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.

Just as the fate of Avitus had been marked by the betrayal of Ricimer and of Majorian and by the dismissal of his German guard, so the fate of Majorian himself is decided by the disbandment of his army and a plot organized by Ricimer.

In fact, while the Emperor was busy away from Italy, the barbarian patricius et magister militum had gathered around himself the aristocratic opposition to his former comrade with whom, just a few years earlier, he had cultivated dreams of power.

Majorian's legislation had shown that he intends to intervene decisively on issues that plagues the empire, even if they counter the interests of influential aristocrats.

After spending some time at Arelate, his base at the end of the operation against the Vandals in Hispania,Majorian disbands his barbarian mercenaries and, accompanied by some guards, sets off to Rome, where he intends to carry out reforms.

Ricimer goes to meet Majorian with a military detachment; the magister militum meets the Emperor near Tortona (not far from Piacenza, where Avitus had been killed), and has him arrested and deposed on August 3.

The Emperor is deprived of his dress and diadem, beaten and tortured.

After five days, Majorian is beheaded near the river Iria on August 7, 461): he was about forty years old and had reigned for four years.

Ricimer's murder of Majorian triggers the final dissolution of western Imperial unity.

Athough recognized as a patrician, Ricimer, as an Arian Christian and a barbarian, cannot aspire to have himself recognized as emperor, and instead seeks to rule through puppet emperors.

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 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 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 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.