Plinta

Flavius Plinta (floruit 418–438) was a Gothic politician and general of the Eastern Roman Empire.

A detail of the Missorium of Aspar. Over Aspar and his son Ardabur, there are two imagines clipeatae depicting raffiguranti Flavius Ardabur and Plinta (right).

Biography

Plinta was a Goth, related to Aspar (CIL XI, 2637), perhaps his father-in-law, and father of Armatius. In 450 his daughter was given in marriage by Theodosius II to Constantius, the secretary of Attila. Plinta was an Arian of the sect of Psatirians (the followers of Marinus of Thrace), who, in Constantinople in 419, rejoined the other Arians.

In 418, as Comes, he suppressed a revolt in Palestine, and it was perhaps in view of this success that the following year, in 419, he was appointed Consul and Magister militum praesentialis.[1]

Plinta had great influence at court. In 431 he tried, unsuccessfully, to place Saturninus on the episcopal throne of Marcianopolis in place of the Nestorian Dorotheus. In 432 he advised the Bishop of Antioch, John, to accept the mediation of Emperor Theodosius II and to reconcile with the Patriarch of Alexandria, Cyril. Between 435 and 440 he asked the emperor to send him as ambassador, along with Flavius Dionysius, to Rugila, the King of the Huns. After Rugila died, Plinta and Epigenes were sent to his successor, Attila, with whom they concluded the Peace of Horreum Margi.

Notes

1. Priscus, fragment 14.

Bibliography

• Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin, John Robert Martindale, John Morris, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, "Fl. Plinta", volume 2, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-521-20159-4, pp. 892-893.