Huneric
Huneric or Hunneric or Honeric was King of the Vandal Kingdom and the oldest son of Genseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated on internal affairs, he was married to daughter of western Roman Emperor Valentinian III and Licinia Eudoxia. The couple had a son named Hilderic. Huneric was the first Vandal king who used the title King of the Alans. Despite adopting this style, that the Vandals maintained their sea-power and their hold on the islands of the western Mediterranean, Huneric did not have the prestige that his father Genseric had enjoyed with other states. Huneric was a son of King Genseric, was sent to Italy as a hostage in 435, when his father made a treaty with the Western emperor Valentinian III. Huneric became king of the Vandals on his father's death in 477. Like Gaiseric he was an Arian, his reign is chiefly memorable for his persecution of members of the orthodox Christian Church in his dominions. Eudocia, daughter of Valentinian III, was Huneric's wife.
Huneric was a fervent adherent to Arianism. Yet his reign opened with making a number of positive overtures towards the local Roman population. Following the visit of a diplomatic mission from the Eastern Roman Empire led by Alexander, Huneric restored properties seized by his father from the merchants of Carthage, he lifted the policy of persecuting the local Roman Catholics, allowing them to hold a synod wherein they elected a new Catholic bishop of Carthage, after a vacancy of 24 years. However, not long after the ordination of Eugenius, Huneric reversed himself and began to once again persecute Catholics. Furthermore, he tried to make Catholic property fall to the state, but when this caused too much protest from the Eastern Roman Emperor, he chose to banish a number of Catholics to a faraway province instead. On February 1, 484 he organized a meeting of Catholic bishops with Arian bishops, but on February 24, 484 he forcibly removed the Catholic bishops from their offices and banished some to Corsica.
A few were executed, including the former proconsul Victorian along with Frumentius and other wealthy merchants, who were killed at Hadrumetum after refusing to become Arians. Among those exiled was Vigilius, bishop of Thapsus, who published a theological treatise against Arianism. Additionally, Huneric murdered many members of the Hasdingi dynasty and persecuted Manichaeans. Towards the end of his reign, the Moors in the Aurès Mountains rebelled from Vandal rule. Upon his death on December 23, 484, Huneric was succeeded by his nephew Gunthamund. Hunericopolis, the Catholic Metropolitan Archbishopric Hadrumetum renamed after him
Roman emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman Empire during the imperial period. The emperors used a variety of different titles throughout history; when a given Roman is described as becoming "emperor" in English, it reflects his taking of the title Augustus or Caesar. Another title used was imperator a military honorific. Early Emperors used the title princeps. Emperors amassed republican titles, notably princeps senatus and pontifex maximus; the legitimacy of an emperor's rule depended on his control of the army and recognition by the Senate. The first emperors reigned alone; the Romans considered the office of emperor to be distinct from that of a king. The first emperor, resolutely refused recognition as a monarch. Although Augustus could claim that his power was authentically republican, his successor, could not convincingly make the same claim. Nonetheless, for the first three hundred years of Roman emperors, from Augustus until Diocletian, efforts were made to portray the emperors as leaders of a republic.
From Diocletian, whose tetrarchic reforms divided the position into one emperor in the West and one in the East, until the end of the Empire, emperors ruled in an monarchic style and did not preserve the nominal principle of a republic, but the contrast with "kings" was maintained: although the imperial succession was hereditary, it was only hereditary if there was a suitable candidate acceptable to the army and the bureaucracy, so the principle of automatic inheritance was not adopted. Elements of the republican institutional framework were preserved after the end of the Western Empire; the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century after multiple invasions of imperial territory by Germanic barbarian tribes. Romulus Augustulus is considered to be the last emperor of the West after his forced abdication in 476, although Julius Nepos maintained a claim recognized by the Eastern Empire to the title until his death in 480. Following Nepos' death, the Eastern Emperor Zeno abolished the division of the position and proclaimed himself as the sole Emperor of a reunited Roman Empire.
