Athens, after her Persian triumphs, adopted the philosophy of

Ionia and the rhetoric of Sicily; and these studies became the

patrimony of a city, whose inhabitants, about thirty thousand

males, condensed, within the period of a single life, the genius

of ages and millions. Our sense of the dignity of human nature is

exalted by the simple recollection, that Isocrates 143 was the

companion of Plato and Xenophon; that he assisted, perhaps with

the historian Thucydides, at the first representation of the

Oedipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of Euripides; and that his

pupils Aeschines and Demosthenes contended for the crown of

patriotism in the presence of Aristotle, the master of

Theophrastus, who taught at Athens with the founders of the Stoic

and Epicurean sects. 144 The ingenuous youth of Attica enjoyed

the benefits of their domestic education, which was communicated

without envy to the rival cities. Two thousand disciples heard

the lessons of Theophrastus; 145 the schools of rhetoric must

have been still more populous than those of philosophy; and a

rapid succession of students diffused the fame of their teachers

as far as the utmost limits of the Grecian language and name.

Those limits were enlarged by the victories of Alexander; the

arts of Athens survived her freedom and dominion; and the Greek

colonies which the Macedonians planted in Egypt, and scattered

over Asia, undertook long and frequent pilgrimages to worship the

Muses in their favorite temple on the banks of the Ilissus. The

Latin conquerors respectfully listened to the instructions of

their subjects and captives; the names of Cicero and Horace were

enrolled in the schools of Athens; and after the perfect

settlement of the Roman empire, the natives of Italy, of Africa,

and of Britain, conversed in the groves of the academy with their

fellow-students of the East. The studies of philosophy and

eloquence are congenial to a popular state, which encourages the

freedom of inquiry, and submits only to the force of persuasion.

In the republics of Greece and Rome, the art of speaking was the

powerful engine of patriotism or ambition; and the schools of

rhetoric poured forth a colony of statesmen and legislators. When

the liberty of public debate was suppressed, the orator, in the

honorable profession of an advocate, might plead the cause of

innocence and justice; he might abuse his talents in the more

profitable trade of panegyric; and the same precepts continued to

dictate the fanciful declamations of the sophist, and the chaster

beauties of historical composition. The systems which professed

to unfold the nature of God, of man, and of the universe,

entertained the curiosity of the philosophic student; and

according to the temper of his mind, he might doubt with the

Sceptics, or decide with the Stoics, sublimely speculate with

Plato, or severely argue with Aristotle. The pride of the adverse

sects had fixed an unattainable term of moral happiness and

perfection; but the race was glorious and salutary; the disciples

of Zeno, and even those of Epicurus, were taught both to act and

to suffer; and the death of Petronius was not less effectual than

that of Seneca, to humble a tyrant by the discovery of his

impotence. The light of science could not indeed be confined

within the walls of Athens. Her incomparable writers address

themselves to the human race; the living masters emigrated to

Italy and Asia; Berytus, in later times, was devoted to the study

of the law; astronomy and physic were cultivated in the musaeum

of Alexandria; but the Attic schools of rhetoric and philosophy

maintained their superior reputation from the Peloponnesian war

to the reign of Justinian. Athens, though situate in a barren

soil, possessed a pure air, a free navigation, and the monuments

of ancient art. That sacred retirement was seldom disturbed by

the business of trade or government; and the last of the

Athenians were distinguished by their lively wit, the purity of

their taste and language, their social manners, and some traces,

at least in discourse, of the magnanimity of their fathers. In

the suburbs of the city, the academy of the Platonists, the

lycaeum of the Peripatetics, the portico of the Stoics, and the

garden of the Epicureans, were planted with trees and decorated

with statues; and the philosophers, instead of being immured in a

cloister, delivered their instructions in spacious and pleasant

walks, which, at different hours, were consecrated to the

exercises of the mind and body. The genius of the founders still

lived in those venerable seats; the ambition of succeeding to the

masters of human reason excited a generous emulation; and the

merit of the candidates was determined, on each vacancy, by the

free voices of an enlightened people. The Athenian professors

were paid by their disciples: according to their mutual wants and

abilities, the price appears to have varied; and Isocrates

himself, who derides the avarice of the sophists, required, in

his school of rhetoric, about thirty pounds from each of his

hundred pupils. The wages of industry are just and honorable, yet

the same Isocrates shed tears at the first receipt of a stipend:

the Stoic might blush when he was hired to preach the contempt of

money; and I should be sorry to discover that Aristotle or Plato

so far degenerated from the example of Socrates, as to exchange

knowledge for gold. But some property of lands and houses was

settled by the permission of the laws, and the legacies of

deceased friends, on the philosophic chairs of Athens. Epicurus

bequeathed to his disciples the gardens which he had purchased

for eighty minae or two hundred and fifty pounds, with a fund

sufficient for their frugal subsistence and monthly festivals;

146 and the patrimony of Plato afforded an annual rent, which, in

eight centuries, was gradually increased from three to one

thousand pieces of gold. 147 The schools of Athens were protected

by the wisest and most virtuous of the Roman princes. The

library, which Hadrian founded, was placed in a portico adorned

with pictures, statues, and a roof of alabaster, and supported by

one hundred columns of Phrygian marble. The public salaries were

assigned by the generous spirit of the Antonines; and each

professor of politics, of rhetoric, of the Platonic, the

Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean philosophy, received an

annual stipend of ten thousand drachmae, or more than three

hundred pounds sterling. 148 After the death of Marcus, these

liberal donations, and the privileges attached to the thrones of

science, were abolished and revived, diminished and enlarged; but

some vestige of royal bounty may be found under the successors of

Constantine; and their arbitrary choice of an unworthy candidate

might tempt the philosophers of Athens to regret the days of

independence and poverty. 149 It is remarkable, that the

impartial favor of the Antonines was bestowed on the four adverse

sects of philosophy, which they considered as equally useful, or

at least, as equally innocent. Socrates had formerly been the

glory and the reproach of his country; and the first lessons of

Epicurus so strangely scandalized the pious ears of the

Athenians, that by his exile, and that of his antagonists, they

silenced all vain disputes concerning the nature of the gods. But

in the ensuing year they recalled the hasty decree, restored the

liberty of the schools, and were convinced by the experience of

ages, that the moral character of philosophers is not affected by

the diversity of their theological speculations. 150

143 (return) [ The life of Isocrates extends from Olymp. lxxxvi.

1. to cx. 3, (ante Christ. 436—438.) See Dionys. Halicarn. tom.

ii. p. 149, 150, edit. Hudson. Plutarch (sive anonymus) in Vit.

X. Oratorum, p. 1538—1543, edit. H. Steph. Phot. cod. cclix. p.

1453.]

144 (return) [ The schools of Athens are copiously though

concisely represented in the Fortuna Attica of Meursius, (c.

viii. p. 59—73, in tom. i. Opp.) For the state and arts of the

city, see the first book of Pausanias, and a small tract of

Dicaearchus, in the second volume of Hudson’s Geographers, who

wrote about Olymp. cxvii. (Dodwell’s Dissertia sect. 4.)]

145 (return) [ Diogen Laert. de Vit. Philosoph. l. v. segm. 37,

p. 289.]

146 (return) [ See the Testament of Epicurus in Diogen. Laert. l.

x. segm. 16—20, p. 611, 612. A single epistle (ad Familiares,

xiii. l.) displays the injustice of the Areopagus, the fidelity

of the Epicureans, the dexterous politeness of Cicero, and the

mixture of contempt and esteem with which the Roman senators

considered the philosophy and philosophers of Greece.]

147 (return) [ Damascius, in Vit. Isidor. apud Photium, cod.

ccxlii. p. 1054.]

148 (return) [ See Lucian (in Eunuch. tom. ii. p. 350—359, edit.

Reitz,) Philostratus (in Vit. Sophist. l. ii. c. 2,) and Dion

Cassius, or Xiphilin, (lxxi. p. 1195,) with their editors Du

Soul, Olearius, and Reimar, and, above all, Salmasius, (ad Hist.

August. p. 72.) A judicious philosopher (Smith’s Wealth of

Nations, vol. ii. p. 340—374) prefers the free contributions of

the students to a fixed stipend for the professor.]

149 (return) [ Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 310,

&c.]

150 (return) [ The birth of Epicurus is fixed to the year 342

before Christ, (Bayle,) Olympiad cix. 3; and he opened his school

at Athens, Olmp. cxviii. 3, 306 years before the same aera. This

intolerant law (Athenaeus, l. xiii. p. 610. Diogen. Laertius, l.

v. s. 38. p. 290. Julius Pollux, ix. 5) was enacted in the same

or the succeeding year, (Sigonius, Opp. tom. v. p. 62. Menagius

ad Diogen. Laert. p. 204. Corsini, Fasti Attici, tom. iv. p. 67,

68.) Theophrastus chief of the Peripatetics, and disciple of

Aristotle, was involved in the same exile.]

The Gothic arms were less fatal to the schools of Athens than the

establishment of a new religion, whose ministers superseded the

exercise of reason, resolved every question by an article of

faith, and condemned the infidel or sceptic to eternal flames. In

many a volume of laborious controversy, they exposed the weakness

of the understanding and the corruption of the heart, insulted

human nature in the sages of antiquity, and proscribed the spirit

of philosophical inquiry, so repugnant to the doctrine, or at

least to the temper, of an humble believer. The surviving sects

of the Platonists, whom Plato would have blushed to acknowledge,

extravagantly mingled a sublime theory with the practice of

superstition and magic; and as they remained alone in the midst

of a Christian world, they indulged a secret rancor against the

government of the church and state, whose severity was still

suspended over their heads. About a century after the reign of

Julian, 151 Proclus 152 was permitted to teach in the philosophic

chair of the academy; and such was his industry, that he

frequently, in the same day, pronounced five lessons, and

composed seven hundred lines. His sagacious mind explored the

deepest questions of morals and metaphysics, and he ventured to

urge eighteen arguments against the Christian doctrine of the

creation of the world. But in the intervals of study, he

personally conversed with Pan, Aesculapius, and Minerva, in whose

mysteries he was secretly initiated, and whose prostrate statues

he adored; in the devout persuasion that the philosopher, who is

a citizen of the universe, should be the priest of its various

deities. An eclipse of the sun announced his approaching end; and

his life, with that of his scholar Isidore, 153 compiled by two

of their most learned disciples, exhibits a deplorable picture of

the second childhood of human reason. Yet the golden chain, as it

was fondly styled, of the Platonic succession, continued

forty-four years from the death of Proclus to the edict of

Justinian, 154 which imposed a perpetual silence on the schools

of Athens, and excited the grief and indignation of the few

remaining votaries of Grecian science and superstition. Seven

friends and philosophers, Diogenes and Hermias, Eulalius and

Priscian, Damascius, Isidore, and Simplicius, who dissented from

the religion of their sovereign, embraced the resolution of

seeking in a foreign land the freedom which was denied in their

native country. They had heard, and they credulously believed,

that the republic of Plato was realized in the despotic

government of Persia, and that a patriot king reigned ever the

happiest and most virtuous of nations. They were soon astonished

by the natural discovery, that Persia resembled the other

countries of the globe; that Chosroes, who affected the name of a

philosopher, was vain, cruel, and ambitious; that bigotry, and a

spirit of intolerance, prevailed among the Magi; that the nobles

were haughty, the courtiers servile, and the magistrates unjust;

that the guilty sometimes escaped, and that the innocent were

often oppressed. The disappointment of the philosophers provoked

them to overlook the real virtues of the Persians; and they were

scandalized, more deeply perhaps than became their profession,

with the plurality of wives and concubines, the incestuous

marriages, and the custom of exposing dead bodies to the dogs and

vultures, instead of hiding them in the earth, or consuming them

with fire. Their repentance was expressed by a precipitate

return, and they loudly declared that they had rather die on the

borders of the empire, than enjoy the wealth and favor of the

Barbarian. From this journey, however, they derived a benefit

which reflects the purest lustre on the character of Chosroes. He

required, that the seven sages who had visited the court of

Persia should be exempted from the penal laws which Justinian

enacted against his Pagan subjects; and this privilege, expressly

stipulated in a treaty of peace, was guarded by the vigilance of

a powerful mediator. 155 Simplicius and his companions ended

their lives in peace and obscurity; and as they left no

disciples, they terminate the long list of Grecian philosophers,

who may be justly praised, notwithstanding their defects, as the

wisest and most virtuous of their contemporaries. The writings of

Simplicius are now extant. His physical and metaphysical

commentaries on Aristotle have passed away with the fashion of

the times; but his moral interpretation of Epictetus is preserved

in the library of nations, as a classic book, most excellently

adapted to direct the will, to purify the heart, and to confirm

the understanding, by a just confidence in the nature both of God

and man.

151 (return) [ This is no fanciful aera: the Pagans reckoned

their calamities from the reign of their hero. Proclus, whose

nativity is marked by his horoscope, (A.D. 412, February 8, at C.

P.,) died 124 years, A.D. 485, (Marin. in Vita Procli, c. 36.)]

152 (return) [ The life of Proclus, by Marinus, was published by

Fabricius (Hamburg, 1700, et ad calcem Bibliot. Latin. Lond.

1703.) See Saidas, (tom. iii. p. 185, 186,) Fabricius, (Bibliot.

Graec. l. v. c. 26 p. 449—552,) and Brucker, (Hist. Crit.

Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 319—326)]

153 (return) [ The life of Isidore was composed by Damascius,

(apud Photium, sod. ccxlii. p. 1028—1076.) See the last age of

the Pagan philosophers, in Brucker, (tom. ii. p. 341—351.)]

154 (return) [ The suppression of the schools of Athens is

recorded by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 187, sub Decio Cos. Sol.,)

and an anonymous Chronicle in the Vatican library, (apud Aleman.

p. 106.)]

155 (return) [ Agathias (l. ii. p. 69, 70, 71) relates this

curious story Chosroes ascended the throne in the year 531, and

made his first peace with the Romans in the beginning of 533—a

date most compatible with his young fame and the old age of

Isidore, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. p. 404. Pagi, tom.

ii. p. 543, 550.)]

About the same time that Pythagoras first invented the

appellation of philosopher, liberty and the consulship were

founded at Rome by the elder Brutus. The revolutions of the

consular office, which may be viewed in the successive lights of

a substance, a shadow, and a name, have been occasionally

mentioned in the present History. The first magistrates of the

republic had been chosen by the people, to exercise, in the

senate and in the camp, the powers of peace and war, which were

afterwards translated to the emperors. But the tradition of

ancient dignity was long revered by the Romans and Barbarians. A

Gothic historian applauds the consulship of Theodoric as the

height of all temporal glory and greatness; 156 the king of Italy

himself congratulated those annual favorites of fortune who,

without the cares, enjoyed the splendor of the throne; and at the

end of a thousand years, two consuls were created by the

sovereigns of Rome and Constantinople, for the sole purpose of

giving a date to the year, and a festival to the people. But the

expenses of this festival, in which the wealthy and the vain

aspired to surpass their predecessors, insensibly arose to the

enormous sum of fourscore thousand pounds; the wisest senators

declined a useless honor, which involved the certain ruin of

their families, and to this reluctance I should impute the

frequent chasms in the last age of the consular Fasti. The

predecessors of Justinian had assisted from the public treasures

the dignity of the less opulent candidates; the avarice of that

prince preferred the cheaper and more convenient method of advice

and regulation. 157 Seven processions or spectacles were the

number to which his edict confined the horse and chariot races,

the athletic sports, the music, and pantomimes of the theatre,

and the hunting of wild beasts; and small pieces of silver were

discreetly substituted to the gold medals, which had always

excited tumult and drunkenness, when they were scattered with a

profuse hand among the populace. Notwithstanding these

precautions, and his own example, the succession of consuls

finally ceased in the thirteenth year of Justinian, whose

despotic temper might be gratified by the silent extinction of a

title which admonished the Romans of their ancient freedom. 158

Yet the annual consulship still lived in the minds of the people;

they fondly expected its speedy restoration; they applauded the

gracious condescension of successive princes, by whom it was

assumed in the first year of their reign; and three centuries

elapsed, after the death of Justinian, before that obsolete

dignity, which had been suppressed by custom, could be abolished

by law. 159 The imperfect mode of distinguishing each year by the

name of a magistrate, was usefully supplied by the date of a

permanent aera: the creation of the world, according to the

Septuagint version, was adopted by the Greeks; 160 and the

Latins, since the age of Charlemagne, have computed their time

from the birth of Christ. 161

156 (return) [ Cassiodor. Variarum Epist. vi. 1. Jornandes, c.

57, p. 696, dit. Grot. Quod summum bonum primumque in mundo decus

dicitur.]

157 (return) [ See the regulations of Justinian, (Novell. cv.,)

dated at Constantinople, July 5, and addressed to Strategius,

treasurer of the empire.]

158 (return) [ Procopius, in Anecdot. c. 26. Aleman. p. 106. In

the xviiith year after the consulship of Basilius, according to

the reckoning of Marcellinus, Victor, Marius, &c., the secret

history was composed, and, in the eyes of Procopius, the

consulship was finally abolished.]

159 (return) [ By Leo, the philosopher, (Novell. xciv. A.D.

886-911.) See Pagi (Dissertat. Hypatica, p. 325—362) and Ducange,

(Gloss, Graec p. 1635, 1636.) Even the title was vilified:

consulatus codicilli.. vilescunt, says the emperor himself.]

160 (return) [ According to Julius Africanus, &c., the world was

created the first of September, 5508 years, three months, and

twenty-five days before the birth of Christ. (See Pezron,

Antiquite des Tems defendue, p. 20—28.) And this aera has been

used by the Greeks, the Oriental Christians, and even by the

Russians, till the reign of Peter I The period, however

arbitrary, is clear and convenient. Of the 7296 years which are

supposed to elapse since the creation, we shall find 3000 of

ignorance and darkness; 2000 either fabulous or doubtful; 1000 of

ancient history, commencing with the Persian empire, and the

Republics of Rome and Athens; 1000 from the fall of the Roman

empire in the West to the discovery of America; and the remaining

296 will almost complete three centuries of the modern state of

Europe and mankind. I regret this chronology, so far preferable

to our double and perplexed method of counting backwards and

forwards the years before and after the Christian era.]

161 (return) [ The aera of the world has prevailed in the East

since the vith general council, (A.D. 681.) In the West, the

Christian aera was first invented in the vith century: it was

propagated in the viiith by the authority and writings of

venerable Bede; but it was not till the xth that the use became

legal and popular. See l’Art de Veriner les Dates, Dissert.

Preliminaire, p. iii. xii. Dictionnaire Diplomatique, tom. i. p.

329—337; the works of a laborious society of Benedictine monks.]

Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part I.

Conquests Of Justinian In The West.—Character And First Campaigns Of

Belisarius—He Invades And Subdues The Vandal Kingdom Of Africa—His

Triumph.—The Gothic War.—He Recovers Sicily, Naples, And Rome.—Siege Of

Rome By The Goths.—Their Retreat And Losses.—Surrender Of

Ravenna.—Glory Of Belisarius.—His Domestic Shame And Misfortunes.

When Justinian ascended the throne, about fifty years after the

fall of the Western empire, the kingdoms of the Goths and Vandals

had obtained a solid, and, as it might seem, a legal

establishment both in Europe and Africa. The titles, which Roman

victory had inscribed, were erased with equal justice by the

sword of the Barbarians; and their successful rapine derived a

more venerable sanction from time, from treaties, and from the

oaths of fidelity, already repeated by a second or third

generation of obedient subjects. Experience and Christianity had

refuted the superstitious hope, that Rome was founded by the gods

to reign forever over the nations of the earth. But the proud

claim of perpetual and indefeasible dominion, which her soldiers

could no longer maintain, was firmly asserted by her statesmen

and lawyers, whose opinions have been sometimes revived and

propagated in the modern schools of jurisprudence. After Rome

herself had been stripped of the Imperial purple, the princes of

Constantinople assumed the sole and sacred sceptre of the

monarchy; demanded, as their rightful inheritance, the provinces

which had been subdued by the consuls, or possessed by the

Caesars; and feebly aspired to deliver their faithful subjects of

the West from the usurpation of heretics and Barbarians. The

execution of this splendid design was in some degree reserved for

Justinian. During the five first years of his reign, he

reluctantly waged a costly and unprofitable war against the

Persians; till his pride submitted to his ambition, and he

purchased at the price of four hundred and forty thousand pounds

sterling, the benefit of a precarious truce, which, in the

language of both nations, was dignified with the appellation of

the endless peace. The safety of the East enabled the emperor to

employ his forces against the Vandals; and the internal state of

Africa afforded an honorable motive, and promised a powerful

support, to the Roman arms. 1

1 (return) [ The complete series of the Vandal war is related by

Procopius in a regular and elegant narrative, (l. i. c. 9—25, l.

ii. c. 1—13,) and happy would be my lot, could I always tread in

the footsteps of such a guide. From the entire and diligent

perusal of the Greek text, I have a right to pronounce that the

Latin and French versions of Grotius and Cousin may not be

implicitly trusted; yet the president Cousin has been often

praised, and Hugo Grotius was the first scholar of a learned

age.]

According to the testament of the founder, the African kingdom

had lineally descended to Hilderic, the eldest of the Vandal

princes. A mild disposition inclined the son of a tyrant, the

grandson of a conqueror, to prefer the counsels of clemency and

peace; and his accession was marked by the salutary edict, which

restored two hundred bishops to their churches, and allowed the

free profession of the Athanasian creed. 2 But the Catholics

accepted, with cold and transient gratitude, a favor so

inadequate to their pretensions, and the virtues of Hilderic

offended the prejudices of his countrymen. The Arian clergy

presumed to insinuate that he had renounced the faith, and the

soldiers more loudly complained that he had degenerated from the

courage, of his ancestors. His ambassadors were suspected of a

secret and disgraceful negotiation in the Byzantine court; and

his general, the Achilles, 3 as he was named, of the Vandals,

lost a battle against the naked and disorderly Moors. The public

discontent was exasperated by Gelimer, whose age, descent, and

military fame, gave him an apparent title to the succession: he

assumed, with the consent of the nation, the reins of government;

and his unfortunate sovereign sunk without a struggle from the

throne to a dungeon, where he was strictly guarded with a

faithful counsellor, and his unpopular nephew the Achilles of the

Vandals. But the indulgence which Hilderic had shown to his

Catholic subjects had powerfully recommended him to the favor of

Justinian, who, for the benefit of his own sect, could

acknowledge the use and justice of religious toleration: their

alliance, while the nephew of Justin remained in a private

station, was cemented by the mutual exchange of gifts and

letters; and the emperor Justinian asserted the cause of royalty

and friendship. In two successive embassies, he admonished the

usurper to repent of his treason, or to abstain, at least, from

any further violence which might provoke the displeasure of God

and of the Romans; to reverence the laws of kindred and

succession, and to suffer an infirm old man peaceably to end his

days, either on the throne of Carthage or in the palace of

Constantinople. The passions, or even the prudence, of Gelimer

compelled him to reject these requests, which were urged in the

haughty tone of menace and command; and he justified his ambition

in a language rarely spoken in the Byzantine court, by alleging

the right of a free people to remove or punish their chief

magistrate, who had failed in the execution of the kingly office.

After this fruitless expostulation, the captive monarch was more

rigorously treated, his nephew was deprived of his eyes, and the

cruel Vandal, confident in his strength and distance, derided the

vain threats and slow preparations of the emperor of the East.

Justinian resolved to deliver or revenge his friend, Gelimer to

maintain his usurpation; and the war was preceded, according to

the practice of civilized nations, by the most solemn

protestations, that each party was sincerely desirous of peace.

2 (return) [ See Ruinart, Hist. Persecut. Vandal. c. xii. p. 589.

His best evidence is drawn from the life of St. Fulgentius,

composed by one of his disciples, transcribed in a great measure

in the annals of Baronius, and printed in several great

collections, (Catalog. Bibliot. Bunavianae, tom. i. vol. ii. p.

1258.)]

3 (return) [ For what quality of the mind or body? For speed, or

beauty, or valor?—In what language did the Vandals read

Homer?—Did he speak German?—The Latins had four versions,

(Fabric. tom. i. l. ii. c. 8, p. 297:) yet, in spite of the

praises of Seneca, (Consol. c. 26,) they appear to have been more

successful in imitating than in translating the Greek poets. But

the name of Achilles might be famous and popular even among the

illiterate Barbarians.]

The report of an African war was grateful only to the vain and

idle populace of Constantinople, whose poverty exempted them from

tribute, and whose cowardice was seldom exposed to military

service. But the wiser citizens, who judged of the future by the

past, revolved in their memory the immense loss, both of men and

money, which the empire had sustained in the expedition of

Basiliscus. The troops, which, after five laborious campaigns,

had been recalled from the Persian frontier, dreaded the sea, the

climate, and the arms of an unknown enemy. The ministers of the

finances computed, as far as they might compute, the demands of

an African war; the taxes which must be found and levied to

supply those insatiate demands; and the danger, lest their own

lives, or at least their lucrative employments, should be made

responsible for the deficiency of the supply. Inspired by such

selfish motives, (for we may not suspect him of any zeal for the

public good,) John of Cappadocia ventured to oppose in full

council the inclinations of his master. He confessed, that a

victory of such importance could not be too dearly purchased; but

he represented in a grave discourse the certain difficulties and

the uncertain event. “You undertake,” said the præfect, “to

besiege Carthage: by land, the distance is not less than one

hundred and forty days’ journey; on the sea, a whole year 4 must

elapse before you can receive any intelligence from your fleet.

If Africa should be reduced, it cannot be preserved without the

additional conquest of Sicily and Italy. Success will impose the

obligations of new labors; a single misfortune will attract the

Barbarians into the heart of your exhausted empire.” Justinian

felt the weight of this salutary advice; he was confounded by the

unwonted freedom of an obsequious servant; and the design of the

war would perhaps have been relinquished, if his courage had not

been revived by a voice which silenced the doubts of profane

reason. “I have seen a vision,” cried an artful or fanatic bishop

of the East. “It is the will of Heaven, O emperor! that you

should not abandon your holy enterprise for the deliverance of

the African church. The God of battles will march before your

standard, and disperse your enemies, who are the enemies of his

Son.” The emperor, might be tempted, and his counsellors were

constrained, to give credit to this seasonable revelation: but

they derived more rational hope from the revolt, which the

adherents of Hilderic or Athanasius had already excited on the

borders of the Vandal monarchy. Pudentius, an African subject,

had privately signified his loyal intentions, and a small

military aid restored the province of Tripoli to the obedience of

the Romans. The government of Sardinia had been intrusted to

Godas, a valiant Barbarian: he suspended the payment of tribute,

disclaimed his allegiance to the usurper, and gave audience to

the emissaries of Justinian, who found him master of that

fruitful island, at the head of his guards, and proudly invested

with the ensigns of royalty. The forces of the Vandals were

diminished by discord and suspicion; the Roman armies were

animated by the spirit of Belisarius; one of those heroic names

which are familiar to every age and to every nation.

