Graecus

Graecus was bishop of Marseille (Massilia) in the late fifth century and a prominent ecclesiastical and political figure in late-Roman Gaul. He corresponded with both Sidonius Apollinaris and Ruricius of Limoges, and was one of the four Gallic bishops entrusted by the emperor Julius Nepos with negotiating peace terms with the Visigothic king Euric around 474-475. Sidonius famously reproached him in a bitter letter (Ep. 7.7) for his role in the diplomacy that ceded the Auvergne and Clermont to the Visigoths, lamenting that the bishops had bartered away Roman territory; the episode makes Graecus a vivid witness to the contraction of Roman authority in Gaul.