Ecdicius

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Ecdicius

Ecdicius Avitus (c. 420 – after 475) was a Gallo-Roman aristocrat and senator, magister militum
Magister militum

Magister militum was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine I . Used alone, the term referred to the senior military officer of the Empire....
praesentalis from 474 until 475.

As a son of the Emperor

Roman Emperor

The Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Roman Empire during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office: Latin language titles such as imperator , Augustus , Caesar and princeps were all associated with it....
Avitus

Avitus

Eparchius Avitus was Western Roman Emperor with the designation and name Dominus Noster Eparchius Avitus Augustus .Made magister militum by Emperor Petronius Maximus, Avitus was sent on a diplomatic mission to his old student, Theodoric II King of the Visigoths, and was at Theodoric's court in Toulouse when Gaiseric invaded Rom...
, Ecdicius was educated at Augustonemetum (modern Clermont-Ferrand

Clermont-Ferrand

Clermont-Ferrand is a city and commune in France of France, in the Auvergne regions of France, with a population of 140,700 . Its metropolitan area had 409,558 inhabitants at the 1999 census....
), where he lived and owned some land. In the 460s he was one of the richest and most important persons in the western Empire

Western Roman Empire

The Western Roman Empire refers to the western half of the Roman Empire, from its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, today widely known as the Byzantine Empire....
and he was present at the court of Anthemius

Anthemius

Flavius Procopius Anthemius was a Western Roman Empire from 12 April 467 until his death. Perhaps the last able emperor, Anthemius attempted to solve the two primary military challenges facing the remains of the Western Roman Empire: the resurgent Visigoths, under Euric, whose domain straddled the Pyrenees; and the unvanquished Vandals, unde...
until 469.

Ecdicius and his brother-in-law Sidonius Apollinaris

Sidonius Apollinaris

Gaius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius or Saint Sidonius Apollinaris , a poet, diplomat, and bishop. Sidonius was "the single most important surviving author from fifth-century Gaul" according to Eric Goldberg....
, the Bishop of Clermont, took charge of the defence of the Auvergne

Auvergne (province)

Auvergne was a historic province of France in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the List of rulers of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....
between 471 and 474 against the aggression of the Visigoths.

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Roman Emperor

Avitus

Clermont-Ferrand

Western Roman Empire

Anthemius

Sidonius Apollinaris

Auvergne (province)

Euric

Euric, also known as Evaric, Erwig, or Eurico in Spanish language and Portuguese language , was the younger brother of Theodoric II and ruled as king of the Visigoths, with his capital at Toulouse, from 466 until his death in 484....
besieged many cities, but Ecdicius, with a private army of horsemen paid for out of his own wealth, brought provisions to those cities, lifted their sieges, and fed a multitude of poor. According to legend, Ecdicius private warband consisted of only ten or eighteen men.

Ecdicius also obtained the submission of Chilperic II of Burgundy

Chilperic II of Burgundy

Chilperic II was the King of Burgundy from 473 until his death, though initially co-ruler with his father from 463. He began his reign in 473 after the partition of Burgundy with his brothers Godegisel, Godomar, and Gundobad; he ruled from Valence and his brothers ruled respectively from Geneva, Vienne, and Lyon....
on behalf of the Empire.

In 471 Anthemius sent an army into Gaul under the command of his son Anthemiolus

Anthemiolus

Anthemiolus was the son of the Western Roman Empire Roman emperor Anthemius and Marcia Euphemia. His name means "little Anthemius." His mother was Marcia Euphemia, daughter of the Eastern Roman Empire Byzantine emperor Marcian....
to attack the Visigoths, but he was defeated near Arles

Arles

Arles is a city in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rh?ne Departments of France, of which it is a Subprefectures in France, in the former Provinces of France of Provence....
and in 473 the Visigoths had captured Arles and Marseille

Marseille

"Marseille" is the second-largest city of France and forms the third-largest aire urbaine, after those of Paris and Lyon, with a population recorded to be 1,516,340 at the 1999 census and estimated to be 1,605,000 in 2007....
and were threatening Italia itself. Ecdicius, elevated to the rank of patrician

Patrician

The term "patrician" originally referred to a group of elitism citizens in ancient Rome, including both their natural and adopted members. In the late Roman empire, the class was broadened to include high council officials, and after the fall of the Western Empire became a term for Byzantine Imperial governors in the West....
by the new emperor Julius Nepos

Julius Nepos

Flavius Julius Nepos was a Roman Emperor of the West during the Roman Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Some historians consider him to be the last De jure Western Emperor, others consider the western line to have ended with Romulus Augustus in 476....
and invested with the title magister militum praesentialis, had just begun the fight to remove the Visigoths from Provence

Provence

Provence is a region of southeastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative regions of France of Provence-Alpes-C?te d'Azur....
when, in 475, he was recalled to Italy by Julius and Flavius Orestes

Flavius Orestes

Flavius Orestes was a Roman politician, who was briefly in control of the Western Roman Empire in 475–6....
was sent in his place in Gaul. The emperor then promptly exchanged the Auvergne for Provence and gave the Visigoths what they had long been requesting.

Ecdicius probably fled the Auvergne and took refuge among the Burgundians

Burgundians

File:Roman Empire 125.svgThe Burgundians were an East Germanic language Germanic tribes which may have emigrated from mainland Scandinavia to the island of Bornholm, whose old form in Old Norse still was Burgundarholmr , and from there to mainland Europe....
after that. Some letters of Cassiodorus

Cassiodorus

Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator , commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman Empire statesman and writer, serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths....
(Epistulae 2.4, 22) suggest that he survived into the early years of the sixth century. He was the father of Avitus of Vienne

Avitus of Vienne

Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, Saint Avitus, was Ancient Diocese of Vienne in Gaul .Avitus was born of a prominent Gallo-Roman senatorial family in the kinship of Emperor Avitus....
.

Sources

Bachrach, Bernard S. Merovingian Military Organization, 481–751. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971.
Jones, A. H. M.; Martindale, J. R.; Morris, J. Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. vol. 2, pp 395–527. Cambridge, 1971–1992.
Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours

Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman History and Bishops of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather....
. translated Earnest Brehaut, 1916.
Christian Settipani
Christian Settipani

Christian Settipani is the Technical Director of an Information technology company in the Paris area and a self-taught genealogy and historian....
, Les Ancêtres de Charlemagne (France: Éditions Christian, 1989).
Christian Settipani
Christian Settipani

Christian Settipani is the Technical Director of an Information technology company in the Paris area and a self-taught genealogy and historian....
, Continuite Gentilice et Continuite Familiale Dans Les Familles Senatoriales Romaines A L'epoque Imperiale, Mythe et Realite, Addenda I - III (juillet 2000- octobre 2002) (n.p.: Prosopographica et Genealogica, 2002).