4 (return) [ A year—absurd exaggeration! The conquest of Africa

may be dated A. D 533, September 14. It is celebrated by

Justinian in the preface to his Institutes, which were published

November 21 of the same year. Including the voyage and return,

such a computation might be truly applied to our Indian empire.]

The Africanus of new Rome was born, and perhaps educated, among

the Thracian peasants, 5 without any of those advantages which

had formed the virtues of the elder and younger Scipio; a noble

origin, liberal studies, and the emulation of a free state.

The silence of a loquacious secretary may be admitted, to prove

that the youth of Belisarius could not afford any subject of

praise: he served, most assuredly with valor and reputation,

among the private guards of Justinian; and when his patron became

emperor, the domestic was promoted to military command. After a

bold inroad into Persarmenia, in which his glory was shared by a

colleague, and his progress was checked by an enemy, Belisarius

repaired to the important station of Dara, where he first

accepted the service of Procopius, the faithful companion, and

diligent historian, of his exploits. 6 The Mirranes of Persia

advanced, with forty thousand of her best troops, to raze the

fortifications of Dara; and signified the day and the hour on

which the citizens should prepare a bath for his refreshment,

after the toils of victory. He encountered an adversary equal to

himself, by the new title of General of the East; his superior in

the science of war, but much inferior in the number and quality

of his troops, which amounted only to twenty-five thousand Romans

and strangers, relaxed in their discipline, and humbled by recent

disasters. As the level plain of Dara refused all shelter to

stratagem and ambush, Belisarius protected his front with a deep

trench, which was prolonged at first in perpendicular, and

afterwards in parallel, lines, to cover the wings of cavalry

advantageously posted to command the flanks and rear of the

enemy. When the Roman centre was shaken, their well-timed and

rapid charge decided the conflict: the standard of Persia fell;

the immortals fled; the infantry threw away their bucklers, and

eight thousand of the vanquished were left on the field of

battle. In the next campaign, Syria was invaded on the side of

the desert; and Belisarius, with twenty thousand men, hastened

from Dara to the relief of the province. During the whole summer,

the designs of the enemy were baffled by his skilful

dispositions: he pressed their retreat, occupied each night their

camp of the preceding day, and would have secured a bloodless

victory, if he could have resisted the impatience of his own

troops. Their valiant promise was faintly supported in the hour

of battle; the right wing was exposed by the treacherous or

cowardly desertion of the Christian Arabs; the Huns, a veteran

band of eight hundred warriors, were oppressed by superior

numbers; the flight of the Isaurians was intercepted; but the

Roman infantry stood firm on the left; for Belisarius himself,

dismounting from his horse, showed them that intrepid despair was

their only safety. 611 They turned their backs to the Euphrates,

and their faces to the enemy: innumerable arrows glanced without

effect from the compact and shelving order of their bucklers; an

impenetrable line of pikes was opposed to the repeated assaults

of the Persian cavalry; and after a resistance of many hours, the

remaining troops were skilfully embarked under the shadow of the

night. The Persian commander retired with disorder and disgrace,

to answer a strict account of the lives of so many soldiers,

which he had consumed in a barren victory. But the fame of

Belisarius was not sullied by a defeat, in which he alone had

saved his army from the consequences of their own rashness: the

approach of peace relieved him from the guard of the eastern

frontier, and his conduct in the sedition of Constantinople amply

discharged his obligations to the emperor. When the African war

became the topic of popular discourse and secret deliberation,

each of the Roman generals was apprehensive, rather than

ambitious, of the dangerous honor; but as soon as Justinian had

declared his preference of superior merit, their envy was

rekindled by the unanimous applause which was given to the choice

of Belisarius. The temper of the Byzantine court may encourage a

suspicion, that the hero was darkly assisted by the intrigues of

his wife, the fair and subtle Antonina, who alternately enjoyed

the confidence, and incurred the hatred, of the empress Theodora.

The birth of Antonina was ignoble; she descended from a family of

charioteers; and her chastity has been stained with the foulest

reproach. Yet she reigned with long and absolute power over the

mind of her illustrious husband; and if Antonina disdained the

merit of conjugal fidelity, she expressed a manly friendship to

Belisarius, whom she accompanied with undaunted resolution in all

the hardships and dangers of a military life. 7

5 (return) [ (Procop. Vandal. l. i. c. 11.) Aleman, (Not. ad

Anecdot. p. 5,) an Italian, could easily reject the German vanity

of Giphanius and Velserus, who wished to claim the hero; but his

Germania, a metropolis of Thrace, I cannot find in any civil or

ecclesiastical lists of the provinces and cities. Note *: M. von

Hammer (in a review of Lord Mahon’s Life of Belisarius in the

Vienna Jahrbucher) shows that the name of Belisarius is a

Sclavonic word, Beli-tzar, the White Prince, and that the place

of his birth was a village of Illvria, which still bears the name

of Germany.—M.]

6 (return) [ The two first Persian campaigns of Belisarius are

fairly and copiously related by his secretary, (Persic. l. i. c.

12—18.)]

611 (return) [ The battle was fought on Easter Sunday, April 19,

not at the end of the summer. The date is supplied from John

Malala by Lord Mabon p. 47.—M.]

7 (return) [ See the birth and character of Antonina, in the

Anecdotes, c. l. and the notes of Alemannus, p. 3.]

The preparations for the African war were not unworthy of the

last contest between Rome and Carthage. The pride and flower of

the army consisted of the guards of Belisarius, who, according to

the pernicious indulgence of the times, devoted themselves, by a

particular oath of fidelity, to the service of their patrons.

Their strength and stature, for which they had been curiously

selected, the goodness of their horses and armor, and the

assiduous practice of all the exercises of war, enabled them to

act whatever their courage might prompt; and their courage was

exalted by the social honor of their rank, and the personal

ambition of favor and fortune. Four hundred of the bravest of the

Heruli marched under the banner of the faithful and active

Pharas; their untractable valor was more highly prized than the

tame submission of the Greeks and Syrians; and of such importance

was it deemed to procure a reenforcement of six hundred

Massagetae, or Huns, that they were allured by fraud and deceit

to engage in a naval expedition. Five thousand horse and ten

thousand foot were embarked at Constantinople, for the conquest

of Africa; but the infantry, for the most part levied in Thrace

and Isauria, yielded to the more prevailing use and reputation of

the cavalry; and the Scythian bow was the weapon on which the

armies of Rome were now reduced to place their principal

dependence. From a laudable desire to assert the dignity of his

theme, Procopius defends the soldiers of his own time against the

morose critics, who confined that respectable name to the

heavy-armed warriors of antiquity, and maliciously observed, that

the word archer is introduced by Homer8 as a term of contempt.

“Such contempt might perhaps be due to the naked youths who

appeared on foot in the fields of Troy, and lurking behind a

tombstone, or the shield of a friend, drew the bow-string to

their breast, 9 and dismissed a feeble and lifeless arrow. But

our archers (pursues the historian) are mounted on horses, which

they manage with admirable skill; their head and shoulders are

protected by a casque or buckler; they wear greaves of iron on

their legs, and their bodies are guarded by a coat of mail. On

their right side hangs a quiver, a sword on their left, and their

hand is accustomed to wield a lance or javelin in closer combat.

Their bows are strong and weighty; they shoot in every possible

direction, advancing, retreating, to the front, to the rear, or

to either flank; and as they are taught to draw the bow-string

not to the breast, but to the right ear, firm indeed must be the

armor that can resist the rapid violence of their shaft.” Five

hundred transports, navigated by twenty thousand mariners of

Egypt, Cilicia, and Ionia, were collected in the harbor of

Constantinople. The smallest of these vessels may be computed at

thirty, the largest at five hundred, tons; and the fair average

will supply an allowance, liberal, but not profuse, of about one

hundred thousand tons, 10 for the reception of thirty-five

thousand soldiers and sailors, of five thousand horses, of arms,

engines, and military stores, and of a sufficient stock of water

and provisions for a voyage, perhaps, of three months. The proud

galleys, which in former ages swept the Mediterranean with so

many hundred oars, had long since disappeared; and the fleet of

Justinian was escorted only by ninety-two light brigantines,

covered from the missile weapons of the enemy, and rowed by two

thousand of the brave and robust youth of Constantinople.

Twenty-two generals are named, most of whom were afterwards

distinguished in the wars of Africa and Italy: but the supreme

command, both by land and sea, was delegated to Belisarius alone,

with a boundless power of acting according to his discretion, as

if the emperor himself were present. The separation of the naval

and military professions is at once the effect and the cause of

the modern improvements in the science of navigation and maritime

war.

8 (return) [ See the preface of Procopius. The enemies of archery

might quote the reproaches of Diomede (Iliad. Delta. 385, &c.)

and the permittere vulnera ventis of Lucan, (viii. 384:) yet the

Romans could not despise the arrows of the Parthians; and in the

siege of Troy, Pandarus, Paris, and Teucer, pierced those haughty

warriors who insulted them as women or children.]

9 (return) [ (Iliad. Delta. 123.) How concise—how just—how

beautiful is the whole picture! I see the attitudes of the

archer—I hear the twanging of the bow.]

10 (return) [ The text appears to allow for the largest vessels

50,000 medimni, or 3000 tons, (since the medimnus weighed 160

Roman, or 120 avoirdupois, pounds.) I have given a more rational

interpretation, by supposing that the Attic style of Procopius

conceals the legal and popular modius, a sixth part of the

medimnus, (Hooper’s Ancient Measures, p. 152, &c.) A contrary and

indeed a stranger mistake has crept into an oration of Dinarchus,

(contra Demosthenem, in Reiske Orator. Graec tom iv. P. ii. p.

34.) By reducing the number of ships from 500 to 50, and

translating by mines, or pounds, Cousin has generously allowed

500 tons for the whole of the Imperial fleet! Did he never

think?]

In the seventh year of the reign of Justinian, and about the time

of the summer solstice, the whole fleet of six hundred ships was

ranged in martial pomp before the gardens of the palace. The

patriarch pronounced his benediction, the emperor signified his

last commands, the general’s trumpet gave the signal of

departure, and every heart, according to its fears or wishes,

explored, with anxious curiosity, the omens of misfortune and

success. The first halt was made at Perinthus or Heraclea, where

Belisarius waited five days to receive some Thracian horses, a

military gift of his sovereign. From thence the fleet pursued

their course through the midst of the Propontis; but as they

struggled to pass the Straits of the Hellespont, an unfavorable

wind detained them four days at Abydus, where the general

exhibited a memorable lesson of firmness and severity. Two of the

Huns, who in a drunken quarrel had slain one of their

fellow-soldiers, were instantly shown to the army suspended on a

lofty gibbet. The national indignity was resented by their

countrymen, who disclaimed the servile laws of the empire, and

asserted the free privilege of Scythia, where a small fine was

allowed to expiate the hasty sallies of intemperance and anger.

Their complaints were specious, their clamors were loud, and the

Romans were not averse to the example of disorder and impunity.

But the rising sedition was appeased by the authority and

eloquence of the general: and he represented to the assembled

troops the obligation of justice, the importance of discipline,

the rewards of piety and virtue, and the unpardonable guilt of

murder, which, in his apprehension, was aggravated rather than

excused by the vice of intoxication. 11 In the navigation from

the Hellespont to Peloponnesus, which the Greeks, after the siege

of Troy, had performed in four days, 12 the fleet of Belisarius

was guided in their course by his master-galley, conspicuous in

the day by the redness of the sails, and in the night by the

torches blazing from the mast head. It was the duty of the

pilots, as they steered between the islands, and turned the Capes

of Malea and Taenarium, to preserve the just order and regular

intervals of such a multitude of ships: as the wind was fair and

moderate, their labors were not unsuccessful, and the troops were

safely disembarked at Methone on the Messenian coast, to repose

themselves for a while after the fatigues of the sea. In this

place they experienced how avarice, invested with authority, may

sport with the lives of thousands which are bravely exposed for

the public service. According to military practice, the bread or

biscuit of the Romans was twice prepared in the oven, and the

diminution of one fourth was cheerfully allowed for the loss of

weight. To gain this miserable profit, and to save the expense of

wood, the præfect John of Cappadocia had given orders that the

flour should be slightly baked by the same fire which warmed the

baths of Constantinople; and when the sacks were opened, a soft

and mouldy paste was distributed to the army. Such unwholesome

food, assisted by the heat of the climate and season, soon

produced an epidemical disease, which swept away five hundred

soldiers. Their health was restored by the diligence of

Belisarius, who provided fresh bread at Methone, and boldly

expressed his just and humane indignation; the emperor heard his

complaint; the general was praised but the minister was not

punished. From the port of Methone, the pilots steered along the

western coast of Peloponnesus, as far as the Isle of Zacynthus,

or Zante, before they undertook the voyage (in their eyes a most

arduous voyage) of one hundred leagues over the Ionian Sea. As

the fleet was surprised by a calm, sixteen days were consumed in

the slow navigation; and even the general would have suffered the

intolerable hardship of thirst, if the ingenuity of Antonina had

not preserved the water in glass bottles, which she buried deep

in the sand in a part of the ship impervious to the rays of the

sun. At length the harbor of Caucana, 13 on the southern side of

Sicily, afforded a secure and hospitable shelter. The Gothic

officers who governed the island in the name of the daughter and

grandson of Theodoric, obeyed their imprudent orders, to receive

the troops of Justinian like friends and allies: provisions were

liberally supplied, the cavalry was remounted, 14 and Procopius

soon returned from Syracuse with correct information of the state

and designs of the Vandals. His intelligence determined

Belisarius to hasten his operations, and his wise impatience was

seconded by the winds. The fleet lost sight of Sicily, passed

before the Isle of Malta, discovered the capes of Africa, ran

along the coast with a strong gale from the north-east, and

finally cast anchor at the promontory of Caput Vada, about five

days’ journey to the south of Carthage. 15

11 (return) [ I have read of a Greek legislator, who inflicted a

double penalty on the crimes committed in a state of

intoxication; but it seems agreed that this was rather a

political than a moral law.]

