The So-Called “Conquest of the Auvergne” (469-75) in the History of the Visigothic Kingdom. Relations between the Roman Elites of Southern Gaul, the Central Imperial Power in Rome and the Military Authority of the Federates on the Periphery

doi:10.4324/9781315243191-31

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The So-Called “Conquest of the Auvergne” (469-75) in the History of the Visigothic Kingdom. Relations between the Roman Elites of Southern Gaul, the Central Imperial Power in Rome and the Military Authority of the Federates on the Periphery

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ABSTRACT

Traditional historiography makes a clear distinction between the reigns of the Visigothic king Theodoric II (453-67) and the rule of his successor Euric (46784). Historians have agreed that the Romanophile Theodoric II was succeeded by an aggressive king who was determined to put an end to the fiction of a federated kingdom, in order to impose firmly an independent kingdom on his Roman citizens and the Empire. Against this violent and uncultured king, Sidonius Apollinaris and a large part of the Roman aristocracy from Auvergne rebelled.