Page:1909historyofdec04gibbuoft.djvu/38

Oct. 16 14 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxvi and recalled from Spain, before he could provide for the security of his conquests. In his retreat towards the Pyrenees, he revenged his disappointment on the country through which he passed ; and, in the sack of Pollentia and Astorga, he shewed himself a faithless ally, as well as a cruel enemy. Whilst the king of the Visigoths fought and vanquished in the name of Avitus, the reign of Avitus had expired ; and both the honour and the interest of Theodoric were deeply wounded by the disgrace of a friend, whom he had seated on the throne of the Western empire. 30 Avitus is The pressing solicitations of the senate and people persuaded a.d. 456.' the emperor Avitus to fix his residence at Rome and to accept the consulship for the ensuing year. On the first day of January, his son-in-law, Sidonius Apollinaris, celebrated his praises in a panegyric of six hundred verses ; but this com- position, though it was rewarded with a brass statue, 31 seems to contain a very moderate proportion either of genius or of truth. The poet, if we may degrade that sacred name, ex- aggerates the merit of a sovereign and a father; and his prophecy of a long and glorious reign was soon contradicted by the event. Avitus, at a time when the Imperial dignity was reduced to a pre-eminence of toil and danger, indulged himself in the pleasures of Italian luxury; age had not extinguished his amorous inclinations ; and he is accused of insulting, with indiscreet and ungenerous raillery, the husbands whose wives he had seduced or violated. 32 But the Romans were not inclined either to excuse his faults or to acknowledge his virtues. The several parts of the empire became every day more alienated from each other ; and the stranger of Gaul was the object of popular hatred and contempt. The senate as- serted their legitimate claim in the election of an emperor ; 30 The Suevic war is the most authentic part of the Chronicle of Idatius, who, as bishop of Iria Flavia, was himself a spectator and a sufferer. Jornandes (c. 44, p. 675, 676, 677) has expatiated with pleasure on the Gothic victory. 31 In one of the porticoes or galleries belonging to Trajan's library, among the statues of famous writers and orators. Sidon. Apoll. 1. ix. epist. 16, p. 284. Carm. viii. p. 350. 32 Luxurioseagere volens a senatoribus projectus est, is the concise expression of Gregory of Tours (1. ii. c. xi. in torn. ii. p. 168). An old Chronicle (in torn. ii. p. 649) mentions an indecent jest of Avitus, which seems more applicable to Rome than to Treves. [There is no other evidence against the moral character of Avitus, and Gibbon does not show his usual judiciousness in accepting it. See Holder- Egger, Neues Archiv, ii. p. 274 ; Hodgkin, ii. 393-5.]