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 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 341 had strongly barricaded. His wife, a valiant friend of the nation of the Alani, and some faithful slaves were still attached to his person ; and he used with so much skill and resolution a large magazine of darts and arrows that above three hundred of the assailants lost their lives in the attempt. His slaves, when all the missile weapons were spent, fled at the dawn of day ; and Gerontius, if he had not been restrained by conjugal tender- ness, might have imitated their example ; till the soldiers^ pro- voked by such obstinate resistance, applied fire on all sides to the house. In this fatal extremity, he complied with the i-equest of his Barbarian friend, and cut off his head. The wife of Gerontius, who conjured him not to abandon her to a life of misery and disgrace, eagei'ly presented her neck to his sword ; and the tragic scene was terminated by the death of the count himself, who, after three ineffectual strokes, drew a short daggei", and sheathed it in his heart. i'^'' The unprotected Maximus, whom he had invested with the purple, was indebted for his life to the contempt that was entertained of his power and abilities. The caprice of the Barbarians, who ravaged Spain, once more seated this Imperial phantom on the throne ; but they soon resigned him to the justice of Honorius ; and the tyrant Maximus, after he had been shown to the people of Ravenna and Rome, was publicly executed. [A.D.422] The general, Constantius was his name, who raised by his character and approach the sieije of Aries, and dissipated the troops of Geron- the general ^'^ '^ 11 iiii-. • Constantius. tins, was bom a Roman ; and this remarkable distinction is strongly expressive of the decay of military spirit among the subjects of the empire. The strength and majesty which were conspicuous in the person of that general ^^'~ marked him, in the popular opinion, as a candidate worthy of the throne which he afterwards ascended. In the familiar intercourse of private life his manners were cheerful and engaging ; nor would he sometimes disdain, in the licence of convivial mirth, to vie with the pantomimes themselves in the exercises of their ridiculous profession. But, when the trumpet summoned him to arms ; when he mounted his horse, and, bending down (for such was 156 The praises which Sozomen has bestowed on this act of despair appear strange and scandalous in the mouth of an ecclesiastical historian. He observes (p. 379) that the wife of Gerontius was a Christian ; and that her death was worthy of her religion and of immortal fame. [For death of Maximus, cp. App. 22.] 157 E'So! afio;/ Tvpai/vko^^ is the expression of Olympiodorus, which he seems to have borrowed from Mollis, a tragedy of Euripides, of which some fragments only are now extant (Euripid. Barnes, torn. ii. p. 443, ver. 38). This allusion may prove that the ancient tragic poets were still familiar to the Greeks of the fifth century.