But they are,
for the most part, the years of Ricimer the patrician, for they are
full of his puppets.
This man is another Stilicho, another Aetius, a great and heroic
soldier, but of a sinister and subtle policy without loyalty or
scruple. His is a figure that often appears about the death-bed of
dying states, but his genius has not so often been matched. The son of
a Suevic father, his mother the daughter of Wallia, the successor and
avenger of Ataulfus the Visigoth, he was the champion of the empire
against the Vandal, that is to say, against her most relentless foe.
His success in this was the secret of his power. Pondering the fate of
his predecessors he determined he would not end as they did. Therefore
he determined to make whom he would emperor and to depose him when he
had done with him; in a word, he meant to be the master as well as the
saviour of Italy. In this he was successful. He deposed Avitus and
caused him to be consecrated bishop of Placentia. In his place he set
a man of his own choice, Majorian, whom he raised to the empire on
April 1, 457, in the camp at Columellae, at the sixth milestone, it
seems, from Ravenna; and upon August 2,461, he caused him to be put to
death near Tortona.
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