ror, was, in this monarchy which from elective
was ever becoming more strictly hereditary, generally accepted as his
probable successor.

As it had been planned so it came to pass. Leo the Butcher died (3d Feb.
474); the younger Leo, a child of seven years old, was hailed by Senate
and People as his successor: Zeno came at the head of a brilliant train
of senators, soldiers, and magistrates, to "adore" the new Emperor, and
the child, carefully instructed by his mother in the part which he had
to play, placed on the bowed head of his father the Imperial diadem.
This act of "association" as it was called, generally practised upon a
son or nephew by a veteran Emperor anxious to be relieved from some of
the cares of reigning, required to be ratified by the acclamations of
the soldiery; but no doubt these acclamations, which could generally be
purchased by a sufficiently liberal donative, were not wanting on this
occasion. Zeno, otherwise called Tarasicodissa the Isaurian, was now
Emperor, and nine months after, when his child-partner died, he became
sole ruler of the Roman world, except in so far as his dignity might be
considered to be shared by the phantom Emperors of the West, who at this
time were dethroning and being dethroned with fatal rapidity at Rome
and Ravenna.

Thus mean and devious were the paths by which an adventurer could climb
in the fifth century to that which was still looked upon as the pinnacle
of earthly greatness. For however unworthy a man might feel himself to
be, and however unworthy all his subjects might know him to be of the
highest place in the Empire, when once he had obtained it his power was
absolute and the honours rendered to him were little less than divine.
All laws were passed by his "sacred providence"; all officers, military
and civil, received their authority from him. In the edicts which he put
forth to the world he spoke of himself as "My Eternity", "My Mildness",
"My Magnificence", and of course these expressions, or, if it were
possible, expressions more adulatory than these, were used by his
subjects when they laid their petitions at the footstool of "the sacred
throne". He lived, withdrawn from vulgar eyes, in the innermost recesses
of the palace, a sort of Holy of Holies behind the first and the second
veil. A band of pages, in splendid dress, waited upon his bidding;
thirty stately _silentiarii_, with helmets and brightly burnished
cuirasses, marched backwards and forwards b