Le triomphe d’Honorius sur l’usurpateur et ancien sénateur Attale a probablement été célébré en 417, année du consulat du patrice Constance (qui venait d’épouser la demi-sœur d’Honorius et veuve d’Athaulf Galla Placidia), sans doute en présence de Constance et de Galla et avec le parcours « sécularisé » depuis Constantin. Il a été marqué par un châtiment sans précédent infligé à l’usurpateur, l’amputation de deux doigts de la main droite. Mais la vie de celui-ci a été épargnée, ce qui s’inscrit dans la politique de clémence et d’union d’Honorius. Le triomphe ne peut célébrer une victoire militaire sur Attale mais l’exhibition de celui-ci symbolise le renouveau de l’Empire et de la Ville de Rome, la restauration de celle-ci et sa croissance démographique. Ce renouveau n’est pas le fait du « triomphateur » Honorius, qui ne fait que le mettre en scène, mais est dû, pour l’Empire à Constance, et pour la Ville à l’aristocratie sénatoriale. Le triomphe permet à Honorius de reconnaître et de soutenir la part de cette aristocratie dans ce renouveau. Il vise aussi à effacer le souvenir du sac de 410 et celui du mariage de Galla Placidia et d’Athaulf en 414, auquel Attale avait assisté, et qui, pour certains chrétiens, avait eu valeur de signe apocalyptique. L’union de Galla Placidia et d’un chef barbare aurait pu être porteuse d’un nouveau destin de l’Empire. Constance, célébré la même année par Rutilius Namatianus comme « l’unique sauveur du nom latin », apparaît comme l’homme fort du moment et l’incarnation du salut de l’Empire, en contrepoint à lui seul à la fois du « traître » Stilicon et de l’« époux barbare » Athaulf.
Honorius’s triumph over Attalus, the usurper and former senator (supported in 409-410 by Alaric, and by Athaulf in 414-415), was probably celebrated in 417 – as Prosper Tiro wrote in the Chronicon (and not in 416, as suggested by the communis opinio since Otto Seeck) – the year when began the consulate of Constantius (who had just married Honorius’s stepsister and Athaulf’s widow, Galla Placidia), and probably in the presence of Constantius and Galla. Known especially through Philostorgius, Historia ecclesiastica, XII, 5, Nikephoros Kallistos, Historia ecclesiastica, XIII, 35, and Prosper Tiro, Chronicon, 1263, while others are undoubtedly also worth mentioning – Orosius, VII, 42, 5, Marcellinus Comes, a. 412 – it probably took place, whatever was said about it, in accordance with its traditional forms (without christianizing the route, and without the calcatio colli, i.e. without the emperor trampling on the loser’s head), and was marked by a specific punishment inflicted on the usurper: the amputation of two right hand fingers. Nevertheless, the latter’s life was spared, as part of Honorius’s clemency and union policies, which Nikephoros Kallistos and the legislation especially bear witness to (CTh, XV, 14, 14). The triumph cannot celebrate a military victory on Attalus, who was captured while trying to flee, but the latter’s exhibition embodies the resurgence of the Empire and the City of Rome, the restoration of the City and of its population growth, which required an increase in its goods supplies, as required by the City’s prefect. Such resurgence is not to be ascribed to the “triumphant” Honorius, who only dramatized it, but to Constantius in the Empire, and to the senatorial aristocracy in the City. The triumph enabled Honorius to acknowledge and support the part played by this aristocracy in this resurgence, as very well shown by Philostorgius, even though a great number of aristocrats had supported the work of an Attalus, who had twice portrayed himself as championing the restoration of the Roman magnificence. He also aimed at erasing not only the memory of Alaric’s 410 ransacking but also of Galla Placidia’s and Athaulf’s wedding in Narbonne in 414, which Attalus had attended, and which had been considered by some Christians as an apocalyptic sign, in reference to the Book of Daniel, 11, 6. The usurper’s name could have been linked to these two events; and Galla Placidia’s union with a barbaric leader could have been the harbinger of a new destiny for the Empire, such as represented, for a short time, by Theodosius – their son, who died in infancy. On the contrary, Constantius, celebrated that same year by Rutilius Namatianus as “the only rescuer of the Latin name and fame” (De reditu suo, II, Fragment B, v. 9) stands out as the strong man at the time, as well as the incarnation of the Empire’s salvation – a counterpoint in its own right to both Stilicho, “the traitor” and to Athaulf, “the barbaric spouse”.
