f an unarmed assembly, he fell immediately he incurred the
resentment of Count Ricimer, one of the chief commanders of the
barbarian troops who formed the military defence of Italy. At a distance
from his Gothic allies, he was compelled to abdicate (October 16, 456),
and Majorian was raised to fill his place.

_IV.--The Last Emperor of the West_

The successor of Avitus was a great and heroic character, such as
sometimes arise in a degenerate age to vindicate the honour of the human
species. In the ruin of the Roman world he loved his people, sympathised
with their distress, and studied by judicial and effectual remedies to
allay their sufferings. He reformed the most intolerable grievances of
the taxes, attempted to restore and maintain the edifices of Rome, and
to establish a new and healthier moral code. His military abilities and
his fortune were not in proportion to his merits. An unsuccessful
attempt against the Vandals to recover the lost provinces of Africa
resulted in the loss of his fleet, and his return from this disastrous
campaign terminated his reign. He was deposed by Ricimer, and five days
later died of a reported dysentery, on August 7, 461.

At the command of Ricimer, the senate bestowed the imperial title on
Libius Severus, who reigned as long as it suited his patron. The
increasing difficulties, however, of the kingdom of Italy, due largely
to the naval depredation of the Vandals, compelled Ricimer to seek the
assistance of the emperor Leo, who had succeeded Marcian in the East in
457. Leo determined to extirpate the tyranny of the Vandals, and
solemnly invested Anthemius with the diadem and purple of the West
(467).

In 472, Ricimer raised the senator Olybrius to the purple, and,
advancing from Milan, entered and sacked Rome and murdered Anthemius
(July 11, 472). Forty days after this calamitous event, the tyrant
Ricimer died of a painful disease, and two months later death also
removed Olybrius.

The emperor Leo nominated Julius Nepos to the vacant throne. After
suppressing a rival in the person of Glycerius, Julius succumbed, in
475, to a furious sedition of the barbarian confederates, who, under the
command of the patrician Orestes, marched from Rome to Ravenna. The
troops would have made Orestes emperor, but when he declined they
consented to acknowledge his son Augustulus as emperor of the West.

The ambition of the patrician might have seemed satisfied, but he soon
discovered, befor