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A History Of The Church In Six Books by Evagrius

DURING the progress of these events in the East, Aetius meets with a miserable end at Old Rome, and Valentinian, the emperor of the West, is slain, together with Heraclius, by some of the guards of Aetius, at the instigation of Maximus, who afterwards assumed the sovereignty, and who conspired against them because Valentinian had violated his wife. This Maximus forces Eudoxia, the wife of Valentinian, into a marriage with himself; and she, justly regarding the transaction as an outrage and altogether monstrous, determined to set, as the saying is, all upon a cast, on account of the wrong she had suffered both hi the person of her husband and the infringement of her liberty: for a woman, jealous of her chastity, is unscrupulous and implacable if she has suffered defilement, especially by one through whose means she has been deprived of her husband. Accordingly, she sends to Genseric, in Africa, and by considerable presents, as well as by holding out confident expectations of the future, induces him to make a sudden descent upon the Roman empire, with a promise of betraying every thing into his hands. This was accordingly done, and Rome captured. But Genseric, barbarian-like and fickle, did not maintain his fidelity even to her; but, after firing the city and making an indiscriminate pillage, he retired, taking with him Eudoxia and her two daughters, and returned to Africa. The elder daughter, Eudocia, he espouses to his own son, Huneric; but the younger, Placidia, he subsequently sends, together with her mother Eudoxia, with a royal escort to Byzantium, with the view of pacifying Marcian, who was exasperated both by the burning of Rome and the outrage upon the royal ladies. Placidia, in obedience to Marcian, consents to marry Olybrius, a distinguished member of the senate, who had come to Constantinople on the capture of Rome. After Maximus, Avitus was emperor of the Romans for eight months; and on his decease by starvation, Majorian for more than a year: and after he had been treacherously murdered by Ricimer, master of the Roman armies, Severus for three years.








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