12 (return) [ Or even in three days, since they anchored the

first evening in the neighboring isle of Tenedos: the second day

they sailed to Lesbon the third to the promontory of Euboea, and

on the fourth they reached Argos, (Homer, Odyss. P. 130—183.

Wood’s Essay on Homer, p. 40—46.) A pirate sailed from the

Hellespont to the seaport of Sparta in three days, (Xenophon.

Hellen. l. ii. c. l.)]

13 (return) [ Caucana, near Camarina, is at least 50 miles (350

or 400 stadia) from Syracuse, (Cluver. Sicilia Antiqua, p. 191.)

* Note *: Lord Mahon. (Life of Belisarius, p.88) suggests some

valid reasons for reading Catana, the ancient name of

Catania.—M.]

14 (return) [ Procopius, Gothic. l. i. c. 3. Tibi tollit hinnitum

apta quadrigis equa, in the Sicilian pastures of Grosphus,

(Horat. Carm. ii. 16.) Acragas.... magnanimum quondam generator

equorum, (Virg. Aeneid. iii. 704.) Thero’s horses, whose

victories are immortalized by Pindar, were bred in this country.]

15 (return) [ The Caput Vada of Procopius (where Justinian

afterwards founded a city—De Edific.l. vi. c. 6) is the

promontory of Ammon in Strabo, the Brachodes of Ptolemy, the

Capaudia of the moderns, a long narrow slip that runs into the

sea, (Shaw’s Travels, p. 111.)]

If Gelimer had been informed of the approach of the enemy, he

must have delayed the conquest of Sardinia for the immediate

defence of his person and kingdom. A detachment of five thousand

soldiers, and one hundred and twenty galleys, would have joined

the remaining forces of the Vandals; and the descendant of

Genseric might have surprised and oppressed a fleet of deep laden

transports, incapable of action, and of light brigantines that

seemed only qualified for flight. Belisarius had secretly

trembled when he overheard his soldiers, in the passage,

emboldening each other to confess their apprehensions: if they

were once on shore, they hoped to maintain the honor of their

arms; but if they should be attacked at sea, they did not blush

to acknowledge that they wanted courage to contend at the same

time with the winds, the waves, and the Barbarians. 16 The

knowledge of their sentiments decided Belisarius to seize the

first opportunity of landing them on the coast of Africa; and he

prudently rejected, in a council of war, the proposal of sailing

with the fleet and army into the port of Carthage. 1611 Three

months after their departure from Constantinople, the men and

horses, the arms and military stores, were safely disembarked,

and five soldiers were left as a guard on board each of the

ships, which were disposed in the form of a semicircle. The

remainder of the troops occupied a camp on the sea-shore, which

they fortified, according to ancient discipline, with a ditch and

rampart; and the discovery of a source of fresh water, while it

allayed the thirst, excited the superstitious confidence, of the

Romans. The next morning, some of the neighboring gardens were

pillaged; and Belisarius, after chastising the offenders,

embraced the slight occasion, but the decisive moment, of

inculcating the maxims of justice, moderation, and genuine

policy. “When I first accepted the commission of subduing Africa,

I depended much less,” said the general, “on the numbers, or even

the bravery of my troops, than on the friendly disposition of the

natives, and their immortal hatred to the Vandals. You alone can

deprive me of this hope; if you continue to extort by rapine what

might be purchased for a little money, such acts of violence will

reconcile these implacable enemies, and unite them in a just and

holy league against the invaders of their country.” These

exhortations were enforced by a rigid discipline, of which the

soldiers themselves soon felt and praised the salutary effects.

The inhabitants, instead of deserting their houses, or hiding

their corn, supplied the Romans with a fair and liberal market:

the civil officers of the province continued to exercise their

functions in the name of Justinian: and the clergy, from motives

of conscience and interest, assiduously labored to promote the

cause of a Catholic emperor. The small town of Sullecte, 17 one

day’s journey from the camp, had the honor of being foremost to

open her gates, and to resume her ancient allegiance: the larger

cities of Leptis and Adrumetum imitated the example of loyalty as

soon as Belisarius appeared; and he advanced without opposition

as far as Grasse, a palace of the Vandal kings, at the distance

of fifty miles from Carthage. The weary Romans indulged

themselves in the refreshment of shady groves, cool fountains,

and delicious fruits; and the preference which Procopius allows

to these gardens over any that he had seen, either in the East or

West, may be ascribed either to the taste, or the fatigue, of the

historian. In three generations, prosperity and a warm climate

had dissolved the hardy virtue of the Vandals, who insensibly

became the most luxurious of mankind. In their villas and

gardens, which might deserve the Persian name of Paradise, 18

they enjoyed a cool and elegant repose; and, after the daily use

of the bath, the Barbarians were seated at a table profusely

spread with the delicacies of the land and sea. Their silken

robes loosely flowing, after the fashion of the Medes, were

embroidered with gold; love and hunting were the labors of their

life, and their vacant hours were amused by pantomimes,

chariot-races, and the music and dances of the theatre.

16 (return) [ A centurion of Mark Antony expressed, though in a

more manly train, the same dislike to the sea and to naval

combats, (Plutarch in Antonio, p. 1730, edit. Hen. Steph.)]

1611 (return) [ Rather into the present Lake of Tunis. Lord

Mahon, p. 92.—M.]

17 (return) [ Sullecte is perhaps the Turris Hannibalis, an old

building, now as large as the Tower of London. The march of

Belisarius to Leptis. Adrumetum, &c., is illustrated by the

campaign of Caesar, (Hirtius, de Bello Africano, with the Analyse

of Guichardt,) and Shaw’s Travels (p. 105—113) in the same

country.]

18 (return) [ The paradises, a name and fashion adopted from

Persia, may be represented by the royal garden of Ispahan,

(Voyage d’Olearius, p. 774.) See, in the Greek romances, their

most perfect model, (Longus. Pastoral. l. iv. p. 99—101 Achilles

Tatius. l. i. p. 22, 23.)]

In a march of ten or twelve days, the vigilance of Belisarius was

constantly awake and active against his unseen enemies, by whom,

in every place, and at every hour, he might be suddenly attacked.

An officer of confidence and merit, John the Armenian, led the

vanguard of three hundred horse; six hundred Massagetae covered

at a certain distance the left flank; and the whole fleet,

steering along the coast, seldom lost sight of the army, which

moved each day about twelve miles, and lodged in the evening in

strong camps, or in friendly towns. The near approach of the

Romans to Carthage filled the mind of Gelimer with anxiety and

terror. He prudently wished to protract the war till his brother,

with his veteran troops, should return from the conquest of

Sardinia; and he now lamented the rash policy of his ancestors,

who, by destroying the fortifications of Africa, had left him

only the dangerous resource of risking a battle in the

neighborhood of his capital. The Vandal conquerors, from their

original number of fifty thousand, were multiplied, without

including their women and children, to one hundred and sixty

thousand fighting men: 1811 and such forces, animated with valor

and union, might have crushed, at their first landing, the feeble

and exhausted bands of the Roman general. But the friends of the

captive king were more inclined to accept the invitations, than

to resist the progress, of Belisarius; and many a proud Barbarian

disguised his aversion to war under the more specious name of his

hatred to the usurper. Yet the authority and promises of Gelimer

collected a formidable army, and his plans were concerted with

some degree of military skill. An order was despatched to his

brother Ammatas, to collect all the forces of Carthage, and to

encounter the van of the Roman army at the distance of ten miles

from the city: his nephew Gibamund, with two thousand horse, was

destined to attack their left, when the monarch himself, who

silently followed, should charge their rear, in a situation which

excluded them from the aid or even the view of their fleet. But

the rashness of Ammatas was fatal to himself and his country. He

anticipated the hour of the attack, outstripped his tardy

followers, and was pierced with a mortal wound, after he had

slain with his own hand twelve of his boldest antagonists. His

Vandals fled to Carthage; the highway, almost ten miles, was

strewed with dead bodies; and it seemed incredible that such

multitudes could be slaughtered by the swords of three hundred

Romans. The nephew of Gelimer was defeated, after a slight

combat, by the six hundred Massagetae: they did not equal the

third part of his numbers; but each Scythian was fired by the

example of his chief, who gloriously exercised the privilege of

his family, by riding, foremost and alone, to shoot the first

arrow against the enemy. In the mean while, Gelimer himself,

ignorant of the event, and misguided by the windings of the

hills, inadvertently passed the Roman army, and reached the scene

of action where Ammatas had fallen. He wept the fate of his

brother and of Carthage, charged with irresistible fury the

advancing squadrons, and might have pursued, and perhaps decided,

the victory, if he had not wasted those inestimable moments in

the discharge of a vain, though pious, duty to the dead. While

his spirit was broken by this mournful office, he heard the

trumpet of Belisarius, who, leaving Antonina and his infantry in

the camp, pressed forwards with his guards and the remainder of

the cavalry to rally his flying troops, and to restore the

fortune of the day. Much room could not be found, in this

disorderly battle, for the talents of a general; but the king

fled before the hero; and the Vandals, accustomed only to a

Moorish enemy, were incapable of withstanding the arms and

discipline of the Romans. Gelimer retired with hasty steps

towards the desert of Numidia: but he had soon the consolation of

learning that his private orders for the execution of Hilderic

and his captive friends had been faithfully obeyed. The tyrant’s

revenge was useful only to his enemies. The death of a lawful

prince excited the compassion of his people; his life might have

perplexed the victorious Romans; and the lieutenant of Justinian,

by a crime of which he was innocent, was relieved from the

painful alternative of forfeiting his honor or relinquishing his

conquests.

1811 (return) [ 80,000. Hist. Arc. c. 18. Gibbon has been misled

by the translation. See Lord ov. p. 99.—M.]

Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part II.

As soon as the tumult had subsided, the several parts of the army

informed each other of the accidents of the day; and Belisarius

pitched his camp on the field of victory, to which the tenth

mile-stone from Carthage had applied the Latin appellation of

Decimus. From a wise suspicion of the stratagems and resources of

the Vandals, he marched the next day in order of battle, halted

in the evening before the gates of Carthage, and allowed a night

of repose, that he might not, in darkness and disorder, expose

the city to the license of the soldiers, or the soldiers

themselves to the secret ambush of the city. But as the fears of

Belisarius were the result of calm and intrepid reason, he was

soon satisfied that he might confide, without danger, in the

peaceful and friendly aspect of the capital. Carthage blazed with

innumerable torches, the signals of the public joy; the chain was

removed that guarded the entrance of the port; the gates were

thrown open, and the people, with acclamations of gratitude,

hailed and invited their Roman deliverers. The defeat of the

Vandals, and the freedom of Africa, were announced to the city on

the eve of St. Cyprian, when the churches were already adorned

and illuminated for the festival of the martyr whom three

centuries of superstition had almost raised to a local deity. The

Arians, conscious that their reign had expired, resigned the

temple to the Catholics, who rescued their saint from profane

hands, performed the holy rites, and loudly proclaimed the creed

of Athanasius and Justinian. One awful hour reversed the fortunes

of the contending parties. The suppliant Vandals, who had so

lately indulged the vices of conquerors, sought an humble refuge

in the sanctuary of the church; while the merchants of the East

were delivered from the deepest dungeon of the palace by their

affrighted keeper, who implored the protection of his captives,

and showed them, through an aperture in the wall, the sails of

the Roman fleet. After their separation from the army, the naval

commanders had proceeded with slow caution along the coast till

they reached the Hermaean promontory, and obtained the first

intelligence of the victory of Belisarius. Faithful to his

instructions, they would have cast anchor about twenty miles from

Carthage, if the more skilful seamen had not represented the

perils of the shore, and the signs of an impending tempest. Still

ignorant of the revolution, they declined, however, the rash

attempt of forcing the chain of the port; and the adjacent harbor

and suburb of Mandracium were insulted only by the rapine of a

private officer, who disobeyed and deserted his leaders. But the

Imperial fleet, advancing with a fair wind, steered through the

narrow entrance of the Goletta, and occupied, in the deep and

capacious lake of Tunis, a secure station about five miles from

the capital. 19 No sooner was Belisarius informed of their

arrival, than he despatched orders that the greatest part of the

mariners should be immediately landed to join the triumph, and to

swell the apparent numbers, of the Romans. Before he allowed them

to enter the gates of Carthage, he exhorted them, in a discourse

worthy of himself and the occasion, not to disgrace the glory of

their arms; and to remember that the Vandals had been the

tyrants, but that they were the deliverers, of the Africans, who

must now be respected as the voluntary and affectionate subjects

of their common sovereign. The Romans marched through the streets

in close ranks prepared for battle if an enemy had appeared: the

strict order maintained by the general imprinted on their minds

the duty of obedience; and in an age in which custom and impunity

almost sanctified the abuse of conquest, the genius of one man

repressed the passions of a victorious army. The voice of menace

and complaint was silent; the trade of Carthage was not

interrupted; while Africa changed her master and her government,

the shops continued open and busy; and the soldiers, after

sufficient guards had been posted, modestly departed to the

houses which were allotted for their reception. Belisarius fixed

his residence in the palace; seated himself on the throne of

Genseric; accepted and distributed the Barbaric spoil; granted

their lives to the suppliant Vandals; and labored to repair the

damage which the suburb of Mandracium had sustained in the

preceding night. At supper he entertained his principal officers

with the form and magnificence of a royal banquet. 20 The victor

was respectfully served by the captive officers of the household;

