ror in whose
elevation he had not been consulted. His faithful and important services
against the common enemy rendered him still more formidable; [27] and,
after destroying on the coast of Corsica a fleet of Vandals, which
consisted of sixty galleys, Ricimer returned in triumph with the
appellation of the Deliverer of Italy. He chose that moment to signify
to Avitus, that his reign was at an end; and the feeble emperor, at
a distance from his Gothic allies, was compelled, after a short and
unavailing struggle to abdicate the purple. By the clemency, however,
or the contempt, of Ricimer, [28] he was permitted to descend from the
throne to the more desirable station of bishop of Placentia: but the
resentment of the senate was still unsatisfied; and their inflexible
severity pronounced the sentence of his death He fled towards the Alps,
with the humble hope, not of arming the Visigoths in his cause, but of
securing his person and treasures in the sanctuary of Julian, one of
the tutelar saints of Auvergne. [29] Disease, or the hand of the
executioner, arrested him on the road; yet his remains were decently
transported to Brivas, or Brioude, in his native province, and he
reposed at the feet of his holy patron. [30] Avitus left only one
daughter, the wife of Sidonius Apollinaris, who inherited the patrimony
of his father-in-law; lamenting, at the same time, the disappointment
of his public and private expectations. His resentment prompted him to
join, or at least to countenance, the measures of a rebellious faction
in Gaul; and the poet had contracted some guilt, which it was incumbent
on him to expiate, by a new tribute of flattery to the succeeding
emperor. [31]

[Footnote 24: In one of the porticos or galleries belonging to Trajan's
library, among the statues of famous writers and orators. Sidon. Apoll.
l. ix. epist, 16, p. 284. Carm. viii. p. 350.]

[Footnote 25: Luxuriose agere volens a senatoribus projectus est, is the
concise expression of Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. xi. in tom. ii. p.
168.) An old Chronicle (in tom. ii. p. 649) mentions an indecent jest of
Avitus, which seems more applicable to Rome than to Treves.]

[Footnote 26: Sidonius (Panegyr. Anthem. 302, &c.) praises the royal
birth of Ricimer, the lawful heir, as he chooses to insinuate, both of
the Gothic and Suevic kingdoms.]

[Footnote 27: See the Chronicle of Idatius. Jornandes (c. xliv. p. 676)
styles him, with some truth, virum egregium, et pene