Rome\'s most able general?

[markusaurelius]

My vote goes for Flavius Marcellus Aetius. He beat the greatest threat to the Roman world, Attila the Hun, and took what was left of the Roman army after Adrianople and tried to patch up the crumbling Western Empire. Not only was he a great general, but his ability to raise armies out of thin air was something no one of his period was able to do, especially if they held the "purple".

Unfortunately Valentinian III felt he no longer needed the aging general, and killed him.

Sidonius Apollinaris is credited with this famous observation,

"I am ignorant, sir, of your motives or provocations; I only know that you have acted like a man who has cut off his right hand with his left"

The Western Roman Empire would fall within 25 years.