Rufius Gennadius Probus Orestes (died 552) was a Roman aristocrat. He was appointed consul of the Senate for the year 530, which he held alongside Flavius Lampadius. Johannes Sundwall believed Orestes was the son of Rufius Magnus Faustus Avienus, the consul of 502,[1] and this view has been supported by more recent writers.[2]
On 17 December 546 Orestes was in Rome when the Ostrogothic King Totilacaptured the city. Orestes, Anicius Olybrius (who had been consul in 526), Anicius Maximus (who had been consul in 523), and other patricii sought refuge in Old St. Peter's Basilica.[3] He afterwards joined a group of refugees who followed the Byzantine army as far as Portus. The following year, when some Byzantine soldiers were patrolling in Campania and encountered captured senators, who were freed and afterward sent to Sicily, he was left behind due to a lack of horses.[4] Orestes was still a prisoner of the Ostrogoths when Narses conquered Rome in 552; the senators were preparing to return to Rome, but, enraged by the death of Totila, the Goths who guarded them killed them all.[5]
Notes
↑ Sundwall, Abhandlungen zur Geschichte des ausgehenden Römertums (Helsinki, 1919), p.144
Procopius of Caesarea was a prominent late antique Greek scholar and historian from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman general Belisarius in Emperor Justinian's wars, Procopius became the principal Roman historian of the 6th century, writing the History of the Wars, the Buildings, and the Secret History.
Narses was, with Belisarius, one of the great generals in the service of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I during the Roman reconquest that took place during Justinian's reign. Narses was a Romanized Armenian. He spent most of his life as an important eunuch in the palace of the emperors in Constantinople.
Pope Vigilius was the bishop of Rome from 29 March 537 to his death. He is considered the first pope of the Byzantine papacy. Born into Roman aristocracy, Vigilius served as a deacon and papal apocrisiarius in Constantinople. He allied with Empress Theodora, who sought his help to establish Monophysitism, and was made pope after the deposition of Silverius. After he refused to sign Emperor Justinian I's edict condemning the Three Chapters, Vigilius was arrested in 545 and taken to Constantinople. He died in Sicily while returning to Rome.
Totila, original name Baduila, was the penultimate King of the Ostrogoths, reigning from 541 to 552 AD. A skilled military and political leader, Totila reversed the tide of the Gothic War, recovering by 543 almost all the territories in Italy that the Eastern Roman Empire had captured from his Kingdom in 540.
The gens Acilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, that flourished from the middle of the third century BC until at least the fifth century AD, a period of seven hundred years. The first of the gens to achieve prominence was Gaius Acilius, who was quaestor in 203 and tribune of the plebs in 197 BC.
The Gothic War between the Eastern Roman Empire during the reign of Emperor Justinian I and the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy took place from 535 to 554 in the Italian Peninsula, Dalmatia, Sardinia, Sicily and Corsica. It was one of the last of the many Gothic Wars against the Roman Empire. The war had its roots in the ambition of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Justinian I to recover the provinces of the former Western Roman Empire, which the Romans had lost to invading barbarian tribes in the previous century, during the Migration Period.
The Ostrogothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of Italy, existed under the control of the Germanic Ostrogoths in Italy and neighbouring areas from 493 to 553.
Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius was a high official of the Eastern Roman Empire and the last ordinary consul of Roman history, holding the office alone in 541.
A Struggle for Rome is a historical novel written by Felix Dahn.
The First Siege of Rome during the Gothic War lasted for a year and nine days, from 2 March 537 to 12 March 538. The city was besieged by the Ostrogothic army under their king Vitiges; the defending East Romans were commanded by Belisarius, one of the most famous and successful Roman generals. The siege was the first major encounter between the forces of the two opponents, and played a decisive role in the subsequent development of the war.
The sack of Rome in 546 was carried out by the Gothic king Totila during the Gothic War of 535–554 between the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire. Totila was based at Tivoli and, in pursuit of his quest to reconquer the region of Latium, he moved against Rome. The city endured a siege lasting almost a year before falling to the Goths.
(Anicius) Maximus was a Roman senator and patrician during the Ostrogothic kingdom, who celebrated the last games in the Flavian Amphitheater.
Flavius Anicius Olybrius was a Roman politician. He was appointed to the post of consul for the year 526, which he held without a colleague.
Decius was a politician of the Eastern Roman Empire. A member of the Decia gens, he was appointed consul for 529 without colleague.
The Battle of Cape Bon was an engagement during a joint military expedition of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires led by Basiliscus against the Vandal capital of Carthage in 468. The invasion of the kingdom of the Vandals was one of the largest amphibious operations in antiquity, with 1,113 ships and over 50,000 personnel.
Rufius Petronius Nicomachus Cethegus was a politician of Ostrogothic Italy and the Eastern Roman Empire. He was appointed consul for 504 AD, and held the post without a colleague. His father was Petronius Probinus, the consul for 489 and prominent supporter of Antipope Laurentius.
Reparatus was a Roman aristocrat, and politician under Ostrogothic rule. He held the offices of Urban prefect (527) and Praetorian prefect of Italy.
Asbadus was a Gepid leader fighting for the Eastern Roman Empire against the Ostrogoths in the final stages of the Gothic War.
Scipuar was a commander of the Ostrogoths in the final stages of the Gothic War against the Eastern Roman Empire.
The gens Rufia, occasionally spelled Ruffia, was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are not mentioned in history until imperial times, and they achieved little prominence until the late third century, from which time the family rose in importance, gaining the consulship on a number of occasions from the time of Constantine the Great to that of Justinian, and frequently holding the post of praefectus urbi.
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