Just as the fate of Avitus had…

Genseric continues the Vandal raids on the coast of Sicily and Italy.

Ricimer sends an embassy to Carthage.

The Origins of the Domain of Soissons

The Domain of Soissons, a last vestige of Roman rule in northern Gaul, traces its origins to the reign of Emperor Majorian (457–461 CE). During this period, Majorian appoints Aegidius as magister militum of the Gallic provinces, entrusting him with the defense of the remaining Roman territories in the northwest.

The Isolation of Aegidius

Initially, the northwestern Roman strongholds in Gaul remain connected to Italy via a narrow corridor linking them with the last imperial territories in Auvergne, Provence, and Languedoc. However, during Majorian’s reign:

• This corridor is overrun by the Visigoths, Burgundians, and Franks, who are rapidly expanding their territories.
• The conquest severs the last land connection between Aegidius’ domain and the Western Roman Empire, leaving him and his forces effectively isolated.

Aegidius’ Rule and Alliances

Though cut off from direct imperial support, Aegidius governs independently, maintaining control over the remnants of Roman Gaul in the northwest, centered around Soissons.

• He establishes friendly relations with the Romano-British in Armorica (Brittany), forming a strategic alliance that strengthens his position against both Franks and Visigoths.
• His domain is often referred to as a "Roman rump state," a last outpost of Roman law, administration, and military resistance against the encroaching Germanic powers.

The Last Roman Stronghold in Gaul

Following Majorian’s assassination in 461 CE, Aegidius refuses to recognize the authority of his successor, Ricimer, the Germanic powerbroker in Italy. Instead, he continues to rule autonomously, preserving Roman traditions in northern Gaul until his death.

His successor, Syagrius, will inherit this Roman enclave, maintaining its independence until 486 CE, when it is finally conquered by Clovis I, marking the definitive end of Roman rule in Gaul.

Majorian, the Roman general who succeeded to the throne of the Western Roman Empire in 457, had immediately set about restoring the empire to its former boundaries.

The emperor then began to assemble a fleet at Cartagena, Spain, with which he intended to invade the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa.

By spring 461, Majorian has forty ships already built; he will have had another five ready by the autumn.

The Vandals decide to strike before the Roman navy becomes unbeatable.

On May 13, a fleet of seventeen Vandal ships surprises the Roman fleet.

Many of the Roman captains have been bribed to switch sides.

The Roman navy is totally destroyed, ending any hope of reconquering North Africa.

Pope Leo I dies at Rome on November 10 after a twenty-one-year reign in which he has resisted Manichaeism and defended the Church against Nestorianism.

He is succeeded by Hilarius as the forty-sixth pope.

Ricimer has waited for three months after the death of Majorian before placing on the imperial throne a person he believes he can manipulate.

He finally chooses Libius Severus, a senator of no political distinction, probably selected to please the Italian senatorial aristocracy.

The new emperor is not recognized by the Eastern Emperor Leo I, nor by any of the generals who had served under Majorian; not by his old comrade-in-arms Aegidius in Gaul, not by Marcellinus in Sicily and Illyria, and not by Nepotianus in Hispania.

Olybrius, the husband of the princess Placidia, who is held in Vandal captivity, becomes the second candidate for the western throne.

Genseric supports Olybrius to assume the vacant Western throne because Gaiseric's son Huneric and Olybrius had married the two daughters of Valentinian III, and with Olybrius on the throne, Genseric could exert great influence on the Western Empire.

Therefore Genseric has freed Licinia Eudoxia and her daughter Placidia (Olybrius' wife), but he has not ceased his raids on Italy's coasts.

His project had failed, however, as Ricimer, who had become the magister militum of the West, had chosen Libius Severus as new Emperor.

Emperor Leo I has paid a large ransom for Licinia Eudoxia and Placidia, who returned after seven years of captivity in Carthage.

Placidia has joined her husband at Constantinople, where she bears him a daughter, Anicia Juliana, in 462.

The Monastery of Stoudios is founded in this year by the consul Stoudios, a Roman patrician who had settled in Constantinople, and is consecrated to Saint John the Baptist.

Its first monks come from the monastery of Acoemetae.

The Statue of Zeus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, is destroyed by fire in 462 after being moved to Constantinople.

No copy of the statue has ever been found, and details of its form are known only from ancient Greek descriptions and representations on coins.

The Visigoths had settled in Aquitaine as foederati of the Western Roman Empire in the 450s under Theodoric II.

Sidonius Apollinaris refers to Septimania as "theirs" during the reign of Avitus (455–456), but Sidonius is probably considering Visigothic settlement of and around Toulouse The Visigoths were then holding the Toulousain against the legal claims of the Empire, though they had more than once offered to exchange it for the Auvergne.

The Empire, controlled by Ricimer in the name of Libius Severus, grants the Visigoths the western half of the province of Gallia Narbonensis to settle in 462.

The Visigoths occupy Provence (eastern Narbonensis) as well.

Rousillon, corresponding roughly to the present-day southern French département of Pyrénées-Orientales (Eastern Pyrenees), has formed formed part of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis from 121 BCE to CE 462, when it is ceded with the rest of Septimania to the Visigoth Theodoric II.