[Footnote 4: Statura est quae resignet proceritate regnantem,
(Ennodius, p. 1614.) The bishop of Pavia (I mean the ecclesiastic
who wished to be a bishop) then proceeds to celebrate the
complexion, eyes, hands, &c, of his sovereign.]
[Footnote 5: The state of the Ostrogoths, and the first years of
Theodoric, are found in Jornandes, (c. 52 - 56, p. 689 - 696) and
Malchus, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 78 - 80,) who erroneously styles him
the son of Walamir.]
A hero, descended from a race of kings, must have despised
the base Isaurian who was invested with the Roman purple, without
any endowment of mind or body, without any advantages of royal
birth, or superior qualifications. After the failure of the
Theodosian life, the choice of Pulcheria and of the senate might
be justified in some measure by the characters of Martin and Leo,
but the latter of these princes confirmed and dishonored his
reign by the perfidious murder of Aspar and his sons, who too
rigorously exacted the debt of gratitude and obedience. The
inheritance of Leo and of the East was peaceably devolved on his
infant grandson, the son of his daughter Ariadne; and her
Isaurian husband, the fortunate Trascalisseus, exchanged that
barbarous sound for the Grecian appellation of Zeno. After the
decease of the elder Leo, he approached with unnatural respect
the throne of his son, humbly received, as a gift, the second
rank in the empire, and soon excited the public suspicion on the
sudden and premature death of his young colleague, whose life
could no longer promote the success of his ambition. But the
palace of Constantinople was ruled by female influence, and
agitated by female passions: and Verina, the widow of Leo,
claiming his empire as her own, pronounced a sentence of
deposition against the worthless and ungrateful servant on whom