Flavius Avitus Marinianus (fl. 423–448) was a politician of the Western Roman Empire

Western Roman Empire

The Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, commonly referred to today as the Byzantine Empire....

 during the reign of Honorius

Honorius (emperor)

Honorius , was Western Roman Emperor from 395 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of the eastern emperor Arcadius....

.

Biography

Avitus was praetorian prefect and consul in 423 He is mentioned in the Gesta de purgatione Xysti III episcopi in a list of aristocrats involved in the investigations against Pope Sixtus III

Pope Sixtus III

Pope Saint Sixtus III was pope from 31 July 432 to 18 August 440.The name of Sixtus is often connected with a great building boom in Rome: Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill was dedicated during his pontificate and he built Santa Maria Maggiore, whose dedication to Mary the Mother of God reflected...

. Although the Gesta has been long recognized as a later forgery, B.L. Twyman argued in 1970 that the list of aristocrats was taken from a later papal investigation concerning the deposition of bishop Celidonius by archbishop Hilarius of Arles. T.D. Barnes subsequently showed that the list was best explained as the product of "a writer of the sixth century [who] has deliberately mixed genuine and fictitious persons."

He had a wife, Anastasia, and a son, Rufius Praetextatus Postumianus (consul in 448); it is possible that Rufius Viventius Gallus

Rufius Viventius Gallus

Rufius Viventius Gallus was a Roman politician.He was the son of Flavius Avitus Marinianus and wife Anastasia.He was Praetor Urbanus.He married his cousin Aviena.-References:...

 was another son. Marinianus and his wife were Christians; at Pope Leo I

Pope Leo I

Pope Leo I was pope from September 29, 440 to his death.He was an Italian aristocrat, and is the first pope of the Catholic Church to have been called "the Great". He is perhaps best known for having met Attila the Hun in 452, persuading him to turn back from his invasion of Italy...

's request, they restored the mosaic on the façade of the Old St. Peter's Basilica, as recorded by an inscription on the mosaic itself.

Further reading

• Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin
  Arnold Hugh Martin Jones
  Arnold Hugh Martin Jones — known as A.H.M. Jones — was a prominent 20th century British historian of classical antiquity, particularly of the later Roman Empire.-Biography:...
  
  , John Robert Martindale, John Morris
  John Morris (historian)
  John Robert Morris was an English historian who specialised in the study of the institutions of the Roman Empire and the history of Sub-Roman Britain...
  
  , The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 0521072336, pp. 723–724.