It is interesting to compare these two senior "Roman" commanders based on contemporary accounts. Basically, both men were the offspring of marriages between possibly foreign men and Roman women. They rose quickly through the officer corps and achieved the position of the senior military commander of the Western Roman military. Both met with untimely deaths; Stilicho was killed by decree of senior Imperial officials, and Aëtius was killed by an emperor. Their deaths have, in part, been blamed on their efforts to replace the legitimate emperor with their own sons. Yet Stilicho is remembered as a Vandal general, while Aetius was the "Last of the Romans".

The distinction between "Vandal" and "Last of the Romans" is mainly a legacy of contemporary propaganda. Stilicho was detested in his lifetime by the Western Roman aristocracy as being 'soft' on Alaric, and of favoring barbarian troops over Roman ones. This attitude was certainly helped along by Eastern propaganda at various points. When he was killed in 408, it is unlikely that the invasion of Gaul the year before was the proximate cause; the prime movers in the assassination were probably more worried about his relationship with Alaric and the defense of Italy. One year after 407 it was by no means clear that the invasion of Gaul and Spain would be irreversible.

When Aëtius came to prominence in 423, the occupation of large parts of Imperial territory, and the need to deal with barbarian tribes on an equal footing both inside and outside the old frontiers was far more accepted in West Roman political culture. Thus Aëtius could be accepted where Stilicho was not, and given credit for doing less with fewer resources, as the preserver of the remnants of Roman rule in Gaul and Italy. It would have been perfectly possible to propagandize against him for overlooking Gaiseric in Africa, but by then the Western Empire had so far gone toward regional interests that nobody bothered, I think. Besides, by then he was writing the propaganda.

There was a moment early on when he confronted Boniface, (who should have been defending Africa), but Boniface was killed in a battle that he actually won, probably to nobody's sorrow in Italy. Aëtius was also dealing far more as a force unto himself than Stilicho had been, since Valentinian III was a juvenile nonentity and Galla Placidia as a woman could not be as influential as a regent. Aëtius' luck after the killing of Boniface (her partisan) early in his career probably made him politically unassailable for the rest of his career.

Stilicho was the son of a Vandal, who had served as an officer in the army of the emperor Valens (reigned 364-378). He himself entered the imperial army at an early age and speedily attained high promotion. He was sent by Theodosius (reigned 379-395) at the head of an embassy to the Persian king, Sapor III in 383. His mission was successful, and soon after his return he was made count of the domestics and received in marriage Serena, the emperor's niece and adopted daughter. In 385 he was appointed master of the soldiers (magister militum) in Thrace, and later might have directed campaigns in Britain against Picts, Scots and Saxons, and along the Rhine against other barbarians.

Stilicho and Serena were named guardians of the Honorius (second or younger son of Theodosius) when the latter was created joint emperor in 394 with special jurisdiction over Italy, Gaul, Britain, Spain and Africa (in other words the Western Roman Empire). Stilicho was even more closely allied to the imperial family in the following year by betrothing his daughter Maria to his ward and by possibly receiving the dying injunctions of Theodosius to care for his children (this cannot be verified, as he was alone with the emperor).

Rivalry had already existed between Stilicho and Rufinus, the praetorian praefect of the East, who had exercised considerable influence over the emperor and claimed the guardianship of Arcadius (first or older son of Theodosius). Consequently, in 395, after a successful campaign against the Germans on the Rhine, Stilicho marched to the east, nominally to return eastern troops, but really with the design of displacing Rufinus. He most likely abetted the assassination of Rufinus at the close of the year, but was not able to gain dominance over the Imperial government in Constantinople.

In 396 he fought in Greece against Alaric, but an arrangement was effected whereby Alaric was appointed master of the soldiers in Illyricum. In 398 he quelled Gildo's revolt in Africa and married his daughter Maria to Honorius.

Two years later he was consul. He thwarted the efforts of Alaric to seize lands in Italy by his victories at Pollentia and Verona in 402-3 and forced him to return to Illyricum, but was criticized for having withdrawn the imperial forces from Britain and Gaul to employ against the Visigoths.

Early in 408 he married his second daughter Thermantia to Honorius following the death of Maria. It was rumored about this time that Stilicho was plotting with Alaric and with Germans in Gaul, and taking other treasonable steps in order to make his own son Eucherius emperor. There are conflicting accounts of the plots and counterplots and of the court intrigues, the relative truth of which will probably never be known. For legitimate or fabricated reasons, he was branded a traitor and, having been induced by false promises to quit the church in which he had taken sanctuary, was assassinated on 23 August 408.

The principal sources for the life of Stilicho are the histories of Zosimus and of Orosius, and the verses of Claudius Claudianus a panegyrist (writer of flattering poetry). The latter is the only source who was sympathetic to Stilicho.

Aëtius was the son of an Italian mother and Gaudentius, a Scythian (possibly Gothic or another foreign group from north of the lower Danube River also known as Scythia) soldier of the empire. In his youth, Aëtius had been given as a hostage to Alaric (from whom he learned the art of war), and to Rugila, King of the Huns, and in this way; doubtless, acquired among them the prestige and authority that were at once his basis of power and the source of his fall. This deliverer of Europe from the Huns first appears in history as the leader of reportedly 60,000 Huns in the pay of the imperial usurper Johannes (425). The ignominious execution of the latter was followed by the pardon of Aëtius and his restoration to the favour of the dowager Empress Placidia. He was made Count (probably of Italy), and became the chief adviser of the Western rulers, Placidia and her son Valentinian III.

In this quality it was not long before he came into conflict with the powerful Bonifacius, Count of Africa, and is said by later historians (Procopius of Byzantium and John of Antioch) to have so discredited the latter with Placidia that he was driven to revolt, brought over (428) the Vandals into Africa, and entered Italy (432) with the purpose of overthrowing in civil war his powerful enemy. But Boniface fell in battle near Rimini, and Aëtius retired for some time to dwell with the Huns. In 433 he returned to power and for the remaining seventeen years of the joint reign of Placidia and Valentinian III was, as before, the de facto ruler of the Western Empire.

The peace that he maintained through his alliance with the Huns was broken when Attila decided to invade Gaul (France) in 450-451. In a summer campaign, Aëtius relieved Orléans besieged by Attila, and then defeated the Huns and their allies in the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields or Chalons.

His death followed close upon his triumph. This strong and resourceful man was slain at Ravenna (454) by the weakling Emperor Valentinian III, in a fit of jealous rage, never clearly explained, but supposedly caused by the ambition of Aëtius to place his son upon the imperial throne (who was also executed along with his mother by order of Valentinian.

Ironically, former guards of Aëtius assassinated the emperor in the following year, Aëtius owes his more sympathetic portrayal to several contemporary and near contemporary historians. It was Procopius who first calls him "the last of the Romans". He was also viewed in a positive fashion by Marcellinus, who saw him as the great strength of the Western Roman Empire. Jordanes, who wrote a history of the Goths, alluded to his great stature. Adulatory comments were also made by Merobaudes, Sidonius Appollinaris and Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, albeit all were Gallic writers, who presented a common Gallic sentiment.

One could easily consider Stilicho as more of a sympathetic person than Aëtius given that the former was promoted based on merit and linked to the Imperial family through marriage because of his loyalty to the Emperor Theodosius. Aëtius twice opposed the legitimate emperor, first by supporting a usurper and then by fighting a loyal Roman general (Bonifacius was supported by the dowager empress). He also made his own treaties with foreign rulers, and received request from Spain and Britain to oppose invaders in both countries.