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 4 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxvi " O fortunate Damocles, 5 thy reign began and ended with the same dinner " : a well-known allusion, which Fulgentius after- wards repeated as an instructive lesson for princes and subjects. His death. The reign of Maximus continued about three months. June is His hours, of which he had lost the command, were disturbed by remorse, or guilt, or terror ; and his throne was shaken by the seditions of the soldiers, the people, and the confederate Barbarians. The marriage of his son Palladius with the eldest daughter of the late emperor might tend to establish the here- ditary succession of his family; but the violence which he offered to the empress Eudoxia could proceed only from the blind impulse of lust or revenge. His own wife, the cause of these tragic events, had been seasonably removed by death ; and the widow of Valentinian was compelled to violate her decent mourning, perhaps her real grief, and to submit to the embraces of a presumptuous usurper, whom she suspected as the assassin of her deceased husband. These suspicions were soon justified by the indiscreet confession of Maximus himself ; and he wantonly provoked the hatred of his reluctant bride, who was still conscious that she descended from a line of emperors. From the East, however, Eudoxia could not hope to obtain any effectual assistance ; her father and her aunt Pulcheria were dead ; her mother languished at Jerusalem in disgrace and exile ; and the sceptre of Con- stantinople was in the hands of a stranger. She directed her eyes towards Carthage ; secretly implored the aid of the king of the Vandals ; and persuaded Genseric to improve the fair opportunity of disguising his rapacious designs by the specious names of honour, justice, and compassion. 7 Whatever abilities s Districtus ensis cui super inipia Cervice pendet, non SiculcB dapes Dulcem elaborabunt saporem : Non avium citharaque cantus Somnum reducent. Horat. Carrn. iii. 1. Sidonius concludes his letter with the story of Damocles, which Cicero (Tusculan. v. 20, 21) had so inimitably told. B [Paulo amplius quam bimestris principatus, Sidonius, ib. Seventy-seven days, Prosper, and Victor Tonnennensis, ad aim. The date of the death of Maximus is May 31 (Prosper) ; June 12 is given by the Fasti Vindobon. priores in Chron. Min. i. 303, ed. Mommsen.] 7 Notwithstanding the evidence of Procopius, Evagrius, Idatius, Marcellinus, &o., the learned Muratori (Annali d'ltalia, torn. iv. p. 249) doubts the reality of this invitation, and observes, with great truth, " Non si puo dir quanto sia facile il