This Maximus, a Spaniard of low extraction, was both the mouthpiece and the tool of the other and far more powerful party in the Empire which had some show of reason for being discontented with Gratian’s rule, the Roman Legionaries whose jealousy was aroused by his frank preference for his Gothic and Teutonic fighting men. The preference was fully justified; the “Barbarians,” as the Romans still affected to call them, were brave, clean-living loyal soldiers, great fair-haired fellows rejoicing in feats of strength and in the display of rich ornaments on their handsome persons; they were far more sympathetic to Gratian than the decadent Romans, many of whom, as Hodgkin points out, were themselves the effeminate descendants of quite recently Romanised aliens. The parvenu is always the most zealous defender of the privileges of the class to which he has been undeservedly promoted; they made no secret of their discontent when the Emperor chose some big, genial Alani for his bodyguard and for many positions of honour and sent a couple of Roman Legions to improve their health and mend their ways in the sad isle of Britain. It is amusing to read the wailing complaints of the exiled sybarites, condemned to what they considered a kind of convict station and quite the most miserable spot in the world. What, they, the flower of the aristocracy and the army, were to pass their precious time in dreary solitudes where the sun never shone, where grapes did not grow, and where the pay of an officer did not permit him even a decent glass of wine? Live under grey skies, on a soggy island cut off from the real world by most uncomfortably rough seas (the Latin is a wretched sailor to this day), where there was no music, no fun, and scarcely any pretty women—and, for their sole occupation, to have to keep the savage inhabitants from exterminating one another? No, it was not to be borne! And, after the usual time had passed in ever more angry grumbling, the Legions revolted, deposed the absent and unconscious Gratian, and named Maximus Emperor in his stead.