Olympius might have continued to insult the just resentment of a people
who loudly accused him as the author of the public calamities; but his
power was undermined by the secret intrigues of the palace. The favorite
eunuchs transferred the government of Honorius, and the Empire, to
Jovius, the prætorian prefect; an unworthy servant, who did not atone,
by the merit of personal attachment, for the errors and misfortunes of
his administration. The exile, or escape, of the guilty Olympius,
reserved him for more vicissitudes of fortune: he experienced the
adventure of an obscure and wandering life; he again rose to power; he
fell a second time into disgrace; his ears were cut off; he expired
under the lash; and his ignominious death afforded a grateful spectacle
to the friends of Stilicho.

After the removal of Olympius, whose character was deeply tainted with
religious fanaticism, the pagans and heretics were delivered from the
impolitic proscription which excluded them from the dignities of the
State. The brave Gennerid, a soldier of Barbarian 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
refused to accept any partial dispensation, and persevered in honorable
disgrace till he had extorted a general act of justice from the distress
of the Roman Government. The conduct of Gennerid, in the important
station to which he was promoted or restored, of master-general of
Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rhætia, seemed to revive the discipline
and spirit of the republic. From a life of 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.