Avitus Marinianus
Flavius Avitus Marinianus (fl. 423–448) was a politician of the Western Roman Empire during the reign of Honorius.
Biography
Avitus was praetorian prefect[1] and consul in 423[2] He is mentioned in the Gesta de purgatione Xysti III episcopi' in a list of aristocrats involved in the investigations against Pope Sixtus III. Although the Gesta has been long recognized as a later forgery, B.L. Twyman argued in 1970 that the list of aristocrats was taken from a later papal investigation concerning the deposition of bishop Celidonius by archbishop Hilarius of Arles.[3] T.D. Barnes subsequently showed that the list was best explained as the product of "a writer of the sixth century [who] has deliberately mixed genuine and fictitious persons."[4]
He had a wife, Anastasia, and a son, Rufius Praetextatus Postumianus (consul in 448);[5] it is possible that Rufius Viventius Gallus was another son. Marinianus and his wife were Christians; at Pope Leo I's request, they restored the mosaic on the façade of the Old St. Peter's Basilica, as recorded by an inscription on the mosaic itself.[6]
Notes
- ↑ Codex Theodosianus, 3.5.12.
- ↑ CIL III, 3104.
- ↑ Twyman, "Aetius and the Aristocracy", Historia 19 (1970), pp. 494ff
- ↑ Barnes, "'Patricii' under Valentinian III", Phoenix, 29 (1975), pp. 163ff
- ↑ CIL VI, 1761, dated 448, when Marinianus was probably still alive.
- ↑ Louise Ropes Loomis, The Book of the Popes (Liber Pontificalis) I-: To the Pontificate of Gregory I, BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2009, ISBN 1-103-32336-9, p. 100.
Further reading
- Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin, John Robert Martindale, John Morris, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-521-07233-6, pp. 723–724.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Consul of the Roman Empire 423 with Flavius Asclepiodotus |
Succeeded by Fl. Castinus, Fl. Victor |
