Petronius’ wife having died in the meanwhile, he compelled Valentinian’s widow, Eudoxia, to marry him. She, however, had loved her former husband in spite of his profligacy, and she brooded over schemes of revenge: she invited Genseric to come to Rome and to achieve its conquest. This was so easily done, that one wonders at his not having made it before, and frequently afterwards: the co-operation of the empress is quite evident. When Genseric appeared, the clergy and the senate went out to meet him, imploring his mercy: whereupon he promised not to destroy the people. Notwithstanding this, the outrages of the soldiers were nearly as wanton as if the city had been taken by sword; only there was not quite so much bloodshed. Fourteen whole days was the city pillaged: all the silver, all the bronze was taken away; the golden plates, and the gilt tiles on the Capitol, nay, all that had any value, and could be moved, was carried away to the Vandal ships at Ostia. Petronius himself was slain in the tumult. The conquerors had left Rome exhausted, like a body bled to death: the senate had not even the spirit to proclaim a new emperor. And now, the senator M. Mæcilius Avitus, a very rich and accomplished nobleman in Auvergne, declared himself emperor in Gaul, and crossed the Alps. No one indeed had really proclaimed him. The state of things had become very strange: it was not the army in the province, that proclaimed the emperor; but a peculiar right had then sprung up by which, when there was no hereditary claim, the senate would elect, the people give its assent by acclamation, and the soldiers acknowledge the choice. Avitus came to Rome, and was recognised; but Ricimer, a Sueve of royal race, was even then all-powerful there. All the barbarians who acted a part in Rome, must not be looked upon as mere savages: they were Christians, and understood and spoke the _Volgare_, which even then came nearer to the modern Italian, than to the Latin; and they were quite as civilized as our own ancestors were in the middle ages. Some few of them had a tinge of classical knowledge, like Theodoric the Visigoth and the younger Alaric; but it was otherwise with Ricimer and those of his class, who undoubtedly had a hearty contempt for the Roman civilisation. All those Germans, alas! were not a whit better than the degenerate Italians: they were just as faithless, just as cruel. Ricimer soon became false to Avitus; and the latter took possession of the see of Placentia, from whence he also soon fled: he seems to have died a natural death, owing to a sickness brought on by the persecutions which he had had to suffer.