Mosaic covered alcove.

Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. 5th century

Ravenna

Roman empresses: a 5th-century cameo depicting Maria (d. 407 CE) - daughter of Stilicho - and her husband emperor Honorius

Solidus of Honoria showing the empress crowned with a diadem by the Manus Dei (hand of God), marked: d·n· iust· grat· honoria p·f· aug·("Our Lady Justa Grata Honoria, Pious Happy Augusta"). The reverse shows Victory and a crux gemmata, marked: bono reipublicae ("The Good of the Republic").

"At a critical period of European history a princess of the Theodosian house played a brief but conspicuous and outrageous part. Her relations with Attila have secured a scandalous notoriety to the princess Honoria, who would otherwise have been as mere a name to us as her cousins Arcadia and Marina; for her action, if it did not alter the main course of events, determined the Hun king's policy during three critical years. The story of her conduct was told by Priscus, the best and most eminent historian of the fifth century, and the most accurately informed on all matters connected with the Huns.

Honoria (like the sisters of Theodosius) had a separate establishment of her own, doubtless within the palace precincts at Ravenna, and a steward or comptroller to manage it.​ The name of this man of business was Eugenius, and with him she had an amorous intrigue. It was discovered.​ The paramour was put to death, and Honoria was driven from the palace and was betrothed (κατεγγυᾶται) to a certain Herculanus, a highly respectable senator, who was ready to wed a princess of damaged reputation. He has been identified with Flavius Bassus Herculanus who was afterwards consul (425) and therefore must have been a man of wealth. The choice was made because he was esteemed a safe man who could be depended upon to resist if his wife attempted to draw him into ambitious or revolutionary schemes.

The idea of this union was hateful to Honoria, and she sent a trusted servant, a eunuch named Hyacinthus, to Attila, with a sum of money and a ring, requesting his assistance against her brother. Attila eagerly espoused her cause. He claimed her as his bride, and demanded that half of the territory over which Valentinian ruled should be surrendered to her.​ At the same time he made preparations to invade the western provinces. It seems that he first addressed his demands and threats to Theodosius. It was the spring or summer of 450. Theodosius promptly wrote to his colleague, and apparently advised him to avert the serious danger of a Hun invasion by surrendering Honoria.​ Valentinian was furious. The details of the treasonable communications with the Hun were extorted from Hyacinthus by torture before he was beheaded. Honoria's life was only spared through the intercessions of her mother.​ Attila, when he heard of her treatment, sent an embassy to Ravenna to vindicate her: she had done no wrong, she was affianced to him, and he would come to enforce her right to a share of the imperial power."

Two amateur divers swimming along the Spanish coast have discovered a huge hoard of 1,500-year-old gold coins, one of the largest on record dating to the Roman Empire.

The divers, brothers-in-law Luis Lens Pardo and César Gimeno Alcalá, discovered the gold stash while vacationing with their families in Xàbia, a coastal Mediterranean town and tourist hotspot. The duo rented snorkeling equipment so they could go freediving with the goal of picking up trash to beautify the area, but they found something far richer when Lens Pardo noticed the glimmer of a coin at the bottom of Portitxol Bay on Aug. 23, El País reported.

When he went to investigate, he found that the coin “was in a small hole, like a bottleneck,” Lens Pardo told El País in Spanish. After cleaning the coin, Lens Pardo saw that it had “an ancient image, like a Greek or Roman face.” Intrigued, Lens Pardo and Gimeno Alcalá returned, freediving to the hole with a Swiss Army knife and using its corkscrew to unearth a total of eight coins. 

The favourites of Emperor Honorius, 1883, John William Waterhouse

Sack of Rome: the Visigoths under Alaric I begin to pillage Rome. This was the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy. The sacking of 410 is seen as a major landmark in the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, Italy

Late Roman coin-weight in the name of Honorius and Theodosius II

Solidus of Theodosius I, minted in Mediolanum (Milan), 395 CE. 

Solidus coin of Theodosius I. 379-395 AD. (Classical Numismatic Group, Inc/ CC BY SA 2.5 )

Theodosius I (also known as Theodosius the Great) lived during the 4th century AD. He was the last Roman emperor to rule over both the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire. It was during the reign of Theodosius I that Nicene Christianity became the official religion of the empire, suppressing paganism.