Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 4 (1897).djvu/65

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 45 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 hiin 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 narrov*^ 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 contemporary Pope) was subverted by the civil fury of Anthemius and Ricimer.^^*' The unfortunate Anthemius was dragged from his concealment and inhumanly massacred by the command of his son-in-law ; who thus added a third, or perhaps a fourth, emperor to the number of his victims. The soldiers, who united the rage of factious citizens with the savage manners of Barbarians, were indulged, without control, in the licence of rapine and murder ; the crowd of slaves and plebeians, who were unconcerned in the event, could only gain by the indiscriminate pillage ; and the face of the city exhibited the strange contrast of stern cruelty and dissolute intemper- ance. i^' Forty days after this calamitous event, the subject Death of Rici- not of glory but of guilt, Italy was delivered, by a painful ["sf "^ disease, from the tyrant Ricimer, who bequeathed the command of his army to his nephew (nnidobald, one of the princes of the [Gundobad] Burgundians. In the same year, all the principal actors in this great revolution were removed from the stage ; and the whole reign of Olybrius, whose death does not betray any symptoms and of of violence, is included within the term of seven months. He oct. 23"' siastical distribution, which had been recently made by Simphcius, the reigning pope, huo of the seven regions, or parishes, of Rome 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 1 am inclined to depart from the topography of that learned Roman. ii" Nuper Anthemii et Ricimeris civili furore subversaest. Gelasius (in Epist. ad .^ndroiiiach. apud Baron. A.u. 496, No. 42), .Sigonius (tom. i. 1. xiv. de Occidentali Imperio, p. 542, 543), and Muratori (Ann. d'ltalia, tom. iv. p. 308, 309), with the aid of a less imperfect Ms. of the Historia Miscella, have illustrated this dark and bloody transaction. [Hilimer (not Gilimer) was the name of the defender of the bridge. He is described (Hist. Misc., 15, 3) as ruler uf the Gauls ; but this floes not take us far. Gibbon has followed a guess of Sigonius.] I'^Such had been the sneva ac deformis urbe tota facies, when Rome was assaulted and stormed by the troops of V'espasian (see Tacit. Hist. iii. 82, 83) ; and every cause of mischief had since acquired much additional energy. The revolu- tion of ages may bring round the same calamities ; but ages may revolve without producing a Tacitus to describe them.