Placidia the Forgotten Roman Empress

The Smithosianian Magazine profiled the empress Placidia in a recent article titled “The Misunderstood Roman Empress Who Willed Her Way to the Top”.

I find their attempt to help us “understand” her to be a lot less interesting than the fact that she was apparently a distinctly Christian empress who God providentially placed at the fall of the Roman empire. St. Augustine wrote in his City of God an empassioned defense of Christians against Roman accusors who claimed that the misfortune that befell Rome was due to abandoning their Gods.

This article provides another perspective of that period of time. From the viewpoint of an apparently pious woman who it seems made an attempt to broker peace where she could.