GENSERIC, the Arian king of the Vandals, took Carthage in 439, filled
the city with cruelties, and caused Quodvultdeus, the bishop, and many
others, to be put on board an old leaky vessel, who, notwithstanding,
arrived safe at Naples. After a vacancy of fourteen years, in 454, St.
Deogratias was consecrated archbishop. Two years after, Genseric
plundered Rome, and brought innumerable captives from Italy, Sicily,
Sardinia, and Corsica, into Africa, whom the Moors and Vandals shared
among them on the shore, separating without any regard or compassion
weeping wives from their husbands, and children from their parents.
Deogratias sold every thing, even the gold and silver vessels of the
church, to redeem as many as possible; he provided them with lodgings
and beds, and furnished them with all succors, and though in a decrepit
old age, visited those that were sick every day, and often in the night.
Worn out by these fatigues, he died in 457, to the inexpressible grief
of the prisoners, and of his own flock. The ancient calendar of
Carthage, written in the fifth age, commemorates him on the 5th of
January; but the Roman on the 22d of March. See St. Victor Vitensis, l.
1, c. 3.