The Eastern imperial lineage continued to rule from Constantinople. Constantine XI Palaiologos was the last Roman emperor in Constantinople, dying in the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453; the "Byzantine" emperors from Heraclius in 629 and onwards adopted the title of basileus, which had meant king in Greek but became a title reserved for the Roman emperor and the ruler of the Sasanian Empire. Other kings were referred to as rēgas. In addition to their pontifical office, some emperors were given divine status after death. With the eventual hegemony of Christianity, the emperor came to be seen as God's chosen ruler, as well as a special protector and leader of the Christian Church on Earth, although in practice an emperor's authority on Church matters was subject to challenge. Due to the cultural rupture of the Turkish conquest, most western historians treat Constantine XI as the last meaningful claimant to the title Roman Emperor. From 1453, one of the titles used by the Ottoman Sultans was "Caesar of Rome", part of their titles until the Ottoman Empire ended in 1922.
A Byzantine group of claimant Roman emperors existed in the Empire of Trebizond until its conquest by the Ottomans in 1461, though they had used a modified title since 1282. Eastern emperors in Constantinople had been recognized and accepted as Roman emperors both in the East, which they ruled, by the Papacy and Germanic kingdoms of the West until the deposition of Constantine VI and accession of Irene of Athens as Empress regnant in 797. Objecting to a woman ruling the Roman Empire in her own right and issues with the eastern clergy, the Papacy would create a rival lineage of Roman emperors in western Europe, the Holy Roman Emperors, which ruled the Holy Roman Empire for most of the period between 800 and 1806; these Emperors were never recognized as Roman emperors by the court in Constantinople. Modern historians conventionally regard Augustus as the first Emperor whereas Julius Caesar is considered the last dictator of the Roman Republic, a view having its origins in the Roman writers Plutarch and Cassius Dio.
However, the majority of Roman writers, including Josephus, Pliny the Younger and Appian, as well as most of the ordinary people of the Empire, thought of Julius Caesar as the first Emperor. At the end of the Roman Republic no new, no single, title indicated the individual who held supreme power. Insofar as emperor could be seen as the English translation of imperator Julius Caesar had been an emperor, like several Roman generals before him. Instead, by the end of the civil wars in which Julius Caesar had led his armies, it became clear that there was no consensus to return to the old-style monarchy, but that the period when several officials, bestowed with equal power by the senate, would fight one another had come to an end. Julius Caesar, Augustus after him, accumulated offices and titles of the highest importance in the Republic, making the power attached to those offices permanent, preventing anyone with similar aspirations from accumulating or maintaining power for themselves. However, Julius Caesar, unlike those after
Italy
Italy the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Austria and the enclaved microstates San Marino and Vatican City. Italy covers an area of 301,340 km2 and has a temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. With around 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous EU member state and the most populous country in Southern Europe. Due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, Italy has been home to a myriad of peoples and cultures. In addition to the various ancient peoples dispersed throughout modern-day Italy, the most famous of which being the Indo-European Italics who gave the peninsula its name, beginning from the classical era and Carthaginians founded colonies in insular Italy and Genoa, Greeks established settlements in the so-called Magna Graecia, while Etruscans and Celts inhabited central and northern Italy respectively; the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom in the 8th century BC, which became a republic with a government of the Senate and the People.
The Roman Republic conquered and assimilated its neighbours on the peninsula, in some cases through the establishment of federations, the Republic expanded and conquered parts of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. By the first century BC, the Roman Empire emerged as the dominant power in the Mediterranean Basin and became the leading cultural and religious centre of Western civilisation, inaugurating the Pax Romana, a period of more than 200 years during which Italy's technology, economy and literature flourished. Italy remained the metropole of the Roman Empire; the legacy of the Roman Empire endured its fall and can be observed in the global distribution of culture, governments and the Latin script. During the Early Middle Ages, Italy endured sociopolitical collapse and barbarian invasions, but by the 11th century, numerous rival city-states and maritime republics in the northern and central regions of Italy, rose to great prosperity through shipping and banking, laying the groundwork for modern capitalism.
These independent statelets served as Europe's main trading hubs with Asia and the Near East enjoying a greater degree of democracy than the larger feudal monarchies that were consolidating throughout Europe. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science and art. Italian culture flourished, producing famous scholars and polymaths such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Machiavelli. During the Middle Ages, Italian explorers such as Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, John Cabot and Giovanni da Verrazzano discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, helping to usher in the European Age of Discovery. Italy's commercial and political power waned with the opening of trade routes that bypassed the Mediterranean. Centuries of infighting between the Italian city-states, such as the Italian Wars of the 15th and 16th centuries, left the region fragmented, it was subsequently conquered and further divided by European powers such as France and Austria.