and in the moments of festivity, when the impartial spectators

applauded the fortune and merit of Belisarius, his envious

flatterers secretly shed their venom on every word and gesture

which might alarm the suspicions of a jealous monarch. One day

was given to these pompous scenes, which may not be despised as

useless, if they attracted the popular veneration; but the active

mind of Belisarius, which in the pride of victory could suppose a

defeat, had already resolved that the Roman empire in Africa

should not depend on the chance of arms, or the favor of the

people. The fortifications of Carthage 2011 had alone been

exempted from the general proscription; but in the reign of

ninety-five years they were suffered to decay by the thoughtless

and indolent Vandals. A wiser conqueror restored, with incredible

despatch, the walls and ditches of the city. His liberality

encouraged the workmen; the soldiers, the mariners, and the

citizens, vied with each other in the salutary labor; and

Gelimer, who had feared to trust his person in an open town,

beheld with astonishment and despair, the rising strength of an

impregnable fortress.

19 (return) [ The neighborhood of Carthage, the sea, the land,

and the rivers, are changed almost as much as the works of man.

The isthmus, or neck of the city, is now confounded with the

continent; the harbor is a dry plain; and the lake, or stagnum,

no more than a morass, with six or seven feet water in the

mid-channel. See D’Anville, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. iii. p.

82,) Shaw, (Travels, p. 77—84,) Marmol, (Description de

l’Afrique, tom. ii. p. 465,) and Thuanus, (lviii. 12, tom. iii.

p. 334.)]

20 (return) [ From Delphi, the name of Delphicum was given, both

in Greek and Latin, to a tripod; and by an easy analogy, the same

appellation was extended at Rome, Constantinople, and Carthage,

to the royal banquetting room, (Procopius, Vandal. l. i. c. 21.

Ducange, Gloss, Graec. p. 277., ad Alexiad. p. 412.)]

2011 (return) [ And a few others. Procopius states in his work De

Edi Sciis. l. vi. vol i. p. 5.—M]

That unfortunate monarch, after the loss of his capital, applied

himself to collect the remains of an army scattered, rather than

destroyed, by the preceding battle; and the hopes of pillage

attracted some Moorish bands to the standard of Gelimer. He

encamped in the fields of Bulla, four days’ journey from

Carthage; insulted the capital, which he deprived of the use of

an aqueduct; proposed a high reward for the head of every Roman;

affected to spare the persons and property of his African

subjects, and secretly negotiated with the Arian sectaries and

the confederate Huns. Under these circumstances, the conquest of

Sardinia served only to aggravate his distress: he reflected,

with the deepest anguish, that he had wasted, in that useless

enterprise, five thousand of his bravest troops; and he read,

with grief and shame, the victorious letters of his brother Zano,

2012 who expressed a sanguine confidence that the king, after the

example of their ancestors, had already chastised the rashness of

the Roman invader. “Alas! my brother,” replied Gelimer, “Heaven

has declared against our unhappy nation. While you have subdued

Sardinia, we have lost Africa. No sooner did Belisarius appear

with a handful of soldiers, than courage and prosperity deserted

the cause of the Vandals. Your nephew Gibamund, your brother

Ammatas, have been betrayed to death by the cowardice of their

followers. Our horses, our ships, Carthage itself, and all

Africa, are in the power of the enemy. Yet the Vandals still

prefer an ignominious repose, at the expense of their wives and

children, their wealth and liberty. Nothing now remains, except

the fields of Bulla, and the hope of your valor. Abandon

Sardinia; fly to our relief; restore our empire, or perish by our

side.” On the receipt of this epistle, Zano imparted his grief to

the principal Vandals; but the intelligence was prudently

concealed from the natives of the island. The troops embarked in

one hundred and twenty galleys at the port of Caghari, cast

anchor the third day on the confines of Mauritania, and hastily

pursued their march to join the royal standard in the camp of

Bulla. Mournful was the interview: the two brothers embraced;

they wept in silence; no questions were asked of the Sardinian

victory; no inquiries were made of the African misfortunes: they

saw before their eyes the whole extent of their calamities; and

the absence of their wives and children afforded a melancholy

proof that either death or captivity had been their lot. The

languid spirit of the Vandals was at length awakened and united

by the entreaties of their king, the example of Zano, and the

instant danger which threatened their monarchy and religion. The

military strength of the nation advanced to battle; and such was

the rapid increase, that before their army reached Tricameron,

about twenty miles from Carthage, they might boast, perhaps with

some exaggeration, that they surpassed, in a tenfold proportion,

the diminutive powers of the Romans. But these powers were under

the command of Belisarius; and, as he was conscious of their

superior merit, he permitted the Barbarians to surprise him at an

unseasonable hour. The Romans were instantly under arms; a

rivulet covered their front; the cavalry formed the first line,

which Belisarius supported in the centre, at the head of five

hundred guards; the infantry, at some distance, was posted in the

second line; and the vigilance of the general watched the

separate station and ambiguous faith of the Massagetae, who

secretly reserved their aid for the conquerors. The historian has

inserted, and the reader may easily supply, the speeches 21 of

the commanders, who, by arguments the most apposite to their

situation, inculcated the importance of victory, and the contempt

of life. Zano, with the troops which had followed him to the

conquest of Sardinia, was placed in the centre; and the throne of

Genseric might have stood, if the multitude of Vandals had

imitated their intrepid resolution. Casting away their lances and

missile weapons, they drew their swords, and expected the charge:

the Roman cavalry thrice passed the rivulet; they were thrice

repulsed; and the conflict was firmly maintained, till Zano fell,

and the standard of Belisarius was displayed. Gelimer retreated

to his camp; the Huns joined the pursuit; and the victors

despoiled the bodies of the slain. Yet no more than fifty Romans,

and eight hundred Vandals were found on the field of battle; so

inconsiderable was the carnage of a day, which extinguished a

nation, and transferred the empire of Africa. In the evening

Belisarius led his infantry to the attack of the camp; and the

pusillanimous flight of Gelimer exposed the vanity of his recent

declarations, that to the vanquished, death was a relief, life a

burden, and infamy the only object of terror. His departure was

secret; but as soon as the Vandals discovered that their king had

deserted them, they hastily dispersed, anxious only for their

personal safety, and careless of every object that is dear or

valuable to mankind. The Romans entered the camp without

resistance; and the wildest scenes of disorder were veiled in the

darkness and confusion of the night. Every Barbarian who met

their swords was inhumanly massacred; their widows and daughters,

as rich heirs, or beautiful concubines, were embraced by the

licentious soldiers; and avarice itself was almost satiated with

the treasures of gold and silver, the accumulated fruits of

conquest or economy in a long period of prosperity and peace. In

this frantic search, the troops, even of Belisarius, forgot their

caution and respect. Intoxicated with lust and rapine, they

explored, in small parties, or alone, the adjacent fields, the

woods, the rocks, and the caverns, that might possibly conceal

any desirable prize: laden with booty, they deserted their ranks,

and wandered without a guide, on the high road to Carthage; and

if the flying enemies had dared to return, very few of the

conquerors would have escaped. Deeply sensible of the disgrace

and danger, Belisarius passed an apprehensive night on the field

of victory: at the dawn of day, he planted his standard on a

hill, recalled his guardians and veterans, and gradually restored

the modesty and obedience of the camp. It was equally the concern

of the Roman general to subdue the hostile, and to save the

prostrate, Barbarian; and the suppliant Vandals, who could be

found only in churches, were protected by his authority,

disarmed, and separately confined, that they might neither

disturb the public peace, nor become the victims of popular

revenge. After despatching a light detachment to tread the

footsteps of Gelimer, he advanced, with his whole army, about ten

days’ march, as far as Hippo Regius, which no longer possessed

the relics of St. Augustin. 22 The season, and the certain

intelligence that the Vandal had fled to an inaccessible country

of the Moors, determined Belisarius to relinquish the vain

pursuit, and to fix his winter quarters at Carthage. From thence

he despatched his principal lieutenant, to inform the emperor,

that in the space of three months he had achieved the conquest of

Africa.

2012 (return) [ Gibbon had forgotten that the bearer of the

“victorious letters of his brother” had sailed into the port of

Carthage; and that the letters had fallen into the hands of the

Romans. Proc. Vandal. l. i. c. 23.—M.]

21 (return) [ These orations always express the sense of the

times, and sometimes of the actors. I have condensed that sense,

and thrown away declamation.]

22 (return) [ The relics of St. Augustin were carried by the

African bishops to their Sardinian exile, (A.D. 500;) and it was

believed, in the viiith century, that Liutprand, king of the

Lombards, transported them (A.D. 721) from Sardinia to Pavia. In

the year 1695, the Augustan friars of that city found a brick

arch, marble coffin, silver case, silk wrapper, bones, blood,

&c., and perhaps an inscription of Agostino in Gothic letters.

But this useful discovery has been disputed by reason and

jealousy, (Baronius, Annal. A.D. 725, No. 2-9. Tillemont, Mem.

Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 944. Montfaucon, Diarium Ital. p. 26-30.

Muratori, Antiq. Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lviii. p. 9,

who had composed a separate treatise before the decree of the

bishop of Pavia, and Pope Benedict XIII.)]

Belisarius spoke the language of truth. The surviving Vandals

yielded, without resistance, their arms and their freedom; the

neighborhood of Carthage submitted to his presence; and the more

distant provinces were successively subdued by the report of his

victory. Tripoli was confirmed in her voluntary allegiance;

Sardinia and Corsica surrendered to an officer, who carried,

instead of a sword, the head of the valiant Zano; and the Isles

of Majorca, Minorca, and Yvica consented to remain an humble

appendage of the African kingdom. Caesarea, a royal city, which

in looser geography may be confounded with the modern Algiers,

was situate thirty days’ march to the westward of Carthage: by

land, the road was infested by the Moors; but the sea was open,

and the Romans were now masters of the sea. An active and

discreet tribune sailed as far as the Straits, where he occupied

Septem or Ceuta, 23 which rises opposite to Gibraltar on the

African coast; that remote place was afterwards adorned and

fortified by Justinian; and he seems to have indulged the vain

ambition of extending his empire to the columns of Hercules. He

received the messengers of victory at the time when he was

preparing to publish the Pandects of the Roman laws; and the

devout or jealous emperor celebrated the divine goodness, and

confessed, in silence, the merit of his successful general. 24

Impatient to abolish the temporal and spiritual tyranny of the

Vandals, he proceeded, without delay, to the full establishment

of the Catholic church. Her jurisdiction, wealth, and immunites,

perhaps the most essential part of episcopal religion, were

restored and amplified with a liberal hand; the Arian worship was

suppressed; the Donatist meetings were proscribed; 25 and the

synod of Carthage, by the voice of two hundred and seventeen

bishops, 26 applauded the just measure of pious retaliation. On

such an occasion, it may not be presumed, that many orthodox

prelates were absent; but the comparative smallness of their

number, which in ancient councils had been twice or even thrice

multiplied, most clearly indicates the decay both of the church

and state. While Justinian approved himself the defender of the

faith, he entertained an ambitious hope, that his victorious

lieutenant would speedily enlarge the narrow limits of his

dominion to the space which they occupied before the invasion of

the Moors and Vandals; and Belisarius was instructed to establish

five dukes or commanders in the convenient stations of Tripoli,

Leptis, Cirta, Caesarea, and Sardinia, and to compute the

military force of palatines or borderers that might be sufficient

for the defence of Africa. The kingdom of the Vandals was not

unworthy of the presence of a Praetorian præfect; and four

consulars, three presidents, were appointed to administer the

seven provinces under his civil jurisdiction. The number of their

subordinate officers, clerks, messengers, or assistants, was

minutely expressed; three hundred and ninety-six for the præfect

himself, fifty for each of his vicegerents; and the rigid

definition of their fees and salaries was more effectual to

confirm the right than to prevent the abuse. These magistrates

might be oppressive, but they were not idle; and the subtile

questions of justice and revenue were infinitely propagated under

the new government, which professed to revive the freedom and

equity of the Roman republic. The conqueror was solicitous to

extract a prompt and plentiful supply from his African subjects;

and he allowed them to claim, even in the third degree, and from

the collateral line, the houses and lands of which their families

had been unjustly despoiled by the Vandals. After the departure

of Belisarius, who acted by a high and special commission, no

ordinary provision was made for a master-general of the forces;

but the office of Praetorian præfect was intrusted to a soldier;

the civil and military powers were united, according to the

practice of Justinian, in the chief governor; and the

representative of the emperor in Africa, as well as in Italy, was

soon distinguished by the appellation of Exarch. 27

23 (return) [ The expression of Procopius (de Edific. l. vi. c.

