Valentinian III killed in the Campus Martius
The Chronicle of Marcellinus Comes records under the consulship of Valentinian (for the eighth time) and Anthemius (AD 455) that the emperor Valentinian, through the guile of the patrician Maximus, was cut down in the Campus Martius by Optila and Thraustila, retainers of Aetius, after the eunuch Heraclius had already been struck down.
Limits: A Latin chronicle written at Constantinople c. 518-534, used through Mommsen's 1894 edition (MGH AA 11) as Internet Archive OCR text (page images not checked); the English is an AI working translation. The consular heading reads 'VALENTINIANI VHI' (OCR for VIII). The line-break hyphen 'Thrau- stilam' is read as Thraustilam. Mommsen's apparatus gives variant spellings of the two killers' names (e.g. 'ostilam' and 'traustilam' in S). His note at the foot of the page gives '455 = Iordanes R. 334', a parallel in Jordanes, who depends on Marcellinus; the parallel Greek column on the page also enters Valentinian's killing in Rome under this year.
- Read through an AI working translation.
Source: Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon (Latin), ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH Auctores antiquissimi 11 (Chronica minora II), 1894Read the source