From a life of idleness and want, his troops
were soon habituated to severe exercise and plentiful subsistence; and
his private generosity often supplied the rewards which were denied by
the avarice, or poverty, of the court of Ravenna.
The valor of Gennerid, formidable to the adjacent Barbarians, was the
firmest bulwark of the Illyrian frontier; and his vigilant care assisted
the Empire with a reinforcement of ten thousand Huns, who arrived on the
confines of Italy, attended by such a convoy of provisions, and such a
numerous train of sheep and oxen, as might have been sufficient, not
only for the march of an army, but for the settlement of a colony.
But the court and councils of Honorius still remained a scene of
weakness and distraction, of corruption and anarchy. Instigated by the
prefect Jovius, the guards rose in furious mutiny, and demanded the
heads of two generals and of the two principal eunuchs. The generals,
under a perfidious promise of safety, were sent on shipboard and
privately executed; while the favor of the eunuchs procured them a mild
and secure exile at Milan and Constantinople.
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