7.) Ceuta, which has been defaced by the Portuguese, flourished

in nobles and palaces, in agriculture and manufactures, under the

more prosperous reign of the Arabs, (l’Afrique de Marmai, tom.

ii. p. 236.)]

24 (return) [ See the second and third preambles to the Digest,

or Pandects, promulgated A.D. 533, December 16. To the titles of

Vandalicus and Africanus, Justinian, or rather Belisarius, had

acquired a just claim; Gothicus was premature, and Francicus

false, and offensive to a great nation.]

25 (return) [ See the original acts in Baronius, (A.D. 535, No.

21—54.) The emperor applauds his own clemency to the heretics,

cum sufficiat eis vivere.]

26 (return) [ Dupin (Geograph. Sacra Africana, p. lix. ad Optat.

Milav.) observes and bewails this episcopal decay. In the more

prosperous age of the church, he had noticed 690 bishoprics; but

however minute were the dioceses, it is not probable that they

all existed at the same time.]

27 (return) [ The African laws of Justinian are illustrated by

his German biographer, (Cod. l. i. tit. 27. Novell. 36, 37, 131.

Vit. Justinian, p. 349—377.)]

Yet the conquest of Africa was imperfect till her former

sovereign was delivered, either alive or dead, into the hands of

the Romans. Doubtful of the event, Gelimer had given secret

orders that a part of his treasure should be transported to

Spain, where he hoped to find a secure refuge at the court of the

king of the Visigoths. But these intentions were disappointed by

accident, treachery, and the indefatigable pursuit of his

enemies, who intercepted his flight from the sea-shore, and

chased the unfortunate monarch, with some faithful followers, to

the inaccessible mountain of Papua, 28 in the inland country of

Numidia. He was immediately besieged by Pharas, an officer whose

truth and sobriety were the more applauded, as such qualities

could seldom be found among the Heruli, the most corrupt of the

Barbarian tribes. To his vigilance Belisarius had intrusted this

important charge and, after a bold attempt to scale the mountain,

in which he lost a hundred and ten soldiers, Pharas expected,

during a winter siege, the operation of distress and famine on

the mind of the Vandal king. From the softest habits of pleasure,

from the unbounded command of industry and wealth, he was reduced

to share the poverty of the Moors, 29 supportable only to

themselves by their ignorance of a happier condition. In their

rude hovels, of mud and hurdles, which confined the smoke and

excluded the light, they promiscuously slept on the ground,

perhaps on a sheep-skin, with their wives, their children, and

their cattle. Sordid and scanty were their garments; the use of

bread and wine was unknown; and their oaten or barley cakes,

imperfectly baked in the ashes, were devoured almost in a crude

state, by the hungry savages. The health of Gelimer must have

sunk under these strange and unwonted hardships, from whatsoever

cause they had been endured; but his actual misery was imbittered

by the recollection of past greatness, the daily insolence of his

protectors, and the just apprehension, that the light and venal

Moors might be tempted to betray the rights of hospitality. The

knowledge of his situation dictated the humane and friendly

epistle of Pharas. “Like yourself,” said the chief of the Heruli,

“I am an illiterate Barbarian, but I speak the language of plain

sense and an honest heart. Why will you persist in hopeless

obstinacy? Why will you ruin yourself, your family, and nation?

The love of freedom and abhorrence of slavery? Alas! my dearest

Gelimer, are you not already the worst of slaves, the slave of

the vile nation of the Moors? Would it not be preferable to

sustain at Constantinople a life of poverty and servitude, rather

than to reign the undoubted monarch of the mountain of Papua? Do

you think it a disgrace to be the subject of Justinian?

Belisarius is his subject; and we ourselves, whose birth is not

inferior to your own, are not ashamed of our obedience to the

Roman emperor. That generous prince will grant you a rich

inheritance of lands, a place in the senate, and the dignity of

patrician: such are his gracious intentions, and you may depend

with full assurance on the word of Belisarius. So long as Heaven

has condemned us to suffer, patience is a virtue; but if we

reject the proffered deliverance, it degenerates into blind and

stupid despair.” “I am not insensible” replied the king of the

Vandals, “how kind and rational is your advice. But I cannot

persuade myself to become the slave of an unjust enemy, who has

deserved my implacable hatred. Him I had never injured either by

word or deed: yet he has sent against me, I know not from whence,

a certain Belisarius, who has cast me headlong from the throne

into his abyss of misery. Justinian is a man; he is a prince;

does he not dread for himself a similar reverse of fortune? I can

write no more: my grief oppresses me. Send me, I beseech you, my

dear Pharas, send me, a lyre, 30 a sponge, and a loaf of bread.”

From the Vandal messenger, Pharas was informed of the motives of

this singular request. It was long since the king of Africa had

tasted bread; a defluxion had fallen on his eyes, the effect of

fatigue or incessant weeping; and he wished to solace the

melancholy hours, by singing to the lyre the sad story of his own

misfortunes. The humanity of Pharas was moved; he sent the three

extraordinary gifts; but even his humanity prompted him to

redouble the vigilance of his guard, that he might sooner compel

his prisoner to embrace a resolution advantageous to the Romans,

but salutary to himself. The obstinacy of Gelimer at length

yielded to reason and necessity; the solemn assurances of safety

and honorable treatment were ratified in the emperor’s name, by

the ambassador of Belisarius; and the king of the Vandals

descended from the mountain. The first public interview was in

one of the suburbs of Carthage; and when the royal captive

accosted his conqueror, he burst into a fit of laughter. The

crowd might naturally believe, that extreme grief had deprived

Gelimer of his senses: but in this mournful state, unseasonable

mirth insinuated to more intelligent observers, that the vain and

transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious

thought. 31

28 (return) [ Mount Papua is placed by D’Anville (tom. iii. p.

92, and Tabul. Imp. Rom. Occident.) near Hippo Regius and the

sea; yet this situation ill agrees with the long pursuit beyond

Hippo, and the words of Procopius, (l. ii.c.4,). * Note: Compare

Lord Mahon, 120. conceive Gibbon to be right—M.]

29 (return) [ Shaw (Travels, p. 220) most accurately represents

the manners of the Bedoweens and Kabyles, the last of whom, by

their language, are the remnant of the Moors; yet how changed—how

civilized are these modern savages!—provisions are plenty among

them and bread is common.]

30 (return) [ By Procopius it is styled a lyre; perhaps harp

would have been more national. The instruments of music are thus

distinguished by Venantius Fortunatus:— Romanusque lyra tibi

plaudat, Barbarus harpa.]

31 (return) [ Herodotus elegantly describes the strange effects

of grief in another royal captive, Psammetichus of Egypt, who

wept at the lesser and was silent at the greatest of his

calamities, (l. iii. c. 14.) In the interview of Paulus Aemilius

and Perses, Belisarius might study his part; but it is probable

that he never read either Livy or Plutarch; and it is certain

that his generosity did not need a tutor.]

Their contempt was soon justified by a new example of a vulgar

truth; that flattery adheres to power, and envy to superior

merit. The chiefs of the Roman army presumed to think themselves

the rivals of a hero. Their private despatches maliciously

affirmed, that the conqueror of Africa, strong in his reputation

and the public love, conspired to seat himself on the throne of

the Vandals. Justinian listened with too patient an ear; and his

silence was the result of jealousy rather than of confidence. An

honorable alternative, of remaining in the province, or of

returning to the capital, was indeed submitted to the discretion

of Belisarius; but he wisely concluded, from intercepted letters

and the knowledge of his sovereign’s temper, that he must either

resign his head, erect his standard, or confound his enemies by

his presence and submission. Innocence and courage decided his

choice; his guards, captives, and treasures, were diligently

embarked; and so prosperous was the navigation, that his arrival

at Constantinople preceded any certain account of his departure

from the port of Carthage. Such unsuspecting loyalty removed the

apprehensions of Justinian; envy was silenced and inflamed by the

public gratitude; and the third Africanus obtained the honors of

a triumph, a ceremony which the city of Constantine had never

seen, and which ancient Rome, since the reign of Tiberius, had

reserved for the auspicious arms of the Caesars.32 From the

palace of Belisarius, the procession was conducted through the

principal streets to the hippodrome; and this memorable day

seemed to avenge the injuries of Genseric, and to expiate the

shame of the Romans. The wealth of nations was displayed, the

trophies of martial or effeminate luxury; rich armor, golden

thrones, and the chariots of state which had been used by the

Vandal queen; the massy furniture of the royal banquet, the

splendor of precious stones, the elegant forms of statues and

vases, the more substantial treasure of gold, and the holy

vessels of the Jewish temple, which after their long

peregrination were respectfully deposited in the Christian church

of Jerusalem. A long train of the noblest Vandals reluctantly

exposed their lofty stature and manly countenance. Gelimer slowly

advanced: he was clad in a purple robe, and still maintained the

majesty of a king. Not a tear escaped from his eyes, not a sigh

was heard; but his pride or piety derived some secret consolation

from the words of Solomon, 33 which he repeatedly pronounced,

Vanity! vanity! all is vanity! Instead of ascending a triumphal

car drawn by four horses or elephants, the modest conqueror

marched on foot at the head of his brave companions; his prudence

might decline an honor too conspicuous for a subject; and his

magnanimity might justly disdain what had been so often sullied

by the vilest of tyrants. The glorious procession entered the

gate of the hippodrome; was saluted by the acclamations of the

senate and people; and halted before the throne where Justinian

and Theodora were seated to receive homage of the captive monarch

and the victorious hero. They both performed the customary

adoration; and falling prostrate on the ground, respectfully

touched the footstool of a prince who had not unsheathed his

sword, and of a prostitute who had danced on the theatre; some

gentle violence was used to bend the stubborn spirit of the

grandson of Genseric; and however trained to servitude, the

genius of Belisarius must have secretly rebelled. He was

immediately declared consul for the ensuing year, and the day of

his inauguration resembled the pomp of a second triumph: his

curule chair was borne aloft on the shoulders of captive Vandals;

and the spoils of war, gold cups, and rich girdles, were

profusely scattered among the populace.

32 (return) [ After the title of imperator had lost the old

military sense, and the Roman auspices were abolished by

Christianity, (see La Bleterie, Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xxi. p.

302—332,) a triumph might be given with less inconsistency to a

private general.]

33 (return) [ If the Ecclesiastes be truly a work of Solomon, and

not, like Prior’s poem, a pious and moral composition of more

recent times, in his name, and on the subject of his repentance.

The latter is the opinion of the learned and free-spirited

Grotius, (Opp. Theolog. tom. i. p. 258;) and indeed the

Ecclesiastes and Proverbs display a larger compass of thought and

experience than seem to belong either to a Jew or a king. * Note:

Rosenmüller, arguing from the difference of style from that of

the greater part of the book of Proverbs, and from its nearer

approximation to the Aramaic dialect than any book of the Old

Testament, assigns the Ecclesiastes to some period between

Nehemiah and Alexander the Great. Schol. in Vet. Test. ix.

Proemium ad Eccles. p. 19.—M.]

But the purest reward of Belisarius was in the faithful execution

of a treaty for which his honor had been pledged to the king of

the Vandals. The religious scruples of Gelimer, who adhered to

the Arian heresy, were incompatible with the dignity of senator

or patrician: but he received from the emperor an ample estate in

the province of Galatia, where the abdicated monarch retired,

with his family and friends, to a life of peace, of affluence,

and perhaps of content.34 The daughters of Hilderic were

entertained with the respectful tenderness due to their age and

misfortune; and Justinian and Theodora accepted the honor of

educating and enriching the female descendants of the great

Theodosius. The bravest of the Vandal youth were distributed into

five squadrons of cavalry, which adopted the name of their

benefactor, and supported in the Persian wars the glory of their

ancestors. But these rare exceptions, the reward of birth or

valor, are insufficient to explain the fate of a nation, whose

numbers before a short and bloodless war, amounted to more than

six hundred thousand persons. After the exile of their king and

nobles, the servile crowd might purchase their safety by abjuring

their character, religion, and language; and their degenerate

posterity would be insensibly mingled with the common herd of

African subjects. Yet even in the present age, and in the heart

of the Moorish tribes, a curious traveller has discovered the

white complexion and long flaxen hair of a northern race;35 and

it was formerly believed, that the boldest of the Vandals fled

beyond the power, or even the knowledge, of the Romans, to enjoy

their solitary freedom on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.36

Africa had been their empire, it became their prison; nor could

they entertain a hope, or even a wish, of returning to the banks

of the Elbe, where their brethren, of a spirit less adventurous,

still wandered in their native forests. It was impossible for

cowards to surmount the barriers of unknown seas and hostile

Barbarians; it was impossible for brave men to expose their

nakedness and defeat before the eyes of their countrymen, to

describe the kingdoms which they had lost, and to claim a share

of the humble inheritance, which, in a happier hour, they had

almost unanimously renounced.37 In the country between the Elbe

and the Oder, several populous villages of Lusatia are inhabited

by the Vandals: they still preserve their language, their

customs, and the purity of their blood; support, with some

impatience, the Saxon or Prussian yoke; and serve, with secret

and voluntary allegiance, the descendant of their ancient kings,

who in his garb and present fortune is confounded with the

meanest of his vassals.38 The name and situation of this unhappy

people might indicate their descent from one common stock with

the conquerors of Africa. But the use of a Sclavonian dialect

more clearly represent them as the last remnant of the new

colonies, who succeeded to the genuine Vandals, already scattered

or destroyed in the age of Procopius.39

34 (return) [ In the Bélisaire of Marmontel, the king and the

conqueror of Africa meet, sup, and converse, without recollecting

each other. It is surely a fault of that romance, that not only

the hero, but all to whom he had been so conspicuously known,

appear to have lost their eyes or their memory.]

