COINS OF THE LAST 21 YEARS OF LIFE OF THE WESTERN ROMAN EMPIRE

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The election of Libius Severus would assure to Ricimer maximum power: instead marked the beginning of its decline. Non-recognition of Leo I, stripped Libius Severus legal validity to his election, so historians of Constantinople, as Marcellinus and Jordan, speak of it as a usurper.
Britain was now abandoned to its fate, Hispania, and much of Gaul were in possession of the Visigoths and the entire African coast, from Carthage to the Atlantic, was the Vandal kingdom of Genserico: so that the Empire of the West was now diluted to the Italian peninsula and a small part of Gaul on the hand of magister militvm Egidius, opponent of Libius Severus, who did not recognize his election.
The new emperor, instigated from Ricimer, appointed Agrippinus as a new magister militvm for Gallias: Agrippinus was a man ambiguous and opposed to Egidius.
Libius Severus offered to Theodoric II, king of the Visigoths, the city of Narbonne, and with it access to the Mediterranean, thereby isolating Egidius from the rest of the empire and allowing Agrippinus to settle in Arles, with whose brand was coined some rare solidus behalf of Libius Severus (Ric 2729), probably not before 463.

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The renewed alliance between the Visigoths, newly independent, and the Empire of the West lies in their responsiveness coins. The solidus maintains the same design as that emitted by Libius Severus (Ric 3751-3755): in the field, letters R / V or R / A. There are, however, two different types of tremissis: one (Ric 3756-62) incorporates the type Avggg Victoria, and the other (Ric 3763-64) is similar to that anepigraphic of Libius, although the cross is made in the form very peculiar.

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Neutralized the opposition of Egidius, remained that of Marcellinus, magister militvm for Illyria, one of Rome's best generals, who not only refused to recognize the election of Libius Severus, but also threatened to march on Rome to dethrone the usurper. Ricimer at this point, we found it necessary to put aside his arrogance and the Emperor Leo I turn to avoid a civil war at a time so delicate: Leo I coincided desirability of avoiding a clash today, because Geiseric returned to pirate over the western Mediterranean and to raid the Italian coast. So stopped Marcellinus, but incorporated the Illyrian into relevance of Constantinople.
The greatest danger is Geiseric, fierce opponent of Libius Severus and partisan if Olybrius, linked to the descendants of Valentinian III and his court. Libius Severus in 463 attempted an interview with Geiseric to achieve a lasting peace, but the ambassadors of the Western Empire were not even received at the vandal court. So the Emperor of the West there is no other way but to turn again to the court of Leo I. This secret was always more inclined to come to a showdown with the Vandals, contrary to the advice of Apsar, and commissioned Marcellinus to undertake a military campaign aimed at re-conquest of Sicily, was with Sardinia in the hands of the Vandals. In 464, with a campaign lasting several months, Marcellinus repeatedly defeated the Vandals in Sicily and brought the island under the control of the Roman Empire.

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Despite Leo I continue not to recognize the election of Libius Severus and regarded it as usurper of the throne of the West, however, from 463 until the middle of 465 the relationship between the two courts, Rome and Constantinople, were to cooperate, at least formally. Indeed Leo I was prepared to fund a war with the Vandals.
In the autumn of 465, Libius Severus died suddenly in the imperial palace in Rome. According to Sidonius Apollinaris, it was a natural death, as Severus Libius fully satisfy the desire to Ricimer; according to the historian Flavius Magnus Cassiodorus, however, was poisoned by Ricimer to meet a trade secret between the Suebian prince and the court of Constantinople, in exchange for the intervention of Marcellinus in Sicily.
The sudden and mysterious death of Libius Severus re-opens again play for the possession of the purple of the West, but now the balance of power were very different, with Ricimer at defensive and Leo I as the true arbiter of power.

(More information and images in the Italian section of the FAC)


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