By the mid-19th century, rising Italian nationalism and calls for independence from foreign control led to a period of revolutionary political upheaval. After centuries of foreign domination and political division, Italy was entirely unified in 1871, establishing the Kingdom of Italy as a great power. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, Italy industrialised, namely in the north, acquired a colonial empire, while the south remained impoverished and excluded from industrialisation, fuelling a large and influential diaspora. Despite being one of the main victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil, leading to the rise of a fascist dictatorship in 1922. Participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in military defeat, economic destruction and the Italian Civil War. Following the liberation of Italy and the rise of the resistance, the country abolished the monarchy, reinstated democracy, enjoyed a prolonged economic boom and, despite periods of sociopolitical turmoil became a developed country.
Today, Italy is considered to be one of the world's most culturally and economically advanced countries, with the sixth-largest worldwide national wealth. Its advanced economy ranks eighth-largest in the world and third in the Eurozone by nominal GDP. Italy owns the third-largest central bank gold reserve, it has a high level of human development, it stands among the top countries for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military and diplomatic affairs. Italy is a founding and leading member of the European Union and a member of numerous international institutions, including the UN, NATO, the OECD, the OSCE, the WTO, the G7, the G20, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Council of Europe, Uniting for Consensus, the Schengen Area and many more; as a reflection
Anthemius
Anthemius was Western Roman Emperor from 467 to 472. The last capable Western Roman 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. Anthemius was killed by his own general of Gothic descent, who contested power with him. Anthemius belonged to a noble family, the Procopii, which gave several high officers, both civil and military, to the Eastern Roman Empire, his mother Lucina, born c. 400, descended from Flavius Philippus, Praetorian prefect of the East in 346, was the daughter of the influential Flavius Anthemius, Praetorian prefect of the East and Consul in 405. His father was Procopius, magister militum per Orientem from 422 to 424, descended from the Procopius, a cousin of Emperor Julian I and a usurper against the Emperor Valens. Born in Constantinople around 420, he went to Alexandria to study in the school of the Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus.
In 453 he married daughter of the Eastern Emperor Marcian. In 454 he was recalled to Constantinople, where he received the title of patricius in 454 or 455 and became one of the two magistri militum or magister utriusque militiae of the East. In 455 he received the honour of holding the consulate with the Western Emperor Valentinian III as colleague; this succession of honourable events – the wedding with Marcian's daughter. This hypothesis is further strengthened by the fact that Anthemius' prestige misled the 6th-century historian John Malalas to state that Marcian had designated Anthemius as Western Emperor after Avitus. Avitus was deposed in October 456. Therefore, both empires had no emperor, the power was in the hands of the Western generals and Majorian, of the Eastern Magister militum, the Alan Aspar; as Aspar could not sit on the throne because of his barbaric origin, he opposed Anthemius whose prestige would have made him independent and chose a low-ranking military officer, Leo. Anthemius stayed in service under the new Emperor.
Around 460, he defeated the Ostrogoths of Valamir in Illyricum. During the winter of 466/467 he defeated a group of Huns, led by Hormidac, who had crossed the frozen Danube and were pillaging Dacia; the raiders had conquered Serdica, Anthemius besieged the city until the starved Huns decided to accept open battle. The newly elected Eastern Roman Emperor, Leo I the Thracian, had a major foreign affairs problem: the Vandals of King Geiseric and their raids on the Italian coasts. After the death of Libius Severus in 465, the Western Empire had no Emperor. Gaiseric had his own candidate, related to Gaiseric because both Olybrius and a son of Gaiseric's had married the two daughters of Emperor Valentinian III. With Olybrius on the throne, Gaiseric would become the real power behind the throne of the Western Empire. Leo, on the other hand, wanted to keep Gaiseric as far as possible from the imperial court at Ravenna, took time to choose a successor to Severus. To put Leo under pressure, Gaiseric extended his attacks on Sicily and Italy to the territories of the Eastern Empire and enslaving people living in Illyricum, the Peloponnese and other parts of Greece, so Leo was obliged to take action.
