is unhappy
prisoners, he sometimes consulted his avarice, and sometimes indulged
his cruelty; and the massacre of five hundred noble citizens of Zant
or Zacynthus, whose mangled bodies he cast into the Ionian Sea, was
imputed, by the public indignation, to his latest posterity.

Such crimes could not be excused by any provocations; but the war,
which the king of the Vandals prosecuted against the Roman empire was
justified by a specious and reasonable motive. The widow of Valentinian,
Eudoxia, whom he had led captive from Rome to Carthage, was the sole
heiress of the Theodosian house; her elder daughter, Eudocia, became
the reluctant wife of Hunneric, his eldest son; and the stern father,
asserting a legal claim, which could not easily be refuted or satisfied,
demanded a just proportion of the Imperial patrimony. An adequate, or at
least a valuable, compensation, was offered by the Eastern emperor, to
purchase a necessary peace. Eudoxia and her younger daughter, Placidia,
were honorably restored, and the fury of the Vandals was confined to the
limits of the Western empire. The Italians, destitute of a naval force,
which alone was capable of protecting their coasts, implored the aid of
the more fortunate nations of the East; who had formerly acknowledged,
in peace and war, the supremacy of Rome. But the perpetual divisions of
the two empires had alienated their interest and their inclinations; the
faith of a recent treaty was alleged; and the Western Romans, instead
of arms and ships, could only obtain the assistance of a cold and
ineffectual mediation. The haughty Ricimer, who had long struggled with
the difficulties of his situation, was at length reduced to address the
throne of Constantinople, in the humble language of a subject; and Italy
submitted, as the price and security to accept a master from the
choice of the emperor of the East. It is not the purpose of the present
chapter, or even of the present volume, to continue the distinct series
of the Byzantine history; but a concise view of the reign and character
of the emperor Leo, may explain the last efforts that were attempted to
save the falling empire of the West.

Since the death of the younger Theodosius, the domestic repose of
Constantinople had never been interrupted by war or faction. Pulcheria
had bestowed her hand, and the sceptre of the East, on the modest
virtue of Marcian: he gratefully reverenced her august rank and virgin
chastity; and, after her