After that events rushed rapidly after each other, as at the close of some sensational melodrama. Petronius Maximus of the great Anician house was elected Emperor in place of Valentinian. The placid, virtuous senator, a man of the latest culture, who regulated his days by his clypsedra, or water-clock, whose exceptionally magnificent and exceptionally respectable festivities were the admiration of respectable Rome, was installed in the Imperial palace. His own wife had died—many said broken-hearted—from the wrongs of Valentinian; and there were suspicions that Petronius Maximus was an accomplice in the murder of his wife’s betrayer. Whether from the doting affection of an old man, or the base vengeance of an injured man on an innocent woman, Petronius Maximus, very shortly after the Emperor’s death, insisted on the beautiful widowed Empress Eudoxia becoming his wife. Eudoxia, a niece of the great Emperor Theodosius, had loved her worthless husband in spite of his crimes, and naturally detested Petronius Maximus. In the madness of her humiliation and revenge, she sent an appeal to Genseric to come with his Vandals and deliver her by attacking Rome. Genseric’s pirate fleet was always ready for any expedition of plunder, most ready for the most profitable, most of all ready to combine vengeance and gain in the plunder of the queen-city of the world, the metropolitan see of Catholic Christendom. It was soon rumoured that his ships were on their way across the Mediterranean. But Petronius Maximus sat helpless in his palace beside the Imperial wife who detested him. He could think of no remedy but to issue the Imperial proclamation—“The Emperor grants to all who desire it liberty to depart from the city.” Fabricius, unable to defend his family, sent Damaris and Ethne with the child and an escort of faithful slaves to the villa among the Sabine hills, whilst he and Marius resolutely remained, to be of what service they could to Rome.