Aetius and the Franks

[Robert Vermaat]

The Salian franks may have still remained in the area, but they couldn't claim the area as theirs as the Romans had control of it. They wouldn't overrun it again until after Aetius' death - Sidonius and Hydatius record that the Suebes capture Spain, the Visigoths expand through the rest of Aquitaine, and the Franks and Alemanni come back accross the Rhine in 455 because there was no capable general to oppose them.

I think you have a different picture of this period. The Salian Franks were there and they remained in place. Aetius beat them, and they accepted a foedus, but the did not ‘overrun it’ in any case, because they had been settled there by the Romans in the first place. Like the Goths they sometimes acted too independently if the Roman authority had become slack, after which they had to be put back in their place. But they did not ‘come back across the Rhine’ as if they were a nomad tribe or something. Many of their warriors left their fathers’ homesteads to fight in the south, no doubt taking up arms with either the Roman army or the Salian Franks. But ‘the tribe’ if you can call it that, remained where they had settled during the 4th c. - within Gaul. Text such as Wikipedia which still describe this as ‘the kingdom of the Franks’ which waxes and wanes are highly misleading. The people stay largely in place, it’s their leaders who become more and less influential.

Also Merovaeus (Merovech) is still a conjectured name - we know the younger son of Chlodio became the King right after Chalons, but he was the adopted son of Aetius and did not oppose Roman dominion under Aetius' reign. After his reign he probably thought he had a right to that land to avenge the death of his father in law. Furthermore, he was not the Magister Militum per Gallias after Aetius was bumped up to MUM Junior in 429, because either Avitus or Litorius (more likely Avitus) became MUM per Gallias in 429 or 430. After Litorius whom was MUM per Gallias in 435-439, its likely Aegidius became MUM per Gallias and Majoran a comes of Gaul.

It’s not MUM per Gallias but MM per Gallias, the MUM was the highest rank (Aetius). Aetius held the rank of MM per Gallias until 433, and after that it’s not clear.
Avitus may have been MM but we don’t know this for sure. In 439 he became PP o Gaul and he retired in 440 before he was recalled in 455.
Litorius is not known to have been MM per Gallias either, and he died in 439.

The next ones we know are:
Agrippinus 452-456
Aegidius 456-465
Agrippinus 461-2
Syagrius 465-486

Now, apart from the gap between 433 and 452, at some point there were several men who held this office at the same time, being appointed by conflicting factions. But if Aetius dominated Gaul during this time, and Merovech was indeed his ally, it’s logical to assume that, even though we don’t know for sure.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Aetius gained the Junior MUM command in 429. He didn't attain the Senior MUM command until 433, Constantius Felix, and then Bonifacius, and then Sebastianus, held that command between 429 and 433. We know he had an MUM command because in 430 he was operating in Raetia, which was under the dominion of the Italic and Dalmatian command.

You are right in that the Salian franks did remain in place, I mis-worded my statements. I'm just saying that their attempts to claim their own dominion under Chlodio were subdued, the same applies to the Visigoths under Theodoric I, as they were not granted the same status as the Vandals (Socius et Amicus) until at least 453.

I would be willing to accept Merovech as MM p Gallias after the death of Chlodio in 449/450, but prior to that its recorded he was an ambassador from the franks to the Roman court (in Ravenna).

Aggripinus is a new one to me, I have to look him up. Aetius had an ability to command complete loyalty from his subordinates, so Agrippinus must have been one of Aetius' lackeys.

Also, it is believed Litorius held the Gallic command, as we have him commanding troops in Gaul from 435 to 439, while Avitus was Praetorian Prefect of Gaul.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Looked up Agrippinus, it seems that he came from the Area of Lugdenensis, but there is no evidence of any ties to Aetius. He may have been appointed by the Gallic Aristocracy.

[Reno Melitensis]

Not much is known about Flavius Agrippinus, as you said he may have been a close friend of Avitus and was a member of the elite aristocracy of Gaul. He seems to have been a keen enemy of Aegidus. Maybe a family feud between the two, who knows. His appointment to the highest command in Gaul, also shows that he may have been a prominent individual in the ranks of the army, maybe he was a Dux or a Comes before attaining the title of Magister. But for much of his career he was overshadowed by Aegidus who was preferred by both Aetius and Majorian to command the armies in Gaul.

Cheers

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Well it is interesting to note that he could not have been appointed in 451/452 without Aetius' approval.

[Timianus]

I don't mean to be pedantic, but what do we mean by Roman "control"? Paying taxes to Rome, being subject to Roman law/civil authorities, or just agreeing to defend the border and fight on the side of whatever Roman general was in the area?

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Its iffy. Generally it was a matter of whom the local possessores were loyal to. In Visigothic Aquitaine the Possessores were replaced with Goths, who filled the exact same roles and adopted a roman structure. However they did not pay taxes to the Roman State.

With the Franks, Burgundians, Alans, and Aremoricans, you have a different situation. These people were settled under Roman Authority, by the Roman Goverment. They had not invaded and settled, unable to be repulsed, like the Suebes, Visigoths, and Vandals. They were settled in depopulated ares, and served and paid taxes to the Roman state. By the 5th century it is likely that the Franks, Burgundians, and Alans kept a large portion of the taxes for their own noble class, but they were still under direct Roman control, or at least until Aetius died. We know their groups of Possessores usually intermingled with the Romans, and any Roman Possessores oftentimes gave their loyalty to them (which often encouraged expansion, such as the Frankish attempts to take Trier, Arras, and Cologne). These attempts at expansion were usually to gain political influence or more grants of country, as they would be usually be unable to keep and hold the city.

[Robert Vermaat]

Indeed what Evan said.

Authors should express better what they consider 'control' to be, because it can mean almost anything from total to nominal political control.

Contrary to what was taught in schools up to the 1980s (or still is), I thionk that the current opinion is that these groups were so much integrated into the Roman system that the locals may not have noticed the difference between two Roman nobelemen waging war on each other, or one or both being Franks or something. Troops on both sides were eagerly recruited from within and outside the Empire, kitted out to some extent by the Roman state (the Franks did make sure they controlled the fabricae in Toxandria after the 460s) until the quetly took over what was the Roman government in Gaul itself. But later merovingian civil war hardly differed from what we already see during the 5th century - only we label it Roman and Frankish as if there was a major difference. The Roman army was never wiped out, as (I recall) Gregory of Tours tells us later that the Roman forces (exercitus Romanorum) were incorporated into Clovis' Frankish army (exercitus Francorum). Roman officers fought with the Visigoths and Procopius tells us that local units still guarded the borders with their traditional battle signs as late as the 6th century. To them, nothing much had changed.