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 OF THE ROMAN EMPIEE 315 from the impolitic proscription which excluded them from the dignities of the state. The brave Gennerid,*^" a soldier of Bar- barian origin who still adhered to the worship of his ancestors, had been obliged to lay aside the military belt ; and, though he was repeatedly assured by the emperor himself that laws were not made for persons of his rank or merit, he refiised to accept any partial dispensation, and persevered in honourable disgrace till he had extorted a general act of justice from the distress of the Roman government. The conduct of Gennerid in the im- portant station, to which he was promoted or restored, of master- o^eneral of Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum and Rhaetia^^ seemed to [Not Mag. 11 11 fi IT T-i 1-r ,, Mil. but count revive the discipline and spirit oi the republic, b rom a lite oi of iiiyricum] idleness and want his troops were soon habituated to severe exercise and plentiful subsistence ; and his private generosity often supplied the rewards which were denied by the avarice or poverty of the court of Ravenna. The valour of Gennerid, formidable to the adjacent Barbarians, was the firmest bulwark of the Illyrian frontier ; and his vigilant care assisted the empire with a reinforcement of ten thousand Huns, who arrived on the confines of Italy, attended by such a convoy of provisions and such a numerous train of sheep and oxen as might have been sufficient not only for the march of an army but for the settlement of a colony. But the court and councils of Honorius still remained a scene of weakness and distraction, of corruption and anarchy. Instigated by the praefect Jovius the guards rose in furious mutiny, and demanded the heads of two [At ciaasis] generals, and of the two principal eunuchs. The generals, under a perfidious promise of safety, were sent on shipboard, and privately executed ; while the favour of the eunuchs pro- cured them a mild and secure exile at Milan and Constantinople. Eusebius the eunuch and the Barbarian Allobich succeeded to the command of the bedchamber and of the guards ; and the mutual jealousy of these subordinate ministers was the cause of their mutual destruction. By the insolent order of the count of ^ Zosimus (1. V. p. 364 [46]) relates this circumstance with visible complacency, and celebrates the character of Gennerid as the last glory of expiring paganism. Very different were the sentiments of the council of Carthage, who deputed four bishops to the court of Ravenna to complain of the law which had just been enacted that all conversions to Christianity should be free and voluntary. See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. a.d. 409, No. 12, ..D. 410, No. 47, 48. 88 [The opportunity may be seized to correct the text of Zosimus, v. 46, where the Vatican codex gives : ovra crTpa-rqy'ov Kal ruji' aAAcuc 6vKaTroi'. Mendelssohn well suggests iKojv for aliXuiv, but we should keep aAa)>' and read : <"» i ™i' aWuv iKuiv oaai naioi-a? re Touc ai'ut Kal K.T.K-]