their booty on board their ships; but much was lost in a storm
between Italy and Africa. The golden candlestick and shew-bread table
belonging to the Temple at Jerusalem were carried off to Carthage with
the spoil, and no less than sixty thousand captives, among them the
Empress Eudoxia, who had been the means of bringing in Genseric, with
her two daughters. The Empress was given back to her friends at
Constantinople, but one of her daughters was kept by the Vandals, and
was married to the son of Genseric. After plundering all the south of
Italy, Genseric went back to Africa without trying to keep Rome or set
up a kingdom; and when he was gone, the Romans elected as Emperor a
senator named Avitus, a Gaul by birth, a peaceful and good man.

[Illustration: THE POPE'S HOUSE.]

His daughter had married a most excellent Gaulish gentleman named
Sidonius Apollinaris, who wrote such good poetry that the Romans placed
his bust crowned with laurel in the Capitol. He wrote many letters, too,
which are preserved to this time, and show that, in the midst of all
this crumbling power of Rome, people in Southern Gaul managed to have
many peaceful days of pleasant country life. But Sidonius' quiet days
came to an end when, layman and lawyer as he was, the people of Clermont
begged him to be their Bishop. The Church stood, whatever fell, and
people trusted more to their Bishop than to any one else, and wanted him
to be the ablest man they could find. So Sidonius took the charge of
them, and helped them to hold out their mountain city of Clermont for a
whole year against the Goths, and gained good terms for them at last,
though he himself had to suffer imprisonment and exile from these Arian
Goths because of his Catholic faith.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THEODORIC THE OSTROGOTH.

457--561.

Avitus was a good man, but the Romans grew weary of him, and in the year
457 they engaged Ricimer, a chief of the Teutonic tribe called Suevi, to
drive him out, when he went back to Gaul, where he had a beautiful
palace and garden. After ten months Ricimer chose another Sueve to be
Emperor. He had been a captain under Aetius, and had the Roman name of
Majorian. He showed himself brave and spirited; led an army into Spain
and attacked Genseric; but he was beaten, and came back disappointed.
Ricimer was, however, jealous of him, forced him to resign, and soon
after poisoned him.

After this, Ricimer really ruled Italy, but he seemed to have a sort o