Syagrius Syagrius ( 430 – 486 or 487 ) was the last Roman official in Gaul , whose defeat by king Clovis I of the Franks is considered the end of Western Roman rule outside of Italy . He came to this position through inheritance , for his father was Aegidius , the last Roman " magister militum per Gallias " . Syagrius preserved his father ' s rump state between the Somme and the Loire around Soissons after the collapse of central rule in the Western Empire , a domain Gregory of Tours called the " Kingdom " of Soissons . Syagrius governed this Gallo - Roman enclave from the death of his father in 464 until 486 , when he was defeated in battle by Clovis I . Historians have mistrusted the title " rex Romanorum " that Gregory of Tours gave him , at least as early as Godefroid Kurth , who dismissed it as a gross error in 1893 . The common consensus has been to follow Kurth , based on the historical truism that Romans hated kingship from the days of the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud ; for example , Syagrius ' article in the " Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire " omits this title , preferring to refer to him as a " Roman ruler ( in North Gaul ) " . However , S . Fanning has assembled a number of examples of " rex " being used in a neutral , if not favorable , context , and argues that " the phrase " Romanorum rex " is not peculiar to Gregory of Tours or to Frankish sources " , and that Gregory ' s usage may indeed show " that they were , or were seen to be , claiming to be Roman emperors . " The End of Roman Gaul . Despite being isolated from the surviving portions of the Roman Empire , Syagrius managed to maintain a degree of Roman authority in northern Gaul for twenty years , and his state survived longer than the Western Empire itself , the last Emperors being overthrown or killed in 476 and 480 . Syagrius managed to hold off the neighbouring Salian Franks , who were internally divided under kings including Childeric . However , it is known that Childeric had previously come to the aid of the Gallo - Romans , joining a certain officer named Paul in operations against Saxons who at one point seized Angers . Upon Childeric ' s death in 481 his son Clovis succeeded him . While Childeric had seen no need to overthrow the last Roman foothold in the west , Clovis assembled an army , issued a challenge , and met Syagrius ' s forces . Few details are known of the subsequent clash , the Battle of Soissons , but Syagrius was decisively defeated and fled . His domain passed to the Franks . As Edward Gibbon later wrote , " It would be ungenerous , without some more accurate knowledge of his strength and resources , to condemn the rapid flight of Syagrius , who escaped after the loss of a battle to the distant court of Toulouse . " Toulouse was the capital of Alaric II , king of the Visigoths . Intimidated by the victorious Franks , the Visigoths imprisoned Syagrius , then surrendered him to Clovis . He died not long after , stabbed in secret according to Gregory of Tours . Descendants . Despite the assassination of Syagrius , the family evidently prospered under Frankish rule . King Guntram sent a Count Syagrius on a diplomatic mission to the Byzantine Empire in 585 . A descendant , Syagria , made a large donation of land to the monks of Novalesa Abbey in 739 . " The last known member of the Syagrii was an abbot of Nantua who was mentioned in 757 . "