The historians Edward Gibbon and J. B. Bury believed that the acclamation took place at a regular meeting of the Concilium, but this has been rejected on the grounds that Avitus arrived in Arles at the wrong time of year for this, that the public meeting include representatives from outside the Seven Provinces and that Sidonius Apollinaris records that the meeting was arranged specifically to greet Avitus.
:For the Franco-Irish saint, see Sidonius of Saint-Saëns.
Sidonius Apollinaris | Legio XV Apollinaris | XV ''Apollinaris'' | Sidonius of Saint-Saëns | Apollinaris of Ravenna | Apollinaris of Laodicea | Apollinaris |
He then married Tullia of Lyon (b. say 410), daughter of Eucherius of Lyon and wife Gallia(?), and they were the parents of Aquilinus (ca 430 – ca 470), a nobleman at Lyon, schoolfellow and friend of Sidonius Apollinaris and the father of St. Viventiolus and his brother St. Rusticus, Archbishop of Lyon.
He was one of four fifth to sixth-century Gallo-Roman aristocrats whose letters survive in quantity: the others are Sidonius Apollinaris, prefect of Rome in 468 and bishop of Clermont (died 485), Ruricius bishop of Limoges (died 507) and Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, bishop of Vienne (died 518).