The Western Empire. R O 
beautiful maid, named Idlico, to the long list of his queens. 
The marriage was celebrated at his palace beyond the Dan¬ 
ube ; the king retired from the banquet to the nuptial bed ; 
and his attendants on-entering the royal apartment next 
morning, found that Altila had burst a blood-vessel during 
the night, and was suffocated with the effusion. A. D. 453. 
His funeral was celebrated with savage pomp. His body was 
placed in three coffins, of gold, of silver, and of iron : the 
spoils of plundered nations were thrown into the grave; and 
the captives w ho had opened the ground were inhumanly 
massacred. The death of this warrior, who had never 
suffered mankind to enjoy any repose, and had never enjoyed 
any himself, was attended with the destruction of his empire. 
His sons disputed for the sovereignty ; and after various turns 
of fortune, the youngest retired with his subject hordes into 
the heart of the Lesser Scythia, where they were soon over¬ 
whelmed by a torrent of new barbarians. Aetius did not 
long survive the Scythian monarch. The mind of Valen¬ 
tinian, though insensible to glory, was easily impressed with 
distrust and jealousy ; and his new favorite, the eunuch 
Heraclius, readily persuaded him to undermine, in the life 
of his general, the support of his throne. Gaudentius, the 
son of Aetius, was contracted to Eudoxia, the emperor’s 
daughter: the indiscreet behaviour of the father offended 
his sovereign; and while he urged with intemperate violence 
the proposed marriage, Valentinian, drawing his sword, 
plunged it into the bosom of Aetius. The servile eunuchs 
followed his example ; and the general who had saved the 
empire, fell in the presence of his ungrateful master, pierced 
by innumerable wounds. The unsuspecting friends of Aetius 
being summoned to the palace, were separately murdered ; 
and the contempt which had long been entertained for Valen¬ 
tinian, was now converted into abhorrence. 
The feeble disposition of the emperor of the West, would 
probably have rendered him an easy prey to the first usurper; 
but his vices precipitated his ruin; and he became the immediate 
victim to the just revenge of a noble and injured subject. 
The wife of Petronius Maximus, a wealthy senator of the 
Anician family, had inspired Valentinian with impure desires: 
her resistance served only to inflame his passions; and he 
resolved to gratify them either by stratagem or force. Max¬ 
imus had delivered his ring to the emperor as a pledge for a 
considerable sum lost at play ; the emperor sent it by a con¬ 
fidential messenger to his wife, desiring her, in the name of 
her husband, to attend the empress Eudoxia. The unsus¬ 
pecting matron having entered the imperial palace, Valen¬ 
tinian violated, without remorse, both the laws of hospi¬ 
tality and of honour. Her tears, on her return to her own 
house, betrayed the guilty secret to Maximus; and her re¬ 
proaches inflamed his desire of vengeance. Two barba¬ 
rians, attached to the memory of Aetius, were admitted 
among the guards of the tyrant, and, presenting themselves 
as the ready ministers of revenge, they rushed upon Valen¬ 
tinian in the field of Mars, and, without opposition from 
his numerous train, dispatched him and his favourite Hera¬ 
clius, A. D. 455. 
No sooner was Valentinian taken off, than Petronius 
Maximus was saluted emperor by the senate. His short reign 
of three months was embittered by remorse and guilt; and 
when he accepted the purple, he relinquished for ever that 
happiness which had so eminently distinguished his private 
life. Policy sanctioned the marriage of his son Palladius 
with the eldest daughter of the late emperor; and on the 
opportune death of his own wife, that he might, in some 
measure, retaliate the injury he had received, he forced the 
empress Eudoxia to his arms. Being certified, from his own 
indiscreet confession, that he was the assassin of her deceased 
husband, she regarded the usurper with abhorrence; and 
hopeless of assistance from the east, as the forces of Marcian, 
who had now lost Pulcheria, were otherwise employed, she 
secretly implored the aid of the king of the Vandals, to rescue 
her from worse than captivity. Genseric eagerly embraced 
this fair opportunity'of disguising his rapacious designs, under 
the specious names of justice and compassion, and equip- 
Vol. XXII. No. 1503. 
