THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 225
The Last Shadow of a Western Emperor
14-19. The Last Shadow of a Western Emperor
Aspar indeed failed in the event to buy security, even at the price he had been willing to pay. In 471 Leo attempted a coup d'etat: Aspar fell, and the victorious Emperor, who had already been recruiting Isaurians within his own Empire, in order to counteract and eventually supersede the dangerous influence of the German mercenaries, was able to continue his policy, and thus to preserve the independent existence of the Eastern Empire. With the West it was different. Here there was no substitute for Ricimer and his Germans: here there was no elasticity which would enable the Empire to recover, as it did in the East, from the loss of prestige and of resources involved by the disastrous failure of 468. For a time, indeed, Anthemius, with the support of the Senate which had called him to the throne, and of the Roman party which hated barbarian domination, struggled to make head against Ricimer.
The struggle partly turned on the course of events in Gaul. Here Euric, in 466, had assassinated his brother Theodoric II, as Theodoric had before assassinated his brother Thorismud. A vigorous and enterprising king, the most successful of all the Visigothic rulers of Toulouse, Euric immediately began, after the failure of the expedition of 468, to take advantage of the condition of the Western Empire in order to make himself ruler of the whole of Gaul. He may have hoped to gain the aid of the Gallo-Roman nobility, who were by no means friendly to the ascendancy of Ricimer; and there were certainly Roman officials in Gaul, like Arvandus, the Praefcctus Praetorio, who lent themselves to his plans.
But Anthemius and the Senate saw the danger by which they were threatened. Arvandus was brought to Rome in 469, tried by the Senate, and sentenced to death — a striking instance of the activity which the Senate could still display; and Anthemius attempted to gain the support of the nobility of Gaul, by giving the title of patricius to Ecdicius, the son of Avitus, and the office of praefect of Rome to Sidonius Apollinaris. In spite of these measures, however, he failed to save Gaul from the Visigoths. In 470 Euric took the field, and, defeating a Roman army, gained possession of Aries and other towns as the prize of his victory. Much of Auvergne also fell into his hands, but he failed to take its chief city, Clermont, where the valour of Ecdicius and the exhortations of Sidonius, newly consecrated bishop of the city, inspired a stout resistance.
Yet Gaul was none the less really lost; and failure in Gaul meant for Anthemius ruin in Italy. Already in 471 civil war was imminent. Ricimer, seeing his chance, had gathered his forces at Milan, while Anthemius was stationed at Rome. Round the one was collected the army of Teutonic mercenaries; round the other, though he was not popular in Catholic Italy, being reputed to be "Hellenic" and a lover of philosophy, there rallied the officials, the Senate, and the people of Rome.
Once more the old struggle of the Roman and barbarian parties was destined to be rehearsed. For a moment the mediation of Epiphanius, the saintly bishop of Pavia, procured (if we may trust the account of his biographer Ennodius) a temporary peace; but in 472 war came. Early in the year Ricimer marched on Rome, and besieged the city with an army, in which the Scirian Odovacar was one of the commanders. For five months the city suffered from siege and from famine. At last an army which had marched from Gaul to the relief of Anthemius, under the command of Bilimer, the master of troops of that province, was defeated by Ricimer, and treachery completed the fall of the beleaguered city. In July Ricimer marched into Rome, now under the heel of a conqueror for the third time in the course of the century; and Anthemius, seeking in vain to save his life by mingling in disguise with the beggars round the door of one of the Roman churches, was detected and beheaded by Ricimer's nephew, Gundobad. Once more the Empire seemed destroyed: civil war, said Pope Gelasius, had overturned the city and the feeble remnants of the Roman Empire.
The death of Anthemius had already been preceded by the accession of Olybrius, the husband of Valentinian's daughter, and the relative by marriage of Gaiseric. The circumstances of the accession of Olybrius are obscure. A curious story in a late Byzantine writer makes him appear in Italy during the struggle between Anthemius and Ricimer, with public instructions from Leo to mediate in the struggle, but with a sealed letter to Anthemius, in which it was suggested that the bearer should be instantly executed. The letter is said to have fallen into the hands of Ricimer, who replied by elevating Olybrius to the imperial throne. We can only say that Olybrius came to Italy in the spring of 472, whether sent by Leo, or (as is perhaps more likely) invited by Ricimer, and that he was proclaimed emperor by Ricimer before the fall of Rome and the death of Anthemius.
The reign of Olybrius, connected as he was with the old Theodosian house and with the Vandal rulers of Africa, seemed to promise well for the future of the West; but it only lasted for a few months. Short as it was, it saw the death of Ricimer, at the end of August 472, and the elevation in his place of his nephew Gundobad, a Burgundian. But though a nominal successor took his place, the death of Ricimer left a gap that could not be filled. If he was a barbarian, he had yet in his way venerated the Roman name and preserved the tradition of the Roman Empire; he had sought to be emperor-maker rather than King of Italy, and for sixteen years he had kept the Empire alive in the West. Within four years of his death the last shadow of an emperor had disappeared; and a barbarian kingdom had been established in Italy.
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