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 48 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxvi dignity, might have continued to enjoy a secure and splendid fortune in the peaceful residence of Constantinople ; nor does he appear to have been tormented by such a genius as cannot be amused or occupied unless by the administration of an empire. Yet Olybrius yielded to the importunities of his friends, perhaps of his wife ; rashly plunged into the dangers and ca- lamities of a civil war ; and, with the secret connivance of the emperor Leo, accepted the Italian purple, which was bestowed and resumed at the capricious will of a Barbarian. He lauded without obstacle (for Genseric was master of the sea) either at Kavenna or the port of Ostia, and immediately proceeded to the camp of Ricimer, where he was received as the sovereign of the Western world. 116 sack of The patrician, who had extended his posts from the Anio death of nd to the Milvian bridge, already possessed two quarters of Rome, iu n B ! h A™. the Vatican and the Janiculum, which are separated by the 472. July 11 rp^ er f rom fo e j-ggfc f foe city ; m and it may be conjectured that an assembly of seceding senators imitated, in the choice of Olybrius, the forms of a legal election. But the body of the senate and people firmly adhered to the cause of Anthemius ; and the more effectual support of a Gothic army enabled him to prolong his reign, and the public distress, by a resistance of three months, which produced the concomitant evils of famine and pestilence. At length Ricimer made a furious assault on the bridge of Hadrian, or St. Angelo ; and the narrow pass was defended with equal valour by the Goths, till the death of Gilimer their leader. The victorious troops, breaking down every barrier, rushed with irresistible violence into the heart of the city, and Rome (if we may use the language of a con- temporary Pope) was subverted by the civil fury of Anthemius 116 The hostile appearance of Olybrius is fixed (notwithstanding the opinion of Pagi) by the duration of his reign. The secret connivance of Leo is acknowledged by Theophanes and the Paschal Chronicle. [See also Historia Miscella, xv., and John Malalas, B. xiv., p. 374, ed. Bonn.] We are ignorant of his motives ; but in this obscure period our ignorance extends to the most public and important facts. 117 Of the fourteen regions, or quarters, into which Rome was divided by Augustus, only one, the Janiculum, lay on the Tuscan side of the Tiber. But, in the fifth century, the Vatican Buburb formed a considerable city ; and in the eccle- siastical distribution, which had been recently made by Simplicius, the reigning pope, two of the seven regions, or parishes, of Borne depended on the church of St. Peter. See Nardini, Roma Antica, p. 67. It would require a tedious dissertation to mark the circumstances, in which I am inclined to depart from the topography of that learned Roman.