General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> Roman Emporer
Eparchius Avitus, who was born of a senatorial family circ
a A.D. 400, was a native of the Auvergne in Gaul. His fathe
r may have been the Agricola who was consul in 421. He purs
ued a distinguished career, and early in his life formed cl
ose contacts with the Visigothic court at Toulouse. After s
erving under Flavius Aetius in several military posts, he b
ecame Praetorian Prefect of Gaul by 439, in which capacit
y he was able to re-negotiate the treaty with the Visigoths
. In 451, he was influential in gaining the aid of the Visi
goths against the invading Huns. In 455, he was appointed b
y the short-lived emperor Petronius Maximus (455) to the of
fice of Master of Soldiers, and was sent as an ambassador t
o the Visigoths. When the news arrived of Maximus' death du
ring the Vandal sack of Rome, the Visigothic king Theoderi
c II urged Avitus to seize the purple himself. He did so sh
ortly thereafter at Arles, and in October of 455 he entere
d Italy with a retinue of Gauls and Visigoths.
Avitus' Reign
As a Gallic emperor in Italy, Avitus was not popular. By th
is time, the different sections of the western empire had b
egun to go their own ways, and Italy was no exception. Anti
pathy toward Avitus only increased when he removed the hal
f of the bronze roof of the Capitoline temple that the Vand
als had left in order to pay off his Gothic supporters. Alt
hough the commanders of the Italian army, Ricimer and Major
ian, were able to hold the Vandals at bay, they themselve
s soon began to conspire against the new emperor. Eventuall
y, local unrest forced Avitus to depart Rome and return t
o Gaul in the summer of 456. He returned in the fall, onl
y to be defeated by Ricimer at Piacenza. He then was forcib
ly consecrated bishop of Piacenza, the first time that thi
s novel method was used to dispose of a deposed emperor, bu
t hardly the last. Soon thereafter, however, he attempted t
o make his was back to Gaul, and after being chased down b
y Majorian he either starved to death or was strangled. Avi
tus' brief reign was the last attempt in the western empir
e to reverse the trend toward the Italianization of the emp
ire. Its failure indicates the degree to which this trend h
ad become irreversible.