Thermantia

Aemilia Materna Thermantia (died 415) was the second Empress consort of Honorius, Western Roman Emperor.

Family

She was a daughter of Stilicho, magister militum of the Western Roman Empire, and Serena. Thermantia was a sister of Eucherius and Maria. "De Consulatu Stilichonis" by Claudian reports that her unnamed paternal grandfather was a cavalry officer under Valens, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. Orosius clarifies that her paternal grandfather was a Romanized Vandal. The fragmentary chronicle of John of Antioch, a 7th-century monk tentatively identified with John of the Sedre, Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch from 641 to 648 calls the grandfather a Scythian, probably following Late Antiquity practice to dub any people inhabiting the Pontic–Caspian steppe as "Scythians", regardless of their language. Jerome calls Stilicho a semi-barbarian, which has been interpreted to mean that Thermantia's unnamed paternal grandmother was a Roman. Both were sons of Count Theodosius and an elder Thermantia, as clarified in the "Historia Romana" by Paul the Deacon.

Empress

Her sister Maria having died some time before, Thermantia became the second wife of Honorius in 408. Her marriage was reported by Zosimus. Zosimus reports that both Honorius and Serena sought this marriage while Stilicho "appeared not to approve of the match". Zosimus considers both sisters to have died as virgins.

"Thus if Arsacius and Tarentius, the two eunuchs, had not hastened to bring Eucherius, the son of Stilico, from those quarters to Rome to be executed according to the command of the emperor, the youth would certainly have fallen into the hands of Alaric, and would have been saved. The eunuchs having fulfilled the injunctions laid on them to that effect, and having delivered Thermantia, the wife of Honorius, to her mother, went by sea to the emperor in Gallia Celtica, where he then resided, because they were not able to go to him by the same way they had come. For these reasons, the emperor conceiving that he should render good service to the common-wealth by rewarding these two eunuchs for their great exploits in restoring Thermantia to her mother, and in putting to death Eucherius, appointed Tarentius imperial chamberlain, and gave the next post under him to Arsacius. Having then cut off Bathanarius, who was commander of the troops in the greater Libya, and had married the sister of Stilicho, he gave that command to Heraclianus, the person who had killed Stilicho, and who received this honour as the recompense of his action."

Death

Thermantia is reported to have returned to the custody of her mother in 408. During the prolonged siege of Rome by Alaric, Serena was falsely accused of conspiring with the Visigoths and executed with the approval of her paternal first cousin Galla Placidia. Zosimus does not mentioned the role of Thermantia in the affair. Zosimus was a Pagan and attributes the execution of Serena to divine punishment, for Serena had desecrated a temple of Rhea back in 394. An old woman, the last of the Vestal Virgins, had reportedly placed a curse on Serena and her family.

"When Alaric was near Rome, besieging its inhabitants, the senate suspected Serena of bringing the Barbarians against their city. The whole senate therefore, with Placidia, uterine sister to the emperor, thought it proper that she should suffer death, for being the cause of the present calamity. They observed, that "Alaric, upon Serena being removed, will retire from the city, because no person will remain by whom he can hope the town to be betrayed into his hands." This suspicion was in reality groundless, as Serena never had any such intentions. ... However, the death of Serena did not remove Alaric from the siege, but he blocked up the gates all round, and having possessed himself of the river Tiber, prevented the arrival of necessaries from the port to the city".

The Chronicon Paschale records that news of Thermantia's death reached Constantinople on 30 July 415. She had presumably died months earlier. Her husband never remarried. Honorius died childless in 423.