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 128 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxviii consulship After the success of the Gothic war, Clovis accepted the a.d. 510 " honours of the Eoman consulship. The emperor Anastasius ambitiously bestowed on the most powerful rival of Theodoric the title and ensigns of that eminent dignity ; yet, from some unknown cause, the name of Clovis has not been inscribed in the Fasti either of the East or West. 6 ' 2 On the solemn day, the monarch of Gaul, placing a diadem on his head, was invested in the church of St. Martin, with a purple tunic and mantle. From thence he proceeded on horseback to the cathedral of Tours; and, as he passed through the streets, profusely scattered, with his own hand, a donative of gold and silver to the joyful multi- tude, who incessantly repeated their acclamations of Consul and Augustus. The actual, or legal, authority of Clovis, could not receive any new accessions from the consular dignity. It was a name, a shadow, an empty pageant ; and, if the conqueror had been instructed to claim the ancient prerogatives of that high office, they must have expired with the period of its annual duration. But the Eomans were disposed to revere, in the person of their master, that antique title, which the emperors condescended to assume; the Barbarian himself seemed to contract a sacred obligation to respect the majesty of the republic; and the successors of Theodosius, by soliciting his friendship, tacitly forgave, and almost ratified, the usurpation of Gaul. Final Twenty-five years after the death of Clovis, this important merrtof concession was more formally declared, in a treaty between monarchy his sons and the emperor Justinian. The Ostrogoths of Italy, i D D G 536 1- unable to defend their distant acquisitions, had resigned to the Franks the cities of Aries and Marseilles : of Aries, still adorned with the seat of a Praetorian Prsefect, and of Marseilles, enriched by the advantages of trade and navigation. 63 This 62 The Fasti of Italy would naturally reject a consul, the enemy of their sove- reign ; but any ingenious hypothesis that might explain the silence of Constantinople and Egypt (the Chronicle of Marcellinus, and the Paschal) is overturned by the similar silence of Marius, bishop of Avenche, who composed his Fasti in the kingdom of Burgundy. If the evidence of Gregory of Tours were less weighty and positive (1. ii. c. 38, in torn. ii. p. 183), I could believe that Clovis, like Odoacer, received the lasting title and honours of Patrician (Pagi Critica, torn. ii. p. 474, 492). [The Pro- logue to the Lex Salica : proconsolis regis Chlodovechi ; Gregory has tamquam con- sul and states that the Emperor sent him codicillos de consulatu. Evidently the Emperor conferred on him the honorary or titular (not ordinary) consulate, and he could use the title consul or exconsule. Gregory's aut Augustus must be an error.] 63 Under the Merovingian kings, Marseilles still imported irom the East paper, wine, oil, linen, silk, precious stones, spices, &c. The Gauls, or Franks, traded to