alaric set up Attalus as anti-emperor, he kept Galla with him as a hostage, and his successor Ataulf carried her off to Gaul, where in 414 at Narbonne he married her. Their son died in infancy and his father was killed soon after. His first successor, who reigned only a week, humiliated the widowed queen by making her walk before his horse for twelve miles. The next year, when the Goths made their peace with Honorius, she was restored to her brother's court. He forced her to marry his general, Constantius, who be- came his colleague in 421. This Constantius III died that same year, however, and Placidia was again left a widow with a young son Valentinian and a daughter Honoria. For a time she seemed to overshadow her weak brother Hono- rius, but in 423 she and her children were banished to Constantinople. Honorius died before the year was out, however, and Theodosius II sent his aunt, Placidia, and cousin, Valentinian III, back to Italy with an army to secure them the throne against a rival whom their enemies had set up. Placidia ruled for her son until he came of age. Even then he proved of little account, like his cousin at Con- stantinople, whose learned and orthodox and ascetic court was dominated either by his wife or his sister, although he has perpetuated his name in the Theodosian Code. In 437 Valentinian married Theodosius' daughter. Galla Placidia, and her nephew Theodosius, died in 450, five years before the death of Valentinian. Her mausoleum at Ravenna, though small, is a notable example of early Christian archi-
