Avitus

Eparchius Avitus came from Gaul, moving through the ranks of both civil and military service before taking the purple in July 455. He had cultivated a friendship with Theodoric II, the Visigoth king, who proclaimed him emperor — a useful alliance on paper. Avitus refused to let the Western Empire shrink to Italy alone and packed the imperial administration with Gallic senators, a move that enraged Rome's old families and a population still reeling from the Vandals' pillage months earlier. He sent Theodoric into Hispania, but the campaign left the king too distant to rescue Avitus when Roman ge…