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 32 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxvi armies of the East were successively commanded by his father, by himself, and by his son Ardaburius ; his Barbarian guards formed a military force that overawed the palace and the capital ; and the liberal distribution of his immense treasures rendered Aspar as popular as he was powerful. He recom- mended the obscure name of Leo of Thrace, a military tribune, and the principal steward of his household. His nomination was unanimously ratified by the senate; and the servant of Aspar received the Imperial crown from the hands of the patriarch or bishop, who was permitted to express, by this unusual ceremony, the suffrage of the Deity. 77 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 bene- factor shewed 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 pre- sumed 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." 78 After this extra- ordinary 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 79 was secretly levied, and introduced into Constantinople ; and, while Leo undermined the authority, and prepared the dis- grace, of the family of Aspar, his mild and cautious behaviour appeared in the second generation. [Aspar, son of Ardaburius, was of Alanic race. He waB consul in a.d. 434.] 77 Theophanes, p. 95. This appears to be the first origin of a ceremony which all the Christian princes of the world have since adopted, and from which the clergy have deduced the most formidable consequences. 78 Cedrenus (p. 345, 346 [leg. p. 346, 347 ; ed. Bonn, i. p. 607]), who was con- versant with the writers of better days, has preserved the remarkable words of Aspar, /ZaaiKev, rbv ravrr]v tV aXovpyiSa ■trepifiefiX-qiJ.evov ov xph SiwpevSeaBai. 79 The power of the Isaurians agitated the Eastern empire in the two succeed- ing reigns of Zeno and Anastasius ; but it ended in the destruction of those Bar- barians who maintained their fierce independence about two hundred and thirty years.