35 (return) [ Shaw, p. 59. Yet since Procopius (l. ii. c. 13)

speaks of a people of Mount Atlas, as already distinguished by

white bodies and yellow hair, the phenomenon (which is likewise

visible in the Andes of Peru, Buffon, tom. iii p. 504), may

naturally be ascribed to the elevation of the ground and the

temperature of the air.]

36 (return) [ The geographer of Ravenna (l. iii. c. xi. pp. 129,

130, 131, Paris, 1688) describes the Mauritania _Gaditana_

(opposite to Cadiz) ubi gens Vandalorum, a Belisario devicta in

Africâ, fugit, et nunquam comparuit.]

37 (return) [ A single voice had protested, and Genseric

dismissed, without a formal answer, the Vandals of Germany: but

those of Africa derided his prudence, and affected to despise the

poverty of their forests (Procopius, Vandal. l. i. c. 22)]

38 (return) [ From the mouth of the great elector (in 1687)

Tollius describes the secret royalty and rebellious spirit of the

Vandals of Brandenburgh. who could muster five or six thousand

soldiers who had procured some cannon, &c. (Itinerar. Hungar. p.

42, apud Dubos. Hist, de la Monarchie Françoise, tom. i. pp. 182,

183.) The veracity, not of the elector, but of Tollius himself,

may justly be suspected. * Note: The Wendish population of

Brandenburgh are now better known, but the Wends are clearly of

the Sclavonian race; the Vandals most probably Teutonic, and

nearly allied to the Goths.—M.]

39 (return) [ Procopius (l i. c. 22) was in total darkness— οὒτε

μνήμη τις οὒτε ὂνομα ἐς ἐμε σωζέται. Under the reign of Dagobert

(A.D. 630) the Sclavonian tribes of the Sorbi and Venedi already

bordered on Thuringia (Mascou Hist. of the Germans, xv. 3, 4,

5).]

If Belisarius had been tempted to hesitate in his allegiance, he

might have urged, even against the emperor himself, the

indispensable duty of saving Africa from an enemy more barbarous

than the Vandals. The origin of the Moors is involved in

darkness; they were ignorant of the use of letters.40 Their

limits cannot be precisely defined; a boundless continent was

open to the Libyan shepherds; the change of seasons and pastures

regulated their motions; and their rude huts and slender

furniture were transported with the same case as their arms,

their families, and their cattle, which consisted of sheep, oxen,

and camels.41 During the vigor of the Roman power, they observed

a respectful distance from Carthage and the sea-shore: under the

feeble reign of the Vandals, they invaded the cities of Numidia,

occupied the sea-coast from Tangier to Cæsarea, and pitched their

camps, with impunity, in the fertile province of Byzacium. The

formidable strength and artful conduct of Belisarius secured the

neutrality of the Moorish princes, whose vanity aspired to

receive, in the emperor's name, the ensigns of their regal

dignity.42 They were astonished by the rapid event, and trembled

in the presence of their conqueror. But his approaching departure

soon relieved the apprehensions of a savage and superstitious

people; the number of their wives allowed them to disregard the

safety of their infant hostages; and when the Roman general

hoisted sail in the port of Carthage, he heard the cries, and

almost beheld the flames, of the desolated province. Yet he

persisted in his resolution, and leaving only a part of his

guards to reënforce the feeble garrisons, he intrusted the

command of Africa to the eunuch Solomon,43 who proved himself not

unworthy to be the successor of Belisarius. In the first

invasion, some detachments, with two officers of merit, were

surprised and intercepted; but Solomon speedily assembled his

troops, marched from Carthage into the heart of the country, and

in two great battles destroyed sixty thousand of the Barbarians.

The Moors depended on their multitude, their swiftness, and their

inaccessible mountains; and the aspect and smell of their camels

are said to have produced some confusion in the Roman cavalry.44

But as soon as they were commanded to dismount, they derided this

contemptible obstacle: as soon as the columns ascended the hills,

the naked and disorderly crowd was dazzled by glittering arms and

regular evolutions; and the menace of their female prophets was

repeatedly fulfilled, that the Moors should be discomfited by a

_beardless_ antagonist. The victorious eunuch advanced thirteen

days journey from Carthage, to besiege Mount Aurasius,45 the

citadel, and at the same time the garden, of Numidia. That range

of hills, a branch of the great Atlas, contains, within a

circumference of one hundred and twenty miles, a rare variety of

soil and climate; the intermediate valleys and elevated plains

abound with rich pastures, perpetual streams, and fruits of a

delicious taste and uncommon magnitude. This fair solitude is

decorated with the ruins of Lambesa, a Roman city, once the seat

of a legion, and the residence of forty thousand inhabitants. The

Ionic temple of Æsculapius is encompassed with Moorish huts; and

the cattle now graze in the midst of an amphitheatre, under the

shade of Corinthian columns. A sharp perpendicular rock rises

above the level of the mountain, where the African princes

deposited their wives and treasure; and a proverb is familiar to

the Arabs, that the man may eat fire who dares to attack the

craggy cliffs and inhospitable natives of Mount Aurasius. This

hardy enterprise was twice attempted by the eunuch Solomon: from

the first, he retreated with some disgrace; and in the second,

his patience and provisions were almost exhausted; and he must

again have retired, if he had not yielded to the impetuous

courage of his troops, who audaciously scaled, to the

astonishment of the Moors, the mountain, the hostile camp, and

the summit of the Geminian rock. A citadel was erected to secure

this important conquest, and to remind the Barbarians of their

defeat; and as Solomon pursued his march to the west, the

long-lost province of Mauritanian Sitifi was again annexed to the

Roman empire. The Moorish war continued several years after the

departure of Belisarius; but the laurels which he resigned to a

faithful lieutenant may be justly ascribed to his own triumph.

40 (return) [ Sallust represents the Moors as a remnant of the

army of Heracles (de Bell. Jugurth. c. 21), and Procopius

(Vandal. l. ii. c. 10), as the posterity of the Cananæans who

fled from the robber Joshua, (ληστὴς) He quotes two columns, with

a Phœnician inscription. I believe in the columns—I doubt the

inscription—and I reject the pedigree. * Note: It has been

supposed that Procopius is the only, or at least the most ancient

author who has spoken of this strange inscription, of which one

may be tempted to attribute the invention to Procopius himself.

Yet it is mentioned in the Armenian history of Moses of Chorene,

(l. i. c. 18,) who lived and wrote more than a century before

Procopius. This is sufficient to show that an earlier date must

be assigned to this tradition. The same inscription is mentioned

by Suidas, (sub voc. Χανάαν), no doubt from Procopius. According

to most of the Arabian writers, who adopted a nearly similar

tradition, the indigenes of Northern Africa were the people of

Palestine expelled by David, who passed into Africa, under the

guidance of Goliath, whom they call Djalout. It is impossible to

admit traditions which bear a character so fabulous. St. Martin,

t. xi. p. 324.—Unless my memory greatly deceives me, I have read

in the works of Lightfoot a similar Jewish tradition; but I have

mislaid the reference, and cannot recover the passage.—M.]

41 (return) [ Virgil (Georgic. iii. 339) and Pomponius Mela (i.

8) describe the wandering life of the African shepherds, similar

to that of the Arabs and Tartars; and Shaw (p. 222) is the best

commentator on the poet and the geographer.]

42 (return) [ The customary gifts were a sceptre, a crown or cap,

a white cloak, a figured tunic and shoes, all adorned with gold

and silver; nor were these precious metals less acceptable in the

shape of coin, (Procop. Vandal. l. i. c. 25).]

43 (return) [ See the African government and warfare of Solomon,

in Procopius (Vandal. l. ii. c. 10, 11, 12, 13, 19, 20). He was

recalled, and again restored; and his last victory dates in the

xiiith year of Justinian (A.D. 539). An accident in his childhood

had rendered him a eunuch (l. l. c. 11): the other Roman generals

were amply furnished with beards πώγωνος ἐμπιπλάμενοι (l. ii. c.

8).]

44 (return) [ This natural antipathy of the horse for the camel

is affirmed by the ancients (Xenophon. Cyropæd. l. vi. p. 488, l.

vii. pp. 483, 492, edit. Hutchinson. Polyæn. Stratagem, vii. 6,

Plin. Hist. Nat. viii. 26, Ælian, de Natur. Annal. l. iii. c. 7);

but it is disproved by daily experience, and derided by the best

judges, the Orientals (Voyage d’Olearius, p. 553).]

45 (return) [ Procopius is the first who describes Mount Aurasius

(Vandal. l. ii. c. 13. De Edific. l. vi. c. 7). He may be

compared with Leo Africanus (dell’ Africa, parte v., in Ramusio,

tom. i. fol. 77, recto). Marmol (tom. ii. p. 430), and Shaw (pp.

56-59).]

The experience of past faults, which may sometimes correct the

mature age of an individual, is seldom profitable to the

successive generations of mankind. The nations of antiquity,

careless of each other's safety, were separately vanquished and

enslaved by the Romans. This awful lesson might have instructed

the Barbarians of the West to oppose, with timely counsels and

confederate arms, the unbounded ambition of Justinian. Yet the

same error was repeated, the same consequences were felt, and the

Goths, both of Italy and Spain, insensible of their approaching

danger, beheld with indifference, and even with joy, the rapid

downfall of the Vandals. After the failure of the royal line,

Theudes, a valiant and powerful chief, ascended the throne of

Spain, which he had formerly administered in the name of

Theodoric and his infant grandson. Under his command, the

Visigoths besieged the fortress of Ceuta on the African coast:

but, while they spent the Sabbath day in peace and devotion, the

pious security of their camp was invaded by a sally from the

town; and the king himself, with some difficulty and danger,

escaped from the hands of a sacrilegious enemy.46 It was not long

before his pride and resentment were gratified by a suppliant

embassy from the unfortunate Gelimer, who implored, in his

distress, the aid of the Spanish monarch. But instead of

sacrificing these unworthy passions to the dictates of generosity

and prudence, Theudes amused the ambassadors till he was secretly

informed of the loss of Carthage, and then dismissed them with

obscure and contemptuous advice, to seek in their native country

a true knowledge of the state of the Vandals.47 The long

continuance of the Italian war delayed the punishment of the

Visigoths; and the eyes of Theudes were closed before they tasted

the fruits of his mistaken policy. After his death, the sceptre

of Spain was disputed by a civil war. The weaker candidate

solicited the protection of Justinian, and ambitiously subscribed

a treaty of alliance, which deeply wounded the independence and

happiness of his country. Several cities, both on the ocean and

the Mediterranean, were ceded to the Roman troops, who afterwards

refused to evacuate those pledges, as it should seem, either of

safety or payment; and as they were fortified by perpetual

supplies from Africa, they maintained their impregnable stations,

for the mischievous purpose of inflaming the civil and religious

factions of the Barbarians. Seventy years elapsed before this

painful thorn could be extirpated from the bosom of the monarchy;

and as long as the emperors retained any share of these remote

and useless possessions, their vanity might number Spain in the

list of their provinces, and the successors of Alaric in the rank

of their vassals.48

46 (return) [ Isidor. Chron. p. 722, edit. Grot. Mariana, Hist.

Hispan. l. v. c. 8, p. 173. Yet, according to Isidore, the siege

of Ceuta, and the death of Theudes, happened, A. Æ. H. 586—A.D.

548; and the place was defended, not by the Vandals, but by the

Romans.]

47 (return) [ Procopius. Vandal. l. i, c. 24.]

48 (return) [ See the original Chronicle of Isidore, and the vth

and vith books of the History of Spain by Mariana. The Romans

were finally expelled by Suintila, king of the Visigoths (A.D.

621–620), after their reunion to the Catholic church.]

