The Romans Who Outlasted Their Empire
The Rise and Fall of the “Kingdom” of Soissons
The End of the Western Roman Empire is traditionally placed on September 4th, 476 AD, the date the 14-year-old boy-Emperor Romulus Augustulus abdicated to the barbarian Odoacer. Other historians place the date further at 480 AD when Julius Nepos, the Emperor preceding Romulus who still held claim to the office, was murdered by his generals. These dates are effective in establishing the moment when the office of Western Roman Emperor became permanently vacant; however, they ignore the fact that while the office may have been defunct, the memory of the Empire remained strong among its citizenry, and many continued to fight for the dream of Rome even as it decayed beyond any reasonable hope of recovery. Two Roman generals in particular, Aegidius and his son Syagrius, would demonstrate their loyalty to a dying civilization by fighting to preserve their culture and way of life even when it became evident that no one would come to relieve them.
The Rise of Aegidius
Very little information remains of Aegidius’ early life and career, with the majority of ancient sources mentioning him being written by Frankish historians, such as Gregory of Tours, nearly a century after his life. From the information we do have, historians have determined that Aegidius was a native of Gaul with an aristocratic background, serving in the Gallic field army as it fought to maintain Rome’s diminishing authority in the province. It is even possible that he may have participated in fighting off the invasion of Attila the Hun at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451 AD.
In 457 AD, Julius Valerius Majorian was proclaimed Western Roman Emperor by the Roman military, beginning what would be the last great attempt by the West to save itself from destruction. Aegidius, a prominent political supporter and personal friend of the new Emperor, received the office of magister militum per Gallias as a reward for his loyalty, making him commander of all remaining units of the Gallic field army.
At this point, Gaul had been nearly entirely overrun by migrating barbarian tribes, with the Burgundians settling near modern-day Lyon, the Franks occupying the Rhineland, and the Visigoths seizing Aquitaine and threatening to cut off Roman access to Hispania. Majorian’s reign, however, would see Roman authority be reestablished in the province, with Aegidius defeating the Visigoths together with the Emperor at the Battle of Arles in 458 AD. Following Majorian’s Gallic reconquest, Aegidius was left behind to administer the province while the Emperor moved south to retake Hispania and Africa.
Unfortunately, Majorian’s reign would come to a bloody end before he could fully secure the survival of the West. In 460 AD, the fleet he was constructing to reconquer Africa was torched by saboteurs, crippling the Emperor financially and making him fall out of favor among the Roman senatorial elite. Upon returning to Italy in 461 AD, Majorian was ambushed by forces led by Ricimer, a barbarian general in service to Rome who had conspired with the Roman aristocracy to overthrow the Emperor. After being beaten and tortured for several days, the Emperor was finally beheaded by his captors, ending what could have been the Western Roman Empire’s last-minute savior.
Establishing Soissons
Following the death of Majorian, Ricimer appointed a senator named Libius Severus to the office of Western Roman Emperor, where he served as a puppet ruler for the barbarian general. Many of Majorian’s generals, including Aegidius, refused to recognize this usurper, and the Gallic field army followed him in their loyalty to the memory of their betrayed Emperor.
After establishing his authority in Northern Gaul, it appears that Aegidius began searching for allies in a possible attempt to march into Italy and overthrow Ricimer’s usurping regime, securing an alliance with the Franks under King Childeric and sending further envoys to the Vandals in Africa. Unfortunately for Aegidius, Ricimer had made alliances of his own with the Visigoths and the Burgundians, ceding them territory in Southern Gaul in exchange for peace. Now that he was cut off from the rest of the Empire and surrounded by hostile barbarian kingdoms, Aegidius was forced to prioritize the survival of his Gallic territory over avenging his friend.
It is unknown how the administration of the “Kingdom” of Soissons operated, as few sources remain from this period of Late Antiquity. From what remains, it appears that Aegidius and later his son Syagrius ruled as governors of a Roman province, preserving Roman authority in spite of the fact they did not recognize the Emperor in Rome as legitimate. Soissons was an enclave in a sea of barbarian conquest where Gallo-Roman culture could persist unperturbed, at least for a little while longer.
It should also be noted that the label of “Kingdom” was a later historical invention meant to differentiate Aegidius’ rump state from the remainder of the Western Roman Empire. In reality, both Aegidius and his son would never have accepted a kingly title- although centuries had passed since the days of the Roman Republic with the office of Emperor becoming increasingly autocratic in nature, the cultural stigma Romans held against kings remained strong.
In 463 AD, Aegidius, together with Childeric, defeated a Visigothic army near Orleans, halting their expansion into Gaul. This victory reveals that the remaining Roman soldiers in Gaul were still capable of military success, and it left open the possibility that Aegidius could reconnect his territory with the Empire and overthrow Ricimer’s regime. Before he could launch any campaign, Aegidius died under mysterious circumstances in 465 AD. Historians such as Hydatius suggest that he was either poisoned or killed in an ambush, with the likely suspects being Ricimer, who still considered Aegidius a threat to his regime, or Theodoric, the King of the Visigoths whom he had recently defeated.
The few ancient sources on Aegidius present him in a very positive light, with Paul of Perigueux declaring him to be an “outstanding man of courage and character”. Aegidius certainly deserves credit for maintaining some form of Roman authority in a province devastated by near-constant invasion and surrounded by hostile kingdoms. His loyalty to the memory of his friend and Emperor, Majorian, is also worthy of mention, as it suggests that some of the Roman values of old were still being held in this era of upheaval. Through his efforts, Gaul would remain under Western Roman control longer than any other province, even outliving the Empire he hoped to restore.
The “Reign” of Syagrius
Following the death of Aegidius, the Gallic field army remained loyal to the memory of their deceased commander by nominating his son, Syagrius, as their new magister militum per Gallias. Unfortunately, even fewer ancient sources of Syagrius’ life survive than those of Aegidius’, so it is unknown if he was already an adult with an accomplished military background upon his father’s death in 465 AD, or if he was much younger and merely serving as a unifying figurehead. Regardless of the nature of his ascension, the fact that the field army remained a united and loyal force despite the death of their commander reveals the respect these men must have held for Aegidius.
Syagrius would reign in a similar manner to his father, refusing to recognize Ricimer and his puppet Emperors in Rome and defending his remaining territory in Northern Gaul from invaders. He was aided in these efforts by Childeric, as the King of the Franks chose to continue his alliance with Soissons. Through this alliance, Syagrius and Childeric repelled several Visigothic and Burgundian invasions of Gaul, along with raids from Saxon pirates to the north.
Syagrius also continued to administer Soissons as a Roman province, maintaining its remaining Roman institutions and refusing to accept any title that suggested kingship. He even acknowledged the authority of the Western Roman Emperor following the death of Ricimer in 472 AD, as coins of Emperors such as Julius Nepos have been found in Gaul. In practice, however, Soisson’s isolation from Italy meant that Syagrius ruled independently from Rome, and there was little the two could do to assist one another.
As mentioned, 476 AD saw the end of the Western Roman Empire as an independent political entity, with the last claimant dying in 480 AD. If Syagrius had any notable reaction to the end of his Empire, the source describing it has not survived. Given that his control in Gaul remained uninterrupted, it can be inferred that Syagrius likely followed the policy of many of the barbarian kingdoms and recognized the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople as his new sovereign. However, the Eastern Roman Empire lacked the resources and strategic interest to support such a geographically-distant holdout.
In 481 AD, Childeric died of natural causes, leaving his 15-year old son Clovis as King of the Franks. An ambitious young man, Clovis chose not to renew his alliance with Syagrius, and he challenged the Roman to battle in 486 AD with the goal of annexing this final holdout. Syagrius, refusing to capitulate without any resistance, answered the challenge, and the two met at a battlefield whose exact location remains forgotten. The Battle of Soissons lacks any detailed description from ancient sources, but it appears that the last remaining Roman army in the West was decisively defeated by the Franks, with Syagrius fleeing south to the Visigothic Kingdom. According to Gregory of Tours, the Visigothic King then sent him back to Clovis in chains, who had the last active Western Roman general executed to secure his control over his newly-conquered territory.
In the end, the “Kingdom” of Soissons outlasted the Western Roman Empire by 10 years, being the last territory in the West to fall to barbarian tribes. Its former territory became the nucleus for the rise of the Frankish Kingdom, while its Gallo-Roman citizenry would slowly be assimilated by their new overlords over the next century.
Despite its brief existence, Soissons remains as a demonstration of the tenacity of Roman culture and authority in an era where both were disintegrating. Men like Aegidius and Syagrius still considered the Roman Empire to be something worth fighting for, choosing to fight onwards in the face of impossible odds. The very fact that the remaining soldiers and citizens of Gaul remained loyal to them suggests that they were not alone in their desire to preserve their way of life.
The legacy of this last ember of Rome would continue in the freshly-expanded Frankish Kingdom, as Clovis would emulate the previous Roman administration in his governance of the former province of Gaul. Nearly three centuries later the Frankish King Charlemagne would be crowned “Emperor of the Romans”, reviving the title of “Emperor” in the West. While “Roman” as an independent culture would fade into history, the Franks would ensure that its legacy, and the legacy of Aegidius and Syagrius, would be preserved and built upon by future generations.
Sources:
Hughes, I. (2022). Patricians and Emperors: The Last Rulers of the Western Roman Empire. Pen and Sword Military.
