Syagrius
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For other uses, see Syagrius (disambiguation).
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Syagrius (born 430, died 486 or 487) was the son of Aegidius,[1] the last Roman magister militum per Gallias; Syagrius preserved his father's rump state between the Somme and the Loire around Soissons after the collapse of central rule in the Western Empire, the so-called "Kingdom" of Syagrius, as Gregory of Tours understood it, applying the Frankish term for an independent leader, rather than a Roman term,[2] or merely dux of the Gallo-Romans. Syagrius governed this Gallo-Roman enclave from the death of his father in 464 until 486, when whatever remained of Roman Gaul was overrun by the territorial expansion of the Frankish kingdom of Clovis I.
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[edit] The End of Roman Gaul
Despite being isolated from the surviving portions of the Roman Empire, Syagrius managed to maintain a pretense of Roman authority in northern Gaul for twenty years, and his state survived longer than the Western Empire itself, the last Emperors being overthrown or killed in 476 and 480. Syagrius managed to hold off the neighboring Salian Franks led by Childeric, although by what means this feat was accomplished have been lost to history. It is known however than Childeric had previously come to the aid of the Gallo-Romans, joining a certain officer named Paul in operations against the Saxons who at one point seized Angers.
Upon Childeric's death in 486 his son Clovis succeeded him. While Childeric had seen no need to overthrow the last Roman foothold in the west, Clovis quickly decided on an expansionist policy and his army crossed such a frontier as there was and then marched on Syagrius's capital at Soissons. We know little of the subsequent clash known as the Battle of Soissons, but the result was a major victory for Clovis. With Syagrius's defeat the provice of Belgica Secunda passed to the Franks.
While this may not have been the end of Clovis's campaign, the outcome was no longer in doubt and the Franks methodically occupied the remaining Gallo-Roman territory. In the aftermath, a defeated Syagrius sought refuge with Alaric II, king of the Visigoths, based at Toulouse, but was instead imprisoned and repatriated to Clovis, and was murdered in 487, stabbed in secret according to Gregory of Tours.[3]
His regime represented the last recorded instance of native Gallo-Roman authority in Gaul; in fact he was known to the Germanic barbarians as the "King of the Romans".
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ "Egidius died and left a son, Syagrius by name." (Gregory of Tours, II.18); "In the fifth year of his [Clovis I's] reign Siagrius, king of the Romans, son of Egidius, had his seat in the city of Soissons which Egidius, who has been mentioned before, once held." (Gregory of Tours, II.27).
- ^ See Godefroid Kurth's estimation of the somewhat illusory nature of Syagrius' power among the cities of Gaul that were controlled neither by Goths nor by Franks: histoire-france.fr website.
- ^ "And Clovis sent to Alaric to send him back, otherwise he was to know that Clovis would make war on him for his refusal. And Alaric was afraid that he would incur the anger of the Franks on account of Siagrius, seeing it is the fashion of the Goths to be terrified, and he surrendered him in chains to Clovis' envoys. And Clovis took him and gave orders to put him under guard, and when he had got his kingdom he directed that he be executed secretly." (Gregory of Tours, II.27)
[edit] References
- Fleuriot, Léon, Les origines de la Bretagne (Paris:Éditions Payot), 1980.
- Gibbon, Edward, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. XXXVIII.
- Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, book II (On-line text).
[edit] External links
- Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911: Syagrius
- La bataile de Soissons (486): Syagrius (pdf file)
