l crown from the
hands of the patriarch or bishop, who was permitted to express, by this
unusual ceremony, the suffrage of the Deity. [68] This emperor, the
first of the name of Leo, has been distinguished by the title of the
Great; from a succession of princes, who gradually fixed in the opinion
of the Greeks a very humble standard of heroic, or at least of royal,
perfection. Yet the temperate firmness with which Leo resisted the
oppression of his benefactor, showed that he was conscious of his duty
and of his prerogative. Aspar was astonished to find that his influence
could no longer appoint a praefect of Constantinople: he presumed to
reproach his sovereign with a breach of promise, and insolently shaking
his purple, "It is not proper, (said he,) that the man who is invested
with this garment, should be guilty of lying." "Nor is it proper,
(replied Leo,) that a prince should be compelled to resign his own
judgment, and the public interest, to the will of a subject."[69] After
this extraordinary scene, it was impossible that the reconciliation of
the emperor and the patrician could be sincere; or, at least, that it
could be solid and permanent. An army of Isaurians [70] was secretly
levied, and introduced into Constantinople; and while Leo undermined the
authority, and prepared the disgrace, of the family of Aspar, his
mild and cautious behavior restrained them from any rash and desperate
attempts, which might have been fatal to themselves, or their enemies.
The measures of peace and war were affected by this internal revolution.
As long as Aspar degraded the majesty of the throne, the secret
correspondence of religion and interest engaged him to favor the cause
of Genseric. When Leo had delivered himself from that ignominious
servitude, he listened to the complaints of the Italians; resolved to
extirpate the tyranny of the Vandals; and declared his alliance with
his colleague, Anthemius, whom he solemnly invested with the diadem and
purple of the West.

[Footnote 65: St. Pulcheria died A.D. 453, four years before her nominal
husband; and her festival is celebrated on the 10th of September by
the modern Greeks: she bequeathed an immense patrimony to pious, or, at
least, to ecclesiastical, uses. See Tillemont, Memoires Eccles. tom. xv
p. 181-184.]

[Footnote 66: See Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 185.]

[Footnote 67: From this disability of Aspar to ascend the throne, it may
be inferred that the stain o