Priscus Attalus

Priscus Attalus (Ancient Greek: Πρίσκος Ἄτταλος; died after 416) was a Roman senator and urban prefect of Rome who was twice proclaimed emperor in the West in opposition to Honorius, in 409–410 and again in 414–415. On both occasions he was elevated with Visigothic support, first by Alaric I and then by Athaulf, and on both occasions his position depended on his patrons: Alaric deposed him when seeking a settlement with the court at Ravenna, and Athaulf's Visigoths abandoned him when the blockade of Gaul forced their withdrawal into Spain. Modern scholarship is divided over the first elevation, which has been read both as a nomination imposed by Alaric on a compliant senate and as the deliberate act of a senatorial majority that had come to prefer an alternative to Honorius.

A pagan by upbringing, Attalus was baptized as an Arian Christian by the Gothic bishop Sigesarius at the time of his first proclamation, making him the last claimant to the Roman imperial office who did not profess Nicene Christianity. After the collapse of his second reign he was captured, displayed at Rome, mutilated and exiled to Lipari, where he died at an unknown date after 416.