Eudocia brought her adventurous career to a close in 460, protesting with her last breath that she was innocent of the charge of unchastity. Pulcheria continued to rule the Eastern Empire in the name of Theodosius until he died, in the year 450, inglorious and unhonoured. It was now seen that the prosperity of the Empire in her earlier years was a hollow truce of circumstances. When the fierce and rapacious Huns approached it, in 446 and 447, the Eastern Empire tremblingly purchased peace by the most ignominious concessions. When Theodosius died, she assumed sole control of the Empire, and the head of the eunuch Chrysaphius was at once removed from his shoulders. But the pressure of her people forced her to marry, and an aged Senator, Marcian, engaged to share her throne without sharing her virginal bed. To his more vigorous hands the affairs of State now passed, and Pulcheria maintained her virtue and piety to the end. But we must now leave the Oriental pomp, the emasculated frame, and the splendid piety of the Byzantine court, to conclude our story in the West. CHAPTER XXI THE LAST EMPRESSES OF THE WEST The course of our inquiry has led us through five centuries of change. We have passed from the sober and virile integrity of the first Imperial pair, the golden age of Roman life and letters, to the successive depths of the Cæsars. We have then seen the decrepit and corrupt city refreshed with an inflow of sound provincial blood, the enervated patrician families replaced on the throne by vigorous soldiers, and a new period of sobriety and prosperity open under the Stoics, to sink again under the burden of vice and luxury. Diocletian restores its strength, and then a singular and momentous change comes over the face of the Empire. The white homes of the gods perish or decay, the gay processions no longer enliven the streets, the cross of Christ heads the legions and towers austerely above the public buildings and monuments. The ante-chambers of the Emperors are filled with Christian bishops, and the rulers of the world bend meekly before the ragged figures of monks and tremble at the threats of lowly priests. We return to the Western world to find another and a greater change. Rome has fallen, the frontiers are obliterated, the provinces, even to Africa, are cowering under the armies of the barbarians. Poverty, misery, and violence are scattered over the Empire, as if the departing gods had sown its fields with salt or with dragons’ teeth as they retired to Olympus. Civilization, law, culture, art, seem to be doomed, and the end of the world is confidently expected. But amid the crumbling frame of the vast Empire a few shades of Emperors and Empresses linger for a generation, and we may glance briefly at their sobered features and adventurous experiences.