An earthquake of a few years ago, followed by a great
inundation of the Tiber, had wrought disaster among these modern
structures. A pillar of Marcian's porch, broken into three pieces,
had ever since been lying before the house, and a marble frieze,
superb carving of the Antonine age, which ran across the facade,
showed gaps where pieces had been shattered away.
His family, active in public services under Theodoric, had suffered
great losses in the early years of the war; and Marcian, who, as a
very young man, held a post under the Praetorian Prefect at Ravenna,
found himself reduced to narrow circumstances. After the fall of
Ravenna, he came to Rome (accompanied on the journey by Basil, with
whom his intimacy then began), and ere long, necessity driving him
to expedients for which he had no natural inclination, he entered
upon that life of double treachery which he had avowed to his
friend. As the world went, Marcian was an honest man: he kept before
him an ideal of personal rectitude; he believed himself, and
hitherto with reason, incapable of falsity to those who trusted him
in the relations of private life.
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