Avitus
Western Roman Emperor
385 CE to 457 CE
Eparchius Avitus (c. 385 – after 17 October 456 or in 457) is Western Roman Emperor from July 8 or 9, 455 to October 17, 456.
A Gallo-Roman aristocrat, he is a senator and a high-ranking officer both in the civil and military administration, as well as Bishop of Piacenza.
A representative of a Gallic-Roman aristocracy, he opposes the reduction of the Western Roman Empire to Italy alone, both politically and from the administrative point of view.
For this reason, as Emperor he introduces several Gallic senators in the Imperial administration; this policy, however, is opposed by both the Senatorial aristocracy and by the people of Rome, which have suffered because of the Vandalic sack of the city in 455.
Avitus has a good relationship with the Visigoths, in particular with their king Theodoric II, who is a friend of his and who acclaims Avitus Emperor, but the possibility of a strong and useful alliance between Visigoths and Romans ends when Theodoric invaded Roman Hispania and then refuses to help Avitus against the rebel Roman generals who had deposed him.
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Avitus, the future Western Roman Emperor, was born in Clermont, to a family of the Galllo-Roman nobility.
His father was possibly Flavius Julius Agricola, consul in 421.
Avitus had followed a course of study typical for a young man of his rank, including law.
Before 421, he had been sent to the powerful patricius Flavius Constantius (briefly Emperor in 421), to ask for a tax reduction for his own country.
This embassy was successful.
A relative of his, Theodorus, had been hostage at the court of the King of Visigoths, Theodoric I: in 425/426 Avitus had gone and met him, thus meeting the King, who had let Avitus enter his own court.
Avitus had then started a military career, serving under the magister militum Flavius Aetius in his campaign against the Juthungi and the Norics (430–431) and also against the Burgundians (436).
Because the Romans had had to fight against the Franks, who had plundered Cologne and Trier in 435, and because of other events, Theodoric I, King of the Visigoths, sees the chance to conquer Narbo Martius (in 436) to obtain access to the Mediterranean Sea and the roads to the Pyrenees.
Through Litorius, Avitus obliges Theodoric to lift the siege of Narbonne.
Avitus and the Defense of Gaul
In 437 CE, Avitus, a prominent Gallo-Roman aristocrat, returns to Avernia (modern Auvergne), where he assumes a high-ranking military office, likely that of Magister Militum per Gallias (Master of Soldiers for Gaul). His elevation to the rank of vir inlustris, a prestigious title reserved for Rome’s highest officials, underscores his rising influence within the Western Roman Empire.
That same year, Avitus demonstrates his military capability by leading Roman forces against a group of Hunnic raiders near Clermont (Clermont-Ferrand). This victory, though localized, is significant in a time when imperial defenses in Gaul are faltering under pressure from multiple fronts. By repelling the Hunnic incursion, Avitus not only protects a key Roman stronghold but also reinforces his standing as one of the last effective Roman commanders in the region.
His successes in Gaul will later pave the way for his ascension to the imperial throne in 455 CE, during a period of deepening crisis for the Western Roman Empire. However, his rule will be short-lived, as Rome's internal political instability and the continued rise of barbarian powers prove insurmountable.
Aëtius had refused Theodoric's offer of peace, but the king wins the decisive battle at before the walls of Tolosa.
Litorius, who dies in Gothic imprisonment from the injuries which he had received in the battle, is noted for being the last Roman commander in the ancient Roman military history to perform pagan rites and consult auspices before a battle.
Avitus becomes Praetorian prefect of Gaul in 439; in this same year, according to the orders of Aëtius, Avitus goes to Tolosa and offers a peace treaty, which Theodoric accepts, having suffered heavy losses in the battle.
Here, Avitus meets the son of Theodoric who will later become King Theodoric II.
Avitus inspires the young Theodoric to study Latin poets.
Romans perhaps recognize the sovereignty of the Visigoth state at this time.
The Visigoths obtain access to the Mediterranean Sea and the roads to the Pyrenees.
Eparchius Avitus, born of a distinguished Gallic family, is a son-in-law of the Christian writer Sidonius Apollinaris, whose poetry is an important source for our knowledge of him.
By taking advantage of his great influence with the Visigoths who are settled at Toulouse, Avitus is able in 451 to persuade Theodoric, the first Visigothic leader who can properly be described as a monarch, to join Aetius in repelling the invasion of Gaul by the Huns under Attila.
The eastern court at Constantinople has refused to recognize Maximus’s accession, so to further secure his position, Maximus quickly recalls Avitus, appoints him as Master of Soldiers, and sends him on a mission to Toulouse to the court of Theodoric II, who had succeeded to his father, at Toulouse.
This embassy probably confirmed to the new king and his people the condition of foederati of the Empire and asked for their support for the new Emperor.
Maximus also proceeds to cancel the betrothal of Licinia’s daughter, Eudocia, to Huneric, the son of the Vandal king Genseric.
This infuriates the Vandal king, who only needs the excuse of Licinia’s despairing appeal to the Vandal court for help to begin preparations for the invasion of Italy.
Genseric, responding to an appeal by Eudoxia for help against the usurping Maximus, sails with the Vandal fleet to the mouth of the Tiber River in May 455 and advances on Rome.
Panic grips the city of Rome as the news of the Vandal landing spreads, and many of its inhabitants take to flight.
The Emperor, aware that Avitus has not yet returned with the expected Visigothic aid, decides that it is fruitless to mount a defense against the Vandals, so he attempts to organize his escape, urging the Senate to accompany him.
However, in the panic, Petronius Maximus is completely abandoned by his bodyguard and entourage and left to fend for himself.
As Maximus rides out of the city on his own on May 31, 455, he is set upon by an angry mob, which stones him to death. (Another account has it that he was killed by "a certain Roman soldier named Ursus".)
He had reigned for only seventy-eight days.
His body is mutilated and flung into the Tiber.
His son from his first marriage, Palladius, who has held the title of Caesar between March 17 and May 31, and who has married his stepsister Eudocia, is probably executed.
Maximus had appointed Avitus magister utriusque militiae (“master of both services”).
When the Visigoths, now led by Theodoric's son, Theodoric II, learned that Maximus had been killed, they proclaimed Avitus emperor at Toulouse, and on July 9, 455, the Gallic chiefs in Viernum, near Arles, had upheld this claim.
Avitus enters Rome with a Gallic army on September 21.
He restores the imperial authority in Noricum (modern Austria) and leaves a Gothic force under Remistus, Visigoth general (magister militum), at Ravenna.
The effective power of Avitus depends on the support of all the major players in the Western Roman Empire in the mid-fifth century.
The new Emperor needs the support of both the civil institutions, the Roman senate and the Eastern Roman Emperor Marcian, as well as that of the army and its commanders (the generals Majorian and Ricimer) and the Vandals of Genseric.
Avitus takes the consulate on January 1, 456, as, traditionally, the Emperors always hold the consulate in the first year upon assuming the purple.
However, his consulate sine collega (without a second Consul) is not recognized by the Eastern court, which nominates two consuls, Iohannes and Varanes.
The fact that the two courts do not agree on a couple of consuls but each nominate its own means that despite the efforts of Avitus to receive the recognition of the Eastern Emperor, the relationship between the two halves is not optimal.