Note 77 — BOOK V. History of Rome, from the Earliest Times to the Fall of the Western Empire, A. D. 476. (continued 3)
Reading edition
This guard consisted of 10,000 Italian soldiers, quartered near Rome for the security of the emperor’s person. And so great was its influence, that, in the later days of the empire, it often assumed to dispose of the crown without reference to Senate or people.