" to their chief, and who deemed
life a dishonour while their leader's blood remained unavenged. On a day
in March, while Valentinian was watching intently the games in the
Campus Martius of Rome, these two barbarians rushed upon him and stabbed
him, slaying at the same time the eunuch, who had been his chief
confederate in the murder of Aetius.

With Valentinian III. the line of Theodosius, which had swayed the Roman
sceptre for eighty-six years, came to an end. None of the men who after
him bore the great title of Augustus in Rome (I am speaking, of course,
of the fifth century only) succeeded in founding a dynasty. Not only was
no one of them followed by a son: scarcely one of them was suffered to
end his own reign in peace. Of the nine Emperors who wore the purple in
Italy after the death of Valentinian, only two ended their reigns in the
course of nature, four were deposed, and three met their death by
violence. Only one reigned for more than five years; several could only
measure the duration of their royalty by months. Even the short period
(455-476) which these nine reigns occupy is not entirely filled by them,
for there were frequent interregna, one lasting for a year and eight
months. And the men were as feeble as their kingly life was short and
precarious. With the single exception of Majorian, (457-461), a brave
and strong man, and one who, if fair play had been given him, would have
assuredly done something to stay the ruin of the Empire, all of these
nine men (with whose names there is no need to burden the reader's
memory) are fitly named by a German historian "the Shadow Emperors".

During sixteen years of this time (456-472), supreme power in the Empire
was virtually wielded by a nobleman of barbarian origin, but naturalised
in the Roman State, the proud and stern "Patrician" Ricimer. This man,
descended from the chiefs of the Suevi,[43] grandson of a Visigothic
king, and brother-in-law of a king of the Burgundians, was doubtless
able to bring much barbaric influence to support the cause which, from
whatever motives, he had espoused,--the cause of the defence of that
which was left to Rome of her Empire in the West of Europe.

[Footnote: 43 widely spread German nation, the largest fragment of which
was at this time settled in the west of Spain and in Portugal.]

Many Teutonic tribes had by this time settled themselves in the Imperial
lands. Spain was quite lost to the Empire: some fragments of Gaul we