ht have supported a vigorous and successful war;
and the subjects of Theodosius were compelled to redeem the safety of a
worthless favorite by oppressive taxes, which they would more cheerfully
have paid for his destruction. [49]

[Footnote 48: M. de Tillemont has very properly given the succession of
chamberlains, who reigned in the name of Theodosius. Chrysaphius was the
last, and, according to the unanimous evidence of history, the worst
of these favorites, (see Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 117-119.
Mem. Eccles. tom. xv. p. 438.) His partiality for his godfather the
heresiarch Eutyches, engaged him to persecute the orthodox party]

[Footnote 49: This secret conspiracy and its important consequences, may
be traced in the fragments of Priscus, p. 37, 38, 39, 54, 70, 71, 72.
The chronology of that historian is not fixed by any precise date; but
the series of negotiations between Attila and the Eastern empire must be
included within the three or four years which are terminated, A.D. 450.
by the death of Theodosius.]

The emperor Theodosius did not long survive the most humiliating
circumstance of an inglorious life. As he was riding, or hunting, in the
neighborhood of Constantinople, he was thrown from his horse into the
River Lycus: the spine of the back was injured by the fall; and he
expired some days afterwards, in the fiftieth year of his age, and the
forty-third of his reign. [50] His sister Pulcheria, whose authority
had been controlled both in civil and ecclesiastical affairs by the
pernicious influence of the eunuchs, was unanimously proclaimed Empress
of the East; and the Romans, for the first time, submitted to a female
reign. No sooner had Pulcheria ascended the throne, than she indulged
her own and the public resentment, by an act of popular justice. Without
any legal trial, the eunuch Chrysaphius was executed before the gates
of the city; and the immense riches which had been accumulated by the
rapacious favorite, served only to hasten and to justify his punishment.
[51] Amidst the general acclamations of the clergy and people, the
empress did not forget the prejudice and disadvantage to which her sex
was exposed; and she wisely resolved to prevent their murmurs by the
choice of a colleague, who would always respect the superior rank and
virgin chastity of his wife. She gave her hand to Marcian, a senator,
about sixty years of age; and the nominal husband of Pulcheria was
solemnly invested with the Im