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Ecdicius Avitus

Ecdicius Avitus

Male Abt 420 - Aft 475  (56 years)    Has 2 ancestors and 2 descendants in this family tree.

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  • Name Ecdicius Avitus  
    Birth Abt 420 
    Gender Male 
    Death Aft 475 
    Siblings 2 Siblings 
    Person ID I668943  Geneagraphie
    Last Modified 8 Nov 2009 

    Father Marcus Maecilius Avitus,   b. Abt 400, Auvergne, France Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Aft 17 Oct 456 (Age 56 years) 
    Family ID F48129  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Children 
    +1. Bishop Hesychius   d. Yes, date unknown
    Family ID F294332  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 8 Nov 2009 

  • Notes 
    • magister militum
      was educated at Augustonemetum (modern Clermont-Ferrand ), where he lived and owned some land. In the 460s he was one of the richest and most important persons in the western Empire and he was present at the court of Anthemius until 469.
      Ecdicius and his brother-in-law Sidonius Apollinaris , the Bishop of Clermont , took charge of the defence of the Auvergne between 471 and 474 against the aggression of the Visigoths . The Visigothic king Euric 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 on behalf of the Empire.
      In 471 Anthemius sent an army into Gaul under the command of his son Anthemiolus to attack the Visigoths, but he was defeated near Arles and in 473 the Visigoths had captured Arles and Marseille and were threatening Italia itself. Ecdicius, elevated to the rank of patrician by the new emperor Julius Nepos and invested with the title magister militum praesentialis, had just begun the fight to remove the Visigoths from Provence when, in 475, he was recalled to Italy by Julius and Flavius Orestes 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 after that. Some letters of Cassiodorus (Epistulae 2.4, 22) suggest that he survived into the early years of the sixth century. He was the father of Avitus of Vienne .



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