On 25 March 467, Leo I, with the consent of Ricimer, designated Anthemius Western Emperor as Caesar and sent him to Italy with an army led by the Magister militum per Illyricum Marcellinus. On April 12, Anthemius was proclaimed Emperor at the twelfth mile from Rome. Anthemius' election was celebrated in Constantinople with a panegyric by Dioscorus. By choosing Anthemius, Leo obtained three results: he sent a possible candidate to the eastern throne far away; the reign of Anthemius was characterised by a good diplomatic relationship with the Eastern Empire. Both courts collaborated in the choice of the yearly consuls, as each court chose a consul and accepted the other's choice. Anthemius had the honour of holding the consulate sine collega in 468, the first year he started as Emperor, following a similar honour given to Leo
Roman consul
A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic, ancient Romans considered the consulship the highest level of the cursus honorum. Each year, the citizens of Rome elected two consuls to serve jointly for a one-year term; the consuls alternated in holding imperium each month, a consul's imperium extended over Rome and the provinces. However, after the establishment of the Empire, the consuls became mere symbolic representatives of Rome's republican heritage and held little power and authority, with the Emperor acting as the supreme authority. After the legendary expulsion of the last Etruscan King, Tarquin the Proud, a harsh ruler at the end of the Roman Kingdom, most of the powers and authority of the king were ostensibly given to the newly instituted consulship; this change in leadership came about when the king's son, Sextus Tarquinius, raped the wife and daughter of powerful Roman nobles. A group of nobles led by Lucius Junius Brutus, with the support of the Roman Army, expelled Tarquinius and his family from Rome in 509 BC.
Consuls were called praetors, referring to their duties as the chief military commanders. By at least 300 BC the title of Consul became used. Ancient writers derive the title consul from the Latin verb consulere, "to take counsel", but this is most a gloss of the term, which derives—in view of the joint nature of the office—from con- and sal-, "get together" or from con- and sell-/sedl-, "sit down together with" or "next to". In Greek, the title was rendered as στρατηγὸς ὕπατος, strategos hypatos, simply as ὕπατος; the consul was believed by the Romans to date back to the traditional establishment of the Republic in 509 BC, but the succession of consuls was not continuous in the 5th century BC. During the 440s, the office was quite replaced with the establishment of the Consular Tribunes, who were elected whenever the military needs of the state were significant enough to warrant the election of more than the two usual consuls; these remained in place until the office was abolished in 367/366 BC and the consulship was reintroduced.
Consuls had extensive powers in peacetime, in wartime held the highest military command. Additional religious duties included certain rites which, as a sign of their formal importance, could only be carried out by the highest state officials. Consuls read auguries, an essential step before leading armies into the field. Two consuls were elected each year, serving together, each with veto power over the other's actions, a normal principle for magistracies, it is thought that only patricians were eligible for the consulship. Consuls were elected by the Comitia Centuriata, which had an aristocratic bias in its voting structure which only increased over the years from its foundation. However, they formally assumed powers only after the ratification of their election in the older Comitia Curiata, which granted the consuls their imperium by enacting a law, the "lex curiata de imperio". If a consul died during his term or was removed from office, another would be elected by the Comitia Centuriata to serve the remainder of the term as consul suffectus.
A consul elected to start the year - called a consul ordinarius - held more prestige than a suffect consul because the year would be named for ordinary consuls. According to tradition, the consulship was reserved for patricians and only in 367 BC did plebeians win the right to stand for this supreme office, when the Lex Licinia Sextia provided that at least one consul each year should be plebeian; the first plebeian consul, Lucius Sextius, was elected the following year. The office remained in the hands of a few families as, according to Gelzer, only fifteen novi homines - "new men" with no consular background - were elected to the consulship until the election of Cicero in 63 BC. Modern historians have questioned the traditional account of plebeian emancipation during the early Republic, noting for instance that about thirty percent of the consuls prior to Sextius had plebeian, not patrician, names, it is possible that only the chronology has been distorted, but it seems that one of the first consuls, Lucius Junius Brutus, came from a plebeian family.
