genealogy of her father,
Rogatus, which ascended as high as Agamemnon, might seem to betray a
Grecian origin; but her mother, Blaesilla, numbered the Scipios, AEmilius
Paulus, and the Gracchi, in the list of her ancestors; and Toxotius, the
husband of Paula, deduced his royal lineage from AEneas, the father of
the Julian line. The vanity of the rich, who desired to be noble, was
gratified by these lofty pretensions. Encouraged by the applause of
their parasites, they easily imposed on the credulity of the vulgar; and
were countenanced, in some measure, by the custom of adopting the name
of their patron, which had always prevailed among the freedmen and
clients of illustrious families. Most of those families, however,
attacked by so many causes of external violence or internal decay, were
gradually extirpated; and it would be more reasonable to seek for a
lineal descent of twenty generations, among the mountains of the Alps,
or in the peaceful solitude of Apulia, than on the theatre of Rome, the
seat of fortune, of danger, and of perpetual revolutions. Under each
successive reign, and from every province of the empire, a crowd of
hardy adventurers, rising to eminence by their talents or their vices,
usurped the wealth, the honors, and the palaces of Rome; and oppressed,
or protected, the poor and humble remains of consular families; who were
ignorant, perhaps, of the glory of their ancestors.

In the time of Jerom and Claudian, the senators unanimously yielded the
preeminence to the Anician line; and a slight view of _their_ history
will serve to appreciate the rank and antiquity of the noble families,
which contended only for the second place. During the five first ages
of the city, the name of the Anicians was unknown; they appear to
have derived their origin from Praeneste; and the ambition of those new
citizens was long satisfied with the Plebeian honors of tribunes of the
people. One hundred and sixty-eight years before the Christian aera,
the family was ennobled by the Praetorship of Anicius, who gloriously
terminated the Illyrian war, by the conquest of the nation, and the
captivity of their king. From the triumph of that general, three
consulships, in distant periods, mark the succession of the Anician
name. From the reign of Diocletian to the final extinction of the
Western empire, that name shone with a lustre which was not eclipsed,
in the public estimation, by the majesty of the Imperial purple. The
several