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10 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxvi decent resistance, accepted the Imperial diadem from the representatives of Gaul; and his election was ratified by the acclamations of the Barbarians and provincials. 21 The formal consent of Marcian, emperor of the East, was solicited and obtained ; but the senate, Eome, and Italy, though humbled by their recent calamities, submitted with a secret murmur to the presumption of the Gallic usurper. 22 character Theodoric, to whom Avitus was indebted for the purple, ricking of had acquired the Gothic sceptre by the murder of his elder goths. a.d. brother Torismond ; and he justified this atrocious deed by the design which his predecessor had formed of violating his alliance with the empire. 23 Such a crime might not be in- compatible with the virtues of a Barbarian ; but the manners of Theodoric were gentle and humane; and posterity may contemplate without terror the original picture of a Gothic king, whom Sidonius had intimately observed in the hours of peace and of social intercourse. In an epistle, dated from the court of Toulouse, the orator satisfies the curiosity of one of his friends, in the following description : 24 « By the majesty of his appearance, Theodoric would command the respect of those who are ignorant of his merit ; and, although he is born a prince, his merit would dignify a private station. He is of a middle stature, his body appears rather plump than fat, and in his well-proportioned limbs agility is united with muscular strength. 25 If you examine his countenance, you will dis- 21 [The assembly was held at Ugernuni (Beaucaire) near Aries (Sidon. Carm. 7, 572. Cp. Longnon, Geogr. de la Gaule, p. 437). But it cannot have been the annual assembly of the seven provinces.] 22 [That Marcian acknowledged Avitus may be implied by Idatius, 166, 169 (Chron. Min. ii. p. 28) and Chron. Gall. 625 (ib. i. p. 664) ; but as the name of Avitus does not appear in the Consular Fasti for 456 it is clear that he was not accepted at Constantinople for months after his accession ; Marcian nominated the two consuls for that year, without paying any regard to Avitus. Cp. Martroye, op. cit. p. 172.] 23 Isidore, archbishop of Seville, who was himself of the blood-royal of the Goths, acknowledges and almost justifies (Hist. Goth. p. 718 [p. 279, ed. Mommsen, in Chron. Min. ii.]) the crime which their slave Jornandes had basely dissembled (c. 43, p. 673). 24 This elaborate description (1. i. ep. ii. p. 2-7) was dictated by some political motive. It was designed for the public eye, and had been shewn by the friends of Sidonius, before it was inserted in the collection of his epistles. The first book was published separately. See Tillemont, M^moires Eccles. torn. xvi. p. 264. 25 1 have suppressed in this portrait of Theodoric several minute circumstances and technical phrases, which could be tolerable, or indeed intelligible, to those only who, like the contemporaries of Sidonius, had frequented the markets where naked slaves were exposed to sale (Dubos, Hist. Critique, torn. i. p. 404).