Another possible explanation is that during the 5th century social struggles, the office of consul was monopolized by a patrician elite. During times of war, the primary qualification for consul was military skill and reputation, but at all times the selection was politically charged. With the passage of time, the consulship became the normal endpoint of the cursus honorum, the sequence of offices pursued by the ambitious Roman who chose to pursue political power and influence; when Lucius Cornelius Sulla regulated the cursus by law, the minimum age of election to consul became, in effect, 41 years of age. Beginning in the late Republic, after finishing a consular year, a former consul would serve a lucrative term as a proconsul, the Roman Governor of one of the provinces; the most chosen province for the proconsulship was Cisalpine Gaul. Although throughout the early years of the Principate, the consuls were still formally elected by the Comitia Centuriata, they were in fact nominated by the princeps.
As the years progressed, the distinction between the Comitia Centuriata and the Comitia Tributa appears to have disappeared, so for the purposes of the consular
Aspar
Flavius Ardabur Aspar was an Eastern Roman patrician and magister militum of Alanic-Gothic descent. As the general of a Germanic army in Roman service, Aspar exerted great influence on the Eastern Roman Emperors for half a century, from the 420s to his death in 471, over Theodosius II, Marcian and Leo I, who, in the end, had him killed, his death led to the ending of the Germanic domination of Eastern Roman policy. Aspar was born the son of the magister Ardaburius, was of Alanic-Gothic descent; the name Aspar in Iranian languages means "Horse-rider". Aspar played a crucial role in his father's expedition in 424 to defeat the Western usurper Joannes of Ravenna and to install Galla Placidia and her son, Valentinian III, in his place, he helped to negotiate a peace treaty with Geiseric after the Vandal invasion of Africa. Aspar attained the consulship in 434 after campaigning in Africa. However, Aspar could not become emperor because of his Arian religion. Instead, he played the role of kingmaker with his subordinate Marcian, who became emperor by marrying Theodosius II's sister Pulcheria.
On 27 January 457 Marcian died, the political and military establishment figures of the Eastern court took eleven days to choose a successor. Despite the presence of a strong candidate to the purple, the magister militum and Marcian's son-in-law Anthemius, the choice was quite different. Aspar, who in this occasion was offered the throne by the senate but refused, could have chosen his own son Ardabur, but instead selected an obscure tribune of one of his military units, Leo I. In 470, in an episode of the struggle for power between Aspar and the Isaurian general Zeno, Aspar persuaded the emperor to appoint his second son, Patricius, as caesar and give him in marriage his daughter Leontia. However, since the clergy and people of Constantinople did not consider an Arian eligible to become emperor, at the news of the appointment riots broke out in the city hippodrome, led by the head of the Sleepless Monks, Marcellus: Aspar and Leo had to promise to the bishops that Patricius would convert to Orthodoxy before becoming emperor, only after the conversion would he marry Leontia.
In 471 an imperial conspiracy organized by Leo I and the Isaurians caused the death of Aspar and of his elder son Ardabur. It is possible that Patricius died on this occasion, although some sources report that he recovered from his wounds, his death led to the ending of the Germanic domination of Eastern Roman policy. Aspar was the teacher of Theodoric the Great, who became King of the Ostrogoths. Aspar had another son, with the sister of Theodoric Strabo and daughter of Triarius. Aspar's wife was an Ostrogoth. A cistern attributed to him still exists today in Istanbul. Bunson, Matthew. Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire. New York: Facts on File Inc. Croke, Brian, "Dynasty and Ethnicity: Emperor Leo and the Eclipse of Aspar", Chiron 35, 147-203. Williams and Gerard Friell, The Rome That Did Not Fall, Routledge, 1999, ISBN 0-415-15403-0. Wolfram, History of the Goths, trans. Thomas J. Dunlap. University of California Press, 1988, ISBN 0-520-06983-8. Profile of Aspar in the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
Placidia
Placidia was the wife of Olybrius, unrecognized Western Roman Emperor. Her full name is uncertain; the Chronicle of the Roman Emperors: The reign by reign record of the rulers of Imperial Rome by Chris Scarre gives her name as Galla Placidia Valentiniana or Galla Placidia the Younger, based on naming conventions for women in ancient Rome. Placidia was the second daughter of Valentinian III and Licinia Eudoxia, younger sister of Eudocia, who became the wife of Huneric, son of Gaiseric, king of the Vandals. Both were named for their grandmothers: Eudocia for the maternal, Aelia Eudocia, Placidia for the paternal, Galla Placidia. Placidia is estimated to have been born between 439 and 443. In 454 or 455, Placidia married a member of the Anicii family. A prominent family with known members active in both Italia and Gaul; the exact relation of Olybrius to other members of the family is not known as his parents are not named in primary sources. Several theories exist as to their identity. Emperor Valentinian intended to marry Placidia to a young man named Majorian, whom Oost describes as having "distinguished himself in a subaltern capacity fighting in Gaul against the Franks under Aëtius' own command."
Doing so, according to Roman customs, would link Majorian to the Imperial family and put him in line to succeed Valentinian. Once Flavius Aetius learned of this plan, he rusticated Majorian to his estates at some date before 451, he was recalled to Rome only after Aetius' death. Aetius attempted to consolidate his position "by compelling the Emperor to swear to friendship with him and to agree to betroth Placidia to his own younger son Gaudentius."Mommaerts and Kelley have proposed a theory that Petronius Maximus, the successor of Valentinian III on the Western Roman throne in 455, was behind the marriage of Placidia to Olybrius. They argue that Olybrius was a son of Petronius Maximus himself, reasoning that Petronius, once on the throne, would be unlikely to promote distant relatives as potential successors. According to Hydatius, Petronius arranged the marriage of his eldest stepdaughter Eudocia to Palladius, his eldest son and Caesar, they suggest that he followed suit in arranging the marriage of Placidia to one of his own younger sons, thus making the marriage of Placidia and Olybrius the third marriage between a member of the Theodosian dynasty and a member of the extended Anicii family within the same year.
According to the chronicler Malchus, "Around this time, the empress Eudoxia, the widow of the emperor Valentinian and the daughter of the emperor Theodosius and Eudocia, remained unhappily at Rome and, enraged at the tyrant Maximus because of the murder of her spouse, she summoned the Vandal Gaiseric, king of Africa, against Maximus, ruling Rome. He came to Rome with his forces and captured the city, having destroyed Maximus and all his forces, he took everything from the palace the bronze statues, he led away as captives surviving senators, accompanied by their wives. After he had returned, Gaiseric gave the younger Eudocia, a maiden, the daughter of the empress Eudoxia, to his son Huneric in marriage, he held them both, the mother and the daughter, in great honor". Eudoxia was following the example of her sister-in-law Justa Grata Honoria who had summoned Attila the Hun for help against an unwanted marriage. According to the chronicler Prosper of Aquitaine, Maximus was in Rome, he gave anyone.
He was assassinated by the imperial slaves. He had reigned for seventy-seven days, his body was never recovered. Victor of Tonnena agrees, adding that Pope Leo I negotiated with Gaiseric for the security of the city's population. Hydatius attributes the assassination to revolting troops of the Roman army, enraged at Maximus' attempted flight; the Chronica Gallica of 511 attributes the assassination to a rioting crowd. Jordanes identifies a single assassin as "Ursus, a Roman soldier". Sidonius Apollinaris makes a cryptic comment about a Burgundian whose "traitorous leadership" led the crowd to panic and to the slaughter of the Emperor, his identity is unknown a general who failed to face the Vandals for one reason or another. Historians have suggested two high-ranking Burgundians as possible candidates and his brother Chilperic. Both joined Theodoric II in invading Hispania in 455. Olybrius was in Constantinople at the time of the siege of Rome, he was separated from his wife for the duration of her captivity.
He visited Daniel the Stylite who predicted that Eudoxia and Placidia would return. Priscus and John of Antioch report that Gaiseric entertained the idea of placing Olybrius on the throne of the Western Roman Empire, at least as early as the death of Majorian in 461. Due to his marriage to Placidia, Olybrius could be considered both an heir to Theodosian dynasty and a member of the Vandal royal family through marriage. In 465, Libius Severus died and Gaiseric again promoted Olybrius as his candidate for the Western throne. Procopius report. According to the accounts of Priscus, John Malalas, Theodorus Lector, Evagrius Scholasticus, Theophanes the Confessor, Joannes Zonaras and Cedrenus, Placidia can be estimated to have stayed a prisoner in Carthage for six to seven years. In 461 or 462, Leo I, Eastern Roman Emperor, paid a large ransom fo
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