The error of the Goths who reigned in Italy was less excusable

than that of their Spanish brethren, and their punishment was

still more immediate and terrible. From a motive of private

revenge, they enabled their most dangerous enemy to destroy their

most valuable ally. A sister of the great Theodoric had been

given in marriage to Thrasimond, the African king:49 on this

occasion, the fortress of Lilybæum50 in Sicily was resigned to

the Vandals; and the princess Amalafrida was attended by a

martial train of one thousand nobles, and five thousand Gothic

soldiers, who signalized their valor in the Moorish wars. Their

merit was overrated by themselves, and perhaps neglected by the

Vandals; they viewed the country with envy, and the conquerors

with disdain; but their real or fictitious conspiracy was

prevented by a massacre; the Goths were oppressed, and the

captivity of Amalafrida was soon followed by her secret and

suspicious death. The eloquent pen of Cassiodorus was employed to

reproach the Vandal court with the cruel violation of every

social and public duty; but the vengeance which he threatened in

the name of his sovereign might be derided with impunity, as long

as Africa was protected by the sea, and the Goths were destitute

of a navy. In the blind impotence of grief and indignation, they

joyfully saluted the approach of the Romans, entertained the

fleet of Belisarius in the ports of Sicily, and were speedily

delighted or alarmed by the surprising intelligence, that their

revenge was executed beyond the measure of their hopes, or

perhaps of their wishes. To their friendship the emperor was

indebted for the kingdom of Africa, and the Goths might

reasonably think, that they were entitled to resume the

possession of a barren rock, so recently separated as a nuptial

gift from the island of Sicily. They were soon undeceived by the

haughty mandate of Belisarius, which excited their tardy and

unavailing repentance. “The city and promontory of Lilybæum,”

said the Roman general, “belonged to the Vandals, and I claim

them by the right of conquest. Your submission may deserve the

favor of the emperor; your obstinacy will provoke his

displeasure, and must kindle a war, that can terminate only in

your utter ruin. If you compel us to take up arms, we shall

contend, not to regain the possession of a single city, but to

deprive you of all the provinces which you unjustly withhold from

their lawful sovereign.” A nation of two hundred thousand

soldiers might have smiled at the vain menace of Justinian and

his lieutenant: but a spirit of discord and disaffection

prevailed in Italy, and the Goths supported, with reluctance, the

indignity of a female reign.51

49 (return) [ See the marriage and fate of Amalafrida in

Procopius (Vandal. l. i. c. 8, 9), and in Cassiodorus (Var. ix.

1) the expostulation of her royal brother. Compare likewise the

Chronicle of Victor Tunnunensis.]

50 (return) [ Lilybæum was built by the Carthaginians, Olymp.

xcv. 4; and in the first Punic war, a strong situation, and

excellent harbor, rendered that place an important object to both

nations.]

51 (return) [ Compare the different passages of Procopius

(Vandal. l. ii. c. 5, Gothic, l. i c. 3).]

The birth of Amalasontha, the regent and queen of Italy,52 united

the two most illustrious families of the Barbarians. Her mother,

the sister of Clovis, was descended from the long-haired kings of

the _Merovingian_ race;53 and the regal succession of the _Amali_

was illustrated in the eleventh generation, by her father, the

great Theodoric, whose merit might have ennobled a plebeian

origin. The sex of his daughter excluded her from the Gothic

throne; but his vigilant tenderness for his family and his people

discovered the last heir of the royal line, whose ancestors had

taken refuge in Spain; and the fortunate Eutharic was suddenly

exalted to the rank of a consul and a prince. He enjoyed only a

short time the charms of Amalasontha, and the hopes of the

succession; and his widow, after the death of her husband and

father, was left the guardian of her son Athalaric, and the

kingdom of Italy. At the age of about twenty-eight years, the

endowments of her mind and person had attained their perfect

maturity. Her beauty, which, in the apprehension of Theodora

herself, might have disputed the conquest of an emperor, was

animated by manly sense, activity, and resolution. Education and

experience had cultivated her talents; her philosophic studies

were exempt from vanity; and, though she expressed herself with

equal elegance and ease in the Greek, the Latin, and the Gothic

tongue, the daughter of Theodoric maintained in her counsels a

discreet and impenetrable silence. By a faithful imitation of the

virtues, she revived the prosperity, of his reign; while she

strove, with pious care, to expiate the faults, and to obliterate

the darker memory of his declining age. The children of Boethius

and Symmachus were restored to their paternal inheritance; her

extreme lenity never consented to inflict any corporal or

pecuniary penalties on her Roman subjects; and she generously

despised the clamors of the Goths, who, at the end of forty

years, still considered the people of Italy as their slaves or

their enemies. Her salutary measures were directed by the wisdom,

and celebrated by the eloquence, of Cassiodorus; she solicited

and deserved the friendship of the emperor; and the kingdoms of

Europe respected, both in peace and war, the majesty of the

Gothic throne. But the future happiness of the queen and of Italy

depended on the education of her son; who was destined, by his

birth, to support the different and almost incompatible

characters of the chief of a Barbarian camp, and the first

magistrate of a civilized nation. From the age of ten years,54

Athalaric was diligently instructed in the arts and sciences,

either useful or ornamental for a Roman prince; and three

venerable Goths were chosen to instil the principles of honor and

virtue into the mind of their young king. But the pupil who is

insensible of the benefits, must abhor the restraints, of

education; and the solicitude of the queen, which affection

rendered anxious and severe, offended the untractable nature of

her son and his subjects. On a solemn festival, when the Goths

were assembled in the palace of Ravenna, the royal youth escaped

from his mother's apartment, and, with tears of pride and anger,

complained of a blow which his stubborn disobedience had provoked

her to inflict. The Barbarians resented the indignity which had

been offered to their king; accused the regent of conspiring

against his life and crown; and imperiously demanded, that the

grandson of Theodoric should be rescued from the dastardly

discipline of women and pedants, and educated, like a valiant

Goth, in the society of his equals and the glorious ignorance of

his ancestors. To this rude clamor, importunately urged as the

voice of the nation, Amalasontha was compelled to yield her

reason, and the dearest wishes of her heart. The king of Italy

was abandoned to wine, to women, and to rustic sports; and the

indiscreet contempt of the ungrateful youth betrayed the

mischievous designs of his favorites and her enemies. Encompassed

with domestic foes, she entered into a secret negotiation with

the emperor Justinian; obtained the assurance of a friendly

reception, and had actually deposited at Dyrachium, in Epirus, a

treasure of forty thousand pounds of gold. Happy would it have

been for her fame and safety, if she had calmly retired from

barbarous faction to the peace and splendor of Constantinople.

But the mind of Amalasontha was inflamed by ambition and revenge;

and while her ships lay at anchor in the port, she waited for the

success of a crime which her passions excused or applauded as an

act of justice. Three of the most dangerous malcontents had been

separately removed under the pretence of trust and command, to

the frontiers of Italy: they were assassinated by her private

emissaries; and the blood of these noble Goths rendered the

queen-mother absolute in the court of Ravenna, and justly odious

to a free people. But if she had lamented the disorders of her

son she soon wept his irreparable loss; and the death of

Athalaric, who, at the age of sixteen, was consumed by premature

intemperance, left her destitute of any firm support or legal

authority. Instead of submitting to the laws of her country which

held as a fundamental maxim, that the succession could never pass

from the lance to the distaff, the daughter of Theodoric

conceived the impracticable design of sharing, with one of her

cousins, the regal title, and of reserving in her own hands the

substance of supreme power. He received the proposal with

profound respect and affected gratitude; and the eloquent

Cassiodorus announced to the senate and the emperor, that

Amalasontha and Theodatus had ascended the throne of Italy. His

birth (for his mother was the sister of Theodoric) might be

considered as an imperfect title; and the choice of Amalasontha

was more strongly directed by her contempt of his avarice and

pusillanimity which had deprived him of the love of the Italians,

and the esteem of the Barbarians. But Theodatus was exasperated

by the contempt which he deserved: her justice had repressed and

reproached the oppression which he exercised against his Tuscan

neighbors; and the principal Goths, united by common guilt and

resentment, conspired to instigate his slow and timid

disposition. The letters of congratulation were scarcely

despatched before the queen of Italy was imprisoned in a small

island of the Lake of Bolsena,55 where, after a short

confinement, she was strangled in the bath, by the order, or with

the connivance of the new king, who instructed his turbulent

subjects to shed the blood of their sovereigns.

52 (return) [ For the reign and character of Amalasontha, see

Procopius (Gothic, l. i. c. 2, 3, 4, and Anecdot. c. 16, with the

Notes of Alemannus), Cassiodorus (Var. viii. ix. x. and xi, 1),

and Jornandes (De Rebus Geticis, c. 59, and De Successione

Regnorum. in Muratori, tom. i, p. 24).]

53 (return) [ The marriage of Theodoric with Audefleda, the

sister of Clovis, may be placed in the year 495, soon after the

conquest of Italy (De Buat, Hist, des Peuples, tom. ix. p. 213).

The nuptials of Eutharic and Amalasontha were celebrated in 515

(Cassiodor. in Chron. p. 453).]

54 (return) [ At the death of Theodoric, his grandson Athalaric

is described by Procopius as a boy about eight years old—ὀκτὼ

γεγονὼς ἔτη. Cassiodorus, with authority and reason, adds two

years to his age—infantulum adhuc vix decennem.]

55 (return) [ The lake, from the neighboring towns of Etruria,

was styled either Vulsiniensis (now of Bolsena) or Tarquiniensis.

It is surrounded with white rocks, and stored with fish and

wild-fowl. The younger Pliny (Epist. ii. 96) celebrates two woody

islands that floated on its waters: if a fable, how credulous the

ancients! if a fact, how careless the moderns! Yet, since Pliny,

the island may have been fixed by new and gradual accessions.]

Justinian beheld with joy the dissensions of the Goths; and the

mediation of an ally concealed and promoted the ambitious views

of the conqueror. His ambassadors, in their public audience,

demanded the fortress of Lilybæum, ten Barbarian fugitives, and a

just compensation for the pillage of a small town on the Illyrian

borders; but they secretly negotiated with Theodatus to betray

the province of Tuscany, and tempted Amalasontha to extricate

herself from danger and perplexity, by a free surrender of the

kingdom of Italy. A false and servile epistle was subscribed, by

the reluctant hand of the captive queen: but the confession of

the Roman senators, who were sent to Constantinople, revealed the

truth of her deplorable situation; and Justinian, by the voice of

a new ambassador, most powerfully interceded for her life and

liberty.55a Yet the secret instructions of the same minister were

adapted to serve the cruel jealousy of Theodora, who dreaded the

presence and superior charms of a rival: he prompted, with artful

and ambiguous hints, the execution of a crime so useful to the

Romans;56 received the intelligence of her death with grief and

indignation, and denounced, in his master's name, immortal war

against the perfidious assassin. In Italy, as well as in Africa,

the guilt of a usurper appeared to justify the arms of Justinian;

but the forces which he prepared, were insufficient for the

subversion of a mighty kingdom, if their feeble numbers had not

been multiplied by the name, the spirit, and the conduct, of a

hero. A chosen troop of guards, who served on horseback, and were

armed with lances and bucklers, attended the person of

Belisarius; his cavalry was composed of two hundred Huns, three

hundred Moors, and four thousand _confederates_, and the infantry

consisted of only three thousand Isaurians. Steering the same

course as in his former expedition, the Roman consul cast anchor

before Catana in Sicily, to survey the strength of the island,

and to decide whether he should attempt the conquest, or

peaceably pursue his voyage for the African coast. He found a

fruitful land and a friendly people. Notwithstanding the decay of

agriculture, Sicily still supplied the granaries of Rome: the

farmers were graciously exempted from the oppression of military

quarters; and the Goths, who trusted the defence of the island to

the inhabitants, had some reason to complain, that their

confidence was ungratefully betrayed. Instead of soliciting and

expecting the aid of the king of Italy, they yielded to the first

summons a cheerful obedience; and this province, the first fruits

of the Punic war, was again, after a long separation, united to

the Roman empire.57 The Gothic garrison of Palermo, which alone

attempted to resist, was reduced, after a short siege, by a

singular stratagem. Belisarius introduced his ships into the

deepest recess of the harbor; their boats were laboriously

hoisted with ropes and pulleys to the top-mast head, and he

filled them with archers, who, from that superior station,

commanded the ramparts of the city. After this easy, though

successful campaign, the conqueror entered Syracuse in triumph,

at the head of his victorious bands, distributing gold medals to

the people, on the day which so gloriously terminated the year of

the consulship. He passed the winter season in the palace of

ancient kings, amidst the ruins of a Grecian colony, which once

extended to a circumference of two-and-twenty miles:58 but in the

spring, about the festival of Easter, the prosecution of his

designs was interrupted by a dangerous revolt of the African

forces. Carthage was saved by the presence of Belisarius, who

suddenly landed with a thousand guards.58a Two thousand soldiers

of doubtful faith returned to the standard of their old

commander: and he marched, without hesitation, above fifty miles,

to seek an enemy whom he affected to pity and despise. Eight

thousand rebels trembled at his approach; they were routed at the

first onset, by the dexterity of their master: and this ignoble

victory would have restored the peace of Africa, if the conqueror

had not been hastily recalled to Sicily, to appease a sedition

which was kindled during his absence in his own camp.59 Disorder

and disobedience were the common malady of the times; the genius

to command, and the virtue to obey, resided only in the mind of

Belisarius.

55a (return) [ Amalasontha was not alive when this new

ambassador, Peter of Thessalonica, arrived in Italy: he could not

then secretly contribute to her death. “But (says M. de Sainte

Croix) it is not beyond probability that Theodora had entered

into some criminal intrigue with Gundelina: for that wife of

Theