Rufius Postumius Festus

Rufius Postumius Festus was a patricius and consul in 472.

Festus came from an aristocratic family from Rome and was perhaps the son of Festus , who was consul in 439.

As caput senatus Festus was sent by Theodoric at the head of an embassy to Constantinople to Emperor Zenon in order to obtain his confirmation of his rule in Italy at the end of 490 after the defeat of Odoacer on August 11th. Around 497 Festus went to Constantinople for the second time on behalf of Theodoric in order to get Theodoric's final recognition from Emperor Anastasios I. He also succeeded in this assignment, since he played an important role at the imperial court through his skill and influence, also in church matters, in which he took over the implementation of the emperor's church-political plans with the pope . The return of his embassy took place around the middle of 498.

The death of Pope Anastasius II in November 498 gave Festus the cause of feverish activity in order to push through a candidate according to his and the emperor's wishes against the strictly Orthodox party in the papal election. Since the candidate of the Orthodox Symmachus was given priority in the election on November 22nd, Festus, together with the patrician Petronius Probinus and a large part of the Senate , initiated a violent agitation in favor of the antipope Laurentius against the Orthodox party, which was a schism was only ended around 506, when Festus was instructed to give up his candidate, who had to retire to the Festus estate, where he soon died.

Although Festus was later honored as head of the Senate with various commissions in Rome on the part of Theodoric, he seems to have withdrawn from active political life and rejected all high posts.

literature

• Johannes Sundwall : Treatises on the history of late Romanism (= Öfversigt af Finska Vetenskaps-Societenens förhandlingar. B: Humanistiska vetenskaper. Vol. 60, No. 2, 1917/18, ZDB -ID 448249-9 ). Finska Vetenskaps-Societeten, Helsingfors 1919, p. 121 f., (Reprint: Arno Press, New York NY 1975, ISBN 0-405-07065-9 ).
• John Robert Martindale: Festus 5. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1980, ISBN 0-521-20159-4 , pp. 467-469.