ds slowly filtered
through the mind of a go-between. Everyone feels that his own words
are listened to, and receives his answer from her lips in the language
of his forefathers.

'To these accomplishments, as a splendid diadem, is added that
priceless knowledge of Literature, by which the treasures of ancient
learning are appropriated, and the dignity of the throne is ever
enhanced.

'Yet, while she rejoices in such perfect mastery of language, on
public occasions she is so taciturn that she might be supposed to be
indolent. With a few words she unties the knots of entangled
litigations, she calmly arranges hot disputes, she silently promotes
the public welfare. You do not hear her announce beforehand what will
be her course of action in public; but with marvellous skill she
attains, by feigning, those points which she knows require to be
rapidly gained[715].

[Footnote 715: 'Et temperamento mirabili dissimulando peragit quod
accelerandum esse cognoscit.']

[Sidenote: Comparison to Placidia.]

'What case like this can be produced from the annals of revered
Antiquity? Placidia's care for her purple-clad son has often been
celebrated; but by Placidia's lax administration of the Empire its
boundaries were unbecomingly retrenched. She gained for him a wife and
for herself a daughter-in-law[716] by the loss of Illyricum; and thus
the union of Sovereigns was bought by a lamentable division of the
Provinces[717]. The discipline of the soldiers was relaxed by too long
peace; and, in short, Valentinian, under the guardianship of his
mother, lost more than he could have done if he had been a helpless
orphan.

[Footnote 716: 'Eudoxia.']

[Footnote 717: 'Nurum denique sibi amissione Illyrici comparavit:
factaque est conjunctio Regnantis, divisio dolenda provinciis.' On
this alleged loss of Illyricum by the Western Empire, see Gibbon, cap.
xxxiii. note 6. One may doubt, however, whether Cassiodorus has been
correctly informed concerning it. Noricum and Pannonia at the time of
Valentinian's marriage must have been entirely in the possession of
the Huns; and on the dissolution of their monarchy Noricum at any rate
seems to be connected with the Western rather than the Eastern Empire.
As for Dalmatia, or the _Province_ (as distinct from the
_Praefecture_) of Illyricum, the retirement thither of the Emperor
Nepos in 475, and the previous history of his uncle Marcellinus, point
towards the conclusion that this Province was the