Nepotianus (died 465) was a general of the

Western Roman Empire The Western Roman Empire comprised the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court; in particular, this term is used in historiography to describe the period fr ...

Life

Nepotianus married the sister of Marcellinus, the semi-independent ruler of Dalmatia;

Julius Nepos Julius Nepos (died 9 May 480), or simply Nepos, ruled as Roman emperor of the West from 24 June 474 to 28 August 475. After losing power in Italy, Nepos retreated to his home province of Dalmatia, from which he continued to claim the western im ...

, last Western Roman Emperor, might have been their son and did at some point succeed Nepotianus as ruler of Dalmatia. In 458 he was ''comes et magister utriusque militiae'' and together with

Aegidius Aegidius (died 464 or 465) was the ruler of the short-lived Kingdom of Soissons from 461 to 464/465AD. Before his ascension, he became ''magister militum per Gallias'' (Master of the Soldiers for Gaul) serving under Majorian, in 458AD. An arden ...

, he commanded the

army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

of the Western Emperor,

Majorian Majorian ( la, Iulius Valerius Maiorianus; died 7 August 461) was the western Roman emperor from 457 to 461. A prominent general of the Roman army, Majorian deposed Emperor Avitus in 457 and succeeded him. Majorian was the last emperor to make ...

. That same year Majorian started a military campaign to re-conquer Gaul; the army, reinforced by some barbarian mercenaries, dislodged the

Visigoths The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is ...

Theodoric II Theodoric II, ''Teodorico'' in Spanish and Portuguese, ( 426 – early 466) was the eighth King of the Visigoths, from 453 to 466. Biography Theoderic II, son of Theodoric I, obtained the throne by killing his elder brother Thorismund. The Engli ...

from

Arelate Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...

and obliged them to return to their condition of ''

foederati ''Foederati'' (, singular: ''foederatus'' ) were peoples and cities bound by a treaty, known as ''foedus'', with Rome. During the Roman Republic, the term identified the ''socii'', but during the Roman Empire, it was used to describe foreign stat ...

''. With the help of his new ''foederati'', Majorian entered in the Rhone Valley, conquering its populations "some by arms and some by diplomacy".

Priscus Priscus of Panium (; el, Πρίσκος; 410s AD/420s AD-after 472 AD) was a 5th-century Eastern Roman diplomat and Greek historian and rhetorician (or sophist)...: "For information about Attila, his court and the organization of life generall ...

, fragment 27. He defeated the Burgundians and besieged and conquered the city of

Lugdunum Lugdunum (also spelled Lugudunum, ; modern Lyon, France) was an important Roman city in Gaul, established on the current site of Lyon. The Roman city was founded in 43 BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus, but continued an existing Gallic settle ...

: the rebel city was heavily fined, while the Bagaudae were forced to join the Empire.Mathisen. In 459, some envoys of Nepotianus and of the gothic ''comes''

Sunieric Sunieric (Latin: ''Suniericus''; ''fl'' 459-461) was a Visigoth general, who collaborated with the Roman army in the re-conquest of Spain on behalf of Emperor Majorian. Life Cyrila's successor, Sunieric was sent by king Theodoric II to Hispania ...

arrived in

Gallaecia Gallaecia, also known as Hispania Gallaecia, was the name of a Roman province in the north-west of Hispania, approximately present-day Galicia (Spain), Galicia, Norte, Portugal, northern Portugal, Asturias and León (province), Leon and the lat ...

to announce the victory of Majorian and the treaty between the Romans and the Visigoths. In May 460, Nepotianus and Sunieric led some troops in a joint attack with Theodoric to the Suebi: Nepotianus moved to Gallaecia and attacked the Suebic army, defeating it near '' Lucus Augusti''. At the beginning of the 460s, Nepotianus was deposed by order of Theodoric II, maybe because he opposed the powerful ''magister militum''

Ricimer Flavius Ricimer ( , ; – 18/19 August 472) was a Romanized Germanic general who effectively ruled the remaining territory of the Western Roman Empire from 461 until his death in 472, with a brief interlude in which he contested power with An ...

, and was substituted by Arborius. He died in 465.

Notes

Bibliography

* Paul Fouracre, ''The New Cambridge Medieval History'', Cambridge University Press, 2005, , pp. 165–166. *

Arnold Hugh Martin Jones Arnold Hugh Martin Jones FBA (9 March 1904 – 9 April 1970) (known as A. H. M. Jones or Hugo Jones) was a prominent 20th-century British historian of classical antiquity, particularly of the later Roman Empire. Biography Jones's best-known wor ...

, John Robert Martindale, John Morris, "Nepotianus 2", ''

The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire ''Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire'' (abbreviated as ''PLRE'') is a work of Roman prosopography published in a set of three volumes collectively describing many of the people attested to have lived in the Roman Empire from AD 260, the date ...

'', volume 1, Cambridge University Press, 1992, , p. 778. * Ralph W. Mathisen
"Julius Valerius Maiorianus (18 February/28 December 457 - 2/7 August 461)"
''De Imperatoribus Romanis''. * John Michael O'Flynn, ''Generalissimos of the Western Roman Empire'', University of Alberta, 1983, {{ISBN, 0-88864-031-5. 465 deaths 5th-century Romans Ancient Roman generals Year of birth unknown