History of the Wars, Books III and IV | Page 7

man was being led to royal power. He
therefore by no means deemed it right to kill him, reasoning that, if he
should remove him from the world, it would be very clear that the thing
which the bird had done was nothing (for he would not honour with his
shadow a king who was about to die straightway), and he felt, too, that
he would be killing him for no good cause; and if, on the other hand, it
was fated that in later times the man should become king, it would
never be within his power to inflict death upon him; for that which has
been decided upon by God could never be prevented by a man's
decision. But he bound Marcian by oaths that, if it should be in his
power, he would never take up arms against the Vandals at least. [450
A.D.] Thus, then, Marcian was released and came to Byzantium, and
when at a later time Theodosius died he received the empire. And in all
other respects he proved himself a good emperor, but he paid no
attention at all to affairs in Libya. But this happened in later times.

At that time Gizeric, after conquering Aspar and Boniface in battle,
displayed a foresight worth recounting, whereby he made his good
fortune most thoroughly secure. For fearing lest, if once again an army
should come against him from both Rome and Byzantium, the Vandals
might not be able to use the same strength and enjoy the same fortune,
(since human affairs are wont to be overturned by Heaven and to fail by
reason of the weakness of men's bodies), he was not lifted up by the
good fortune he had enjoyed, but rather became moderate because of
what he feared, and so he made a treaty with the Emperor Valentinian
providing that each year he should pay to the emperor tribute from
Libya, and he delivered over one of his sons, Honoric, as a hostage to
make this agreement binding. So Gizeric both showed himself a brave
man in the battle and guarded the victory as securely as possible, and,
since the friendship between the two peoples increased greatly, he
received back his son Honoric. And at Rome Placidia had died before
this time, and after her, Valentinian, her son, also died, having no male
offspring, but two daughters had been born to him from Eudoxia, the
child of Theodosius. And I shall now relate in what manner Valentinian
died.
There was a certain Maximus, a Roman senator, of the house of that
Maximus[23] who, while usurping the imperial power, was overthrown
by the elder Theodosius and put to death, and on whose account also
the Romans celebrate the annual festival named from the defeat of
Maximus. This younger Maximus was married to a woman discreet in
her ways and exceedingly famous for her beauty. For this reason a
desire came over Valentinian to have her to wife. And since it was
impossible, much as he wished it, to meet her, he plotted an unholy
deed and carried it to fulfilment. For he summoned Maximus to the
palace and sat down with him to a game of draughts, and a certain sum
was set as a penalty for the loser; and the emperor won in this game,
and receiving Maximus' ring as a pledge for the agreed amount, he sent
it to his house, instructing the messenger to tell the wife of Maximus
that her husband bade her come as quickly as possible to the palace to
salute the queen Eudoxia. And she, judging by the ring that the
message was from Maximus, entered her litter and was conveyed to the
emperor's court. And she was received by those who had been assigned

this service by the emperor, and led into a certain room far removed
from the women's apartments, where Valentinian met her and forced
her, much against her will. And she, after the outrage, went to her
husband's house weeping and feeling the deepest possible grief because
of her misfortune, and she cast many curses upon Maximus as having
provided the cause for what had been done. Maximus, accordingly,
became exceedingly aggrieved at that which had come to pass, and
straightway entered into a conspiracy against the emperor; but when he
saw that Aetius was exceedingly powerful, for he had recently
conquered Attila, who had invaded the Roman domain with a great
army of Massagetae and the other Scythians, the thought occurred to
him that Aetius would be in the way of his undertaking. And upon
considering this matter, it seemed to him that it was the better course to
put Aetius out of the way first, paying no heed to the fact that the whole
hope of the Romans centred in him. And