Siege of Pavia (476)

Siege of Pavia
DateAugust 476
Location
Pavia
Result Federate victory
Belligerents
Foederati Western Roman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Odoacer Orestes  Executed

The siege of Pavia in August 476 was a critical event during the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Foederati, including some Sciri, in the Roman army in Italy mutinied. They acclaimed Odovacar king on 23 August, while the magister militum Orestes took refuge in the well fortified city of Pavia (Ticinum).[1][2] The city "was immediately besieged, the fortifications were stormed, the town was pillaged" and many churches and houses were burned, including the bishop's residence.[3]

An account of the events in Pavia is given by Magnus Felix Ennodius in his Life of Bishop Epiphanius of Pavia (§§95–100).[4] Ennodius presents the siege as contrived by the devil to inconvenience the bishop.[1][2][3] Epiphanius' sister, a nun named Luminosa, was among the captives.[5] Orestes escaped but was captured at Piacenza (Placentia) on 28 August and executed. Thereafter the disorders subsided.[2]

From Piacenza, Odovacar marched on Ravenna and deposed the emperor Romulus Augustulus.[2]

  1. ^ a b Thomas Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, 2nd ed. (Clarendon Press, 1892), Vol. II, Pt II, Book III, pp. 519–521.
  2. ^ a b c d Penny MacGeorge, Late Roman Warlords (Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 289–290.
  3. ^ a b Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. J. B. Bury (Methuen & Co., 1897), Vol. IV, p. 49.
  4. ^ Andrew Gillett, Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West, 411–533 (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 152.
  5. ^ Genevieve Marie Cook (ed.), The Life of Saint Epiphanius by Ennodius: A Translation with an Introduction and Commentary (Catholic University of America Press, 1942), pp. 71–73, 196.