Anicius Olybrius (consul 526)

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Flavius Anicius Olybrius iunior (died 552) was a Roman politician. He was appointed consul for the year 526, which he held without a colleague.[1]


Olybrius belonged to the noble family of the Anicii, probably to the western branch. Following his tenure as consul, which was recognised both in the East and in the West, he held the rank of patricius.

On 17 December 546 Olybrius was in Rome when the Ostrogothic King Totila captured the city, Olybrius, Anicius Maximus, Rufius Gennadius Probus Orestes and other patricii sought refuge in Old St. Peter's Basilica.[2] Captured and sent to Campania, he was still there when Narses conquered Rome in 552; the senators were preparing to return to Rome, but the Goths who guarded them, enraged by the death of Totila, killed them all.[3]


  1. ^ Inscriptions dated to his consulate include CIL V, 5405; CIL V, 5428; CIL VI, 8565; CIL IX, 5011.
  2. ^ Procopius, De Bello VII.20.16-19. Translated by H.B. Dewing, Procopius (Cambridge: Loeb Classical Library, 1979), vol. 4 p. 329
  3. ^ Procopius, De Bello VIII.34.5-6; translated by Dewing, Procopius vol. 5 pp. 399ff

Further reading[edit]

Political offices
Preceded by
Anicius Probus Iunior,
Theodorus Philoxenus Soterichus Philoxenus
Consul of the Roman Empire
Succeeded by
Vettius Agorius Basilius Mavortius