be the Roman consul to whom the Groans of the Britons was addressed, sometime between 447 and 454 AD. This request for military aid can be viewed as a preamble to the thousand year literary cycle, which evolved the island's legendary Arthurian heritage, the most significant part of what is now collectively referred to as the Matter of Britain. In popular culture Aetius appears in several popular works of historical fiction, usually as a foil for Attila the Hun. The earliest known appearance is in 1728, in the libretto Ezio (the Italian variation of Aetius). This libretto, in which Ezio becomes involved in a plot to kill Attilla, has been set to music by several different composers. Verdi's 1846 opera Attila tells the same story, though with a different libretto. The struggle between the two men is also depicted in Thomas B. Costain's 1959 novel The Darkness and the Dawn and William Napier's Attila trilogy. In the 1954 Italian-French film production Attila, Scourge of God, Aetius is portrayed by Henri Vidal. In the 2001 American TV Miniseries Attila, Aetius is portrayed by Powers Boothe as a former mentor and friend to Attila who becomes his nemesis. At the same time, he is depicted as the only general capable of keeping the empire standing and facing Attila as an equal. Aetius is a playable character in the Mobile/PC Game Rise of Kingdoms. See also Late Roman army Magister militum Stilicho Notes References Bibliography Additamenta ad chron. Prosperi Hauniensis Annales Ravennates Cassiodorus, Chronica and Variae Chronica gallica anno 452 Chronica gallica anno 511 Chronicon Paschale Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum ii.8, gives a condensed version of Aetius' character and career, using a lost history of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus. Hydatius, Chronicle John of Antioch, Chronicle John Malalas, Chronographia Jordanes, Getica and Romana Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle Merobaudes, Carmina and Panegyrici Philostorgius, Ecclesiastical History Priscus, Fragmentary History Procopius, Vandal War Prosper of Aquitaine, Epitoma chronicon Sidonius Apollinaris, Carmina Suda Zosimus, New Histories Further reading Cameron, Averil. The Later Roman Empire. Harvard University Press, 2007. . Cameron, Averil. The Cambridge Ancient History: The Late Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1998. . Clover, Frank M. "Flavius Merobaudes: A Translation and Historical Commentary." Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 61.1: (1971). Drinkwater, John. Fifth-Century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity? Cambridge University Press, 1992. . Elton, Hugh. Warfare in Roman Europe, AD 350-425. Oxford University Press, 1998. . Ferrill, Arther.