Marcus Maecilius Flavius Eparchius Avitus c. 380/395 – after 17 October 456 or in 457) was Western Roman Emperor from 8 or 9 July 455 to 17 October 456. He was a senator and a high-ranking officer both in the civil and military administration, as well as Bishop of Piacenza.

A Gallo-Roman aristocrat, he opposed the reduction of the Western Roman Empire to Italy alone, both politically and from an administrative point of view. For this reason, as Emperor he introduced several Gallic senators in the Imperial administration; this policy, however, was opposed by the Senatorial aristocracy and by the people of Rome, who had suffered from the sack of the city by the Vandals in 455.

Avitus had a good relationship with the Visigoths, in particular with their king Theodoric II, who was a friend of his and who acclaimed Avitus Emperor. The possibility of a strong and useful alliance between the Visigoths and Romans ended, however, when Theodoric invaded Roman Hispania and then refused to help Avitus against the rebel Roman generals who deposed him.

Avitus was born in Clermont to a family of the Gallo-Roman nobility. His father was possibly Flavius Julius Agricola, consul in 421. Avitus had two sons, Agricola (fl 455 – living 507, a vir illustris) and Ecdicius Avitus (later patricius and magister militum under Emperor Julius Nepos) and a daughter Papianilla; she married Sidonius Apollinaris, whose letters and panegyrics remain an important source for Avitus' life and times.

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