In an admirable attempt to tell a difficult story, Joyce Salisbury presents her biography of Galla Placidia as a Roman empress who both influenced the shape of the western empire and affected the development of the early church, leaving a legacy to the West that is often overlooked. Salisbury argues that the empress wisely capitalized on the religious authority her father garnered for his dynasty and further secured the throne by playing the strongest generals against one another, diminishing their threat to her power.

The reconstruction of a fifth-century woman's life is a difficult task at best, and the only extant documents that Placidia is known to have penned herself are from two separate instances concerning church matters. Therefore, to broaden her scope of the Visigothic queen and Roman empress, Salisbury mines a wide range of sources, such as panegyrics, hagiographies, patristic letters, and a variety of others. Also, Placidia used her imperial status for minting currency and her exceptional means for the construction and endowment of numerous churches, leaving behind a rich material record of coins, mosaics, and buildings that Salisbury wisely employs to demonstrate the empress's impact on both the secular and sacred institutions of the period.

In the first three chapters, Salisbury explains the complicated family structure and political landscape of the Theodosian dynasty from 379 to 412. Largely, this sets the stage for the complicated shell game that was the hallmark of fifth-century imperial politics, including Theodosius bestowing official imperial titles upon his wife and young children, his reliance on the Vandal general Stilicho, and his decisive alliance with the church. Following the emperor's death in 395, his niece, Serena, and Stilicho raised seven-year-old Placidia into adulthood. In 408, Stilicho and Serena were put to death, Rome was sacked, and Placidia was taken hostage by the Goths, leaving her caught precariously straddling a world divided among Romans and barbarians and Christians and pagans, all of whom were often dangerously at odds among and with one another.

The fourth and fifth chapters span 412 to 424, during the early part of which Placidia married the Visigothic king Athaulf, was widowed, and was sent back to Ravenna as part of a treaty. Salisbury notes that Placidia returned to the Ravenna court an ex-queen, accustomed to making her own decisions, and that she had both money and allies, among Romans and Goths alike. Between 417 and 421, Placidia remarried, gave birth to the future emperor (Valentinian III), was named Augusta in the West, and became widowed again. She also commissioned the building of a church and wrote letters to bishops encouraging them to help settle a disputed papal election. By 424, Honorius had died and his nephew, the eastern emperor Theodosius II, was finally forced to recognize Placidia as Augusta and seven-year-old Valentinian as emperor to prevent the Theodosian dynasty from falling in the West.

The final two chapters cover 424 to 455, beginning with Placidia finally positioned, as Augusta and acting regent, to rule the West. To secure the throne, she paid off the Huns, strengthened her alliance with the Senate in Rome, and directed her three chosen generals to command armies in Gaul, Africa, and Italy in hopes that each would keep the others’ power in check. Additionally, in 450/451 she sided with Pope Leo I during the church debate that led to the Council of Chalcedon. While the majority of these two chapters address the growing threat of the Huns and rebellions in North Africa, they also illustrate Placidia's shrewd consolidation of imperial power and her active involvement in church matters.

In a short epilogue, Salisbury concludes that Gibbon was correct to claim that Christianity played a role, albeit small, in the demise of the Roman West, because Placidia was determined to keep the blessed Theodosian bloodline on the throne. Like Peter Heather, Salisbury also accepts that waves of barbarians eventually overtook the West by adopting Romanized socio-political and military practices, which Salisbury argues is especially evident in Placidia's willingness to plan and share strategies with Athaulf, leaving a legacy of blending cultures that continued well after the empress was gone. Finally, Salisbury argues that Placidia's impact was strongest in the church, as she influenced important doctrinal issues and inspired future generations of imperial church patronage and architectural styles.

Salisbury relies heavily on two previous biographies, one contextualizing Placidia within the transitional world of the fifth century (Stewart Oost, Galla Placidia Augusta: A Biographical Essay [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968]), and another analyzing her within more recent historiography regarding the experiences of Roman women (Hagith Sivan, Galla Placidia: The Last Roman Empress [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011]). Salisbury bridges these two approaches, situating Placidia into both her role as an elite Roman woman and the narrative of a late-antique ruler, an approach that creates its own trappings. For example, Salisbury's forays into conjecture can go too far at times, such as her conclusion that conversations between Athaulf and Placidia transformed relations between the barbarians and Romans (78). Unfortunately, these overreaches can make claims regarding the empress's influence feel forced, even when there might be a legitimate case to be made. Also, the rich diversity of barbarian ethnicity established in current scholarship is homogenized throughout much of the book in favor of a more dated and literal approach to the sources, such as the extension of Tacitus's second-century description of barbarian ritual practices to the fifth century. Additionally, it is occasionally possible to lose sight of Placidia herself in the story. Regardless, Salisbury has managed to resurrect a version of the empress that illustrates both the agency she had as an elite Roman woman and the significance of her strategic maneuvering as a ruler. Undoubtedly, undergraduates will especially enjoy Salisbury's engaging style as she introduces them to Placidia and the complexities of the late-antique West.