Augustine was still busied in the Pelagian controversy when a fearful
calamity burst upon his country. The commander of the troops in Africa,
Boniface, had been an intimate friend of his, and had been much under
his influence. A rival of Boniface, Aetius, persuaded the empress,
Placidia, who governed in the name of her young son, Valentinian the
Third, to recall the general from Africa; and at the same time he
persuaded Boniface to disobey the order, telling him that his ruin was
intended. Boniface, who was a man of open and generous mind, did not
suspect the villany of Aetius; and, as the only means of saving himself,
he rebelled against the emperor, and invited the Vandals from Spain to
invade Africa. These Vandals were a savage nation, which had overrun
part of Spain about twenty years before. They now gladly accepted
Boniface's invitation, and passed in great numbers into Africa, where
the Moors joined them, and the Donatists eagerly seized the opportunity
of avenging themselves on the Catholics, by assisting the invaders. The
country was laid waste, and the Catholic clergy were treated with
especial cruelty, both by the Vandals (who were Arians) and by the
Donatists.
Augustine had urged Boniface to return to his duty as a subject of the
empire. Boniface, who was disgusted by the savage doings of the Vandals,
and had discovered the tricks by which Aetius had tempted him to revolt,
begged the Vandal leader Genseric to return to Spain; but he found that
he had rashly raised a power which he could not manage, and the
barbarians laughed at his entreaties. As he could not prevail with them
by words, he fought a battle with them; but he was defeated, and he then
shut himself up in Augustine's city, Hippo.
During all these troubles Augustine was very active in writing letters
of exhortation to his brethren, and in endeavouring to support them
under their trials. And when Hippo was crowded by a multitude of all
kinds, who had fled to its walls for shelter, he laboured without
ceasing among them. In June, 430, the Vandals laid siege to the place,
and soon after, the bishop fell sick in consequence of his labours. He
felt that his end was near, and he wished, during his short remaining
time, to be free from interruption in preparing for death. He,
therefore, would not allow his friends to see him, except at the hours
when he took food or medicine. He desired that the penitential
psalms--(the seven psalms which are read in church on Ash-Wednesday, and
which especially express sorrow for sin)--should be hung up within his
sight; and he read them over and over, shedding floods of tears as he
read. On the 28th of August, 430, he was taken to his rest, and in the
following year Hippo fell into the hands of the Vandals, who thus became
masters of the whole of northern Africa.