M E. The Western Empire. 309 
ping a numerous fleet of Moors and Vandals, after a favour¬ 
able voyage cast anchor at the mouth of the Tiber. 
Though Maximus was respectable in private life, his abili¬ 
ties were not equal to the support of a sinking empire, and 
the approach of the Vandals seemed to stupify and confound 
him. Instead of opposing the enemy, he recommended the 
disgraceful measure of a precipitate retreat; but no sooner 
did he appear in the streets, than he was assaulted by a 
shower of stones, and a torrent of abuse, while the sword of 
one of his soldiers avenged the death of Valentinian and the 
wrongs of Eudoxia, and terminated the misery of a feeble 
nd transient reign. 
“ In a few days Genseric advanced to the gates of the de¬ 
fenceless capital, but the intercession and eloquence of Leo, 
the bishop of Rome, prevailed on the Vandal to spare the 
unresisting multitude, to exempt the captives from tor¬ 
ture, and to protect the cifyfrom a conflagration. 
The pillage, however, lasted fourteen days; and whatever 
yet remained of public or private wealth, was diligently 
collected, and conveyed on board the vessels of Genseric. 
Eudoxia now saw, and had reason to lament, the imprudence 
of her conduct in forming such an alliance: the unfortunate 
empress, with her two daughters, were compelled to follow 
the conqueror, who instantly hoisting sail, returned in triumph 
to Carthage. 
Avitus, a man of eloquence and courage, who had been 
entrusted by Maximus with the general command of the forces 
in Gaul, while on a visit to Theodoric, king of the Goths, 
was astonished by the intelligence that his master was slain, 
and that Rome was pillaged by the Vandals. The Visigoths 
were attached to the person of Avitus, and respected his vir¬ 
tues. The annual assembly of the seven provinces, held at 
Arles, naturally inclined to promote the most illustrious of 
their countrymen ; and Avitus was nominated by the repre¬ 
sentatives of Gaul to the sceptre of the West. The consent 
of Marcian, the emperor of the East, was easily obtained ; 
and Rome and Italy, long habituated to submit to the strong¬ 
est party, gave their silent assent. 
By Theodoric, the friend of Avitus, the Suevi were 
vanquished and almost exterminated, and their king, who 
had been delivered up to the victor, was put to death. 
But while the Gothic monarch conquered in the name of the 
emperor of Rome, the power of his friend had expired. See 
the article Goths. 
Avitus, at the solicitation of his subjects, had fixed his 
residence at Rome; but the senate [beheld with disgust the 
imperial ornaments investing a stranger from Gaul. Their 
murmurs, however, would have been useless, had they not 
been encouraged by Count Ricimer, the grandson of Wal- 
lia by the mother’s side, and on his father’s, descended from 
the nation of the Suevi. Entrusted with the defence of Italy, 
his important services rendered him formidable; and on his 
return from a conquest over the Vandals, he boldly proclaim¬ 
ed to Avitus, that his feeble reign was at an end. The em¬ 
peror, without any resistance, descended from his throne, 
and hoped to find security in assuming the sacred character 
of bishop of Placentia ; buteven in this peaceful station, the 
hatred of the’senate pursued him, and he was at last sacrificed 
to their implacable resentment. A. D. 456. 
On the abdication of Avitus, Ricimer governed Italy under 
the title of Patrician, and delegated to Majorian, who had 
been a participator in the glory of Aetius, the conspicuous 
station of master-general of the armies. The approved merits 
of Majorian induced the barbarian to comply with the unani¬ 
mous wish of the Romans; and after an interregnum of four 
months, the master-general having signalized his skill and 
valour in a victory gamed over the Alemanni, he was elevated 
to the imperial throne. The sentiments he expressed on 
receiving this unsolicited honour, would have done credit 
to any character; and his virtues derived additional 
lustre from being contrasted with his immediate predecessors. 
The private and public actions of Majorian are very im¬ 
perfectly known : but his laws, remarkable for an original 
cast of thought and expression, faithfully represent the cha- 
4 K racter 
