Flavius Avitus Marinianus ( 423–448) was a politician of the

Western Roman Empire In modern historiography, the Western Roman Empire was the western provinces of the Roman Empire, collectively, during any period in which they were administered separately from the eastern provinces by a separate, independent imperial court. ...

during the reign of

Honorius Honorius (; 9 September 384 – 15 August 423) was Roman emperor from 393 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla. After the death of Theodosius in 395, Honorius, under the regency of Stilicho ...

Biography

Avitus was praetorian prefect and consul in 423. He is mentioned in the ''Gesta de purgatione Xysti III episcopi'' in a list of aristocrats involved in the investigations against

Pope Sixtus III Pope Sixtus III, also called Pope Xystus III, was the bishop of Rome from 31 July 432 to his death on 18 August 440. His ascension to the papacy is associated with a period of increased construction in the city of Rome. His feast day is celebrate ...

. Although the ''Gesta'' has been long recognized as a later forgery, B.L. Twyman argued in 1970 that the list of aristocrats was taken from a later papal investigation concerning the deposition of bishop Celidonius by archbishop

Hilarius of Arles Hilary of Arles, also known by his Latin name Hilarius (c. 403–449), was a bishop of Arles in Southern France. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church, with 5 May being his feast day. Life In his ea ...

. T.D. Barnes subsequently showed that the list was best explained as the product of "a writer of the sixth century hohas deliberately mixed genuine and fictitious persons." He had a wife, Anastasia, and a son,

Rufius Praetextatus Postumianus Flavius Rufius Praetextatus Postumianus (fl. ) was a Roman prefect and consul. He served as urban prefect of Rome in the 4th century AD. Career He served as consul and prefect of Rome from 1 January 448 AD to 31 December 448 AD. See als ...

(consul in 448); it is possible that Rufius Viventius Gallus was another son. Marinianus and his wife were Christians; at

Pope Leo I Pope Leo I () ( 391 – 10 November 461), also known as Leo the Great (; ), was Bishop of Rome from 29 September 440 until his death on 10 November 461. He is the first of the three Popes listed in the ''Annuario Pontificio'' with the title "the ...

's request, they restored the mosaic on the façade of the

Old St. Peter's Basilica Old St. Peter's Basilica was the church buildings that stood, from the 4th to 16th centuries, where St. Peter's Basilica stands today in Vatican City. Construction of the basilica, built over the historical site of the Circus of Nero, began dur ...

, as recorded by an inscription on the mosaic itself.Louise Ropes Loomis, ''The Book of the Popes (Liber Pontificalis) I-: To the Pontificate of Gregory I'', BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2009, , p. 100.

Biography

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Further reading