in length, and the villa was pleasantly seated on
the margin of the lake. The baths, the porticos, the summer and winter
apartments, were adapted to the purposes of luxury and use; and the
adjacent country afforded the various prospects of woods, pastures, and
meadows. In this retreat, where Avitus amused his leisure with books,
rural sports, the practice of husbandry, and the society of his friends,
he received the Imperial diploma, which constituted him master-general
of the cavalry and infantry of Gaul. He assumed the military command;
the Barbarians suspended their fury; and whatever means he might employ,
whatever concessions he might be forced to make, the people enjoyed the
benefits of actual tranquillity. But the fate of Gaul depended on the
Visigoths; and the Roman general, less attentive to his dignity than to
the public interest, did not disdain to visit Thoulouse in the character
of an ambassador. He was received with courteous hospitality by
Theodoric, the king of the Goths; but while Avitus laid the foundations
of a solid alliance with that powerful nation, he was astonished by the
intelligence, that the emperor Maximus was slain, and that Rome had been
pillaged by the Vandals. A vacant throne, which he might ascend without
guilt or danger, tempted his ambition; and the Visigoths were easily
persuaded to support his claim by their irresistible suffrage. They
loved the person of Avitus; they respected his virtues; and they were
not insensible of the advantage, as well as honor, of giving an emperor
to the West. The season was now approaching, in which the annual
assembly of the seven provinces was held at Arles; their deliberations
might perhaps be influenced by the presence of Theodoric and his
martial brothers; but their choice would naturally incline to the most
illustrious of their countrymen. Avitus, after a decent resistance,
accepted the Imperial diadem from the representatives of Gaul; and
his election was ratified by the acclamations of the Barbarians and
provincials. The formal consent of Marcian, emperor of the East, was
solicited and obtained; but the senate, Rome, and Italy, though humbled
by their recent calamities, submitted with a secret murmur to the
presumption of the Gallic usurper.

Theodoric, to whom Avitus was indebted for the purple, had acquired
the Gothic sceptre by the murder of his elder brother Torismond; and he
justified this atrocious deed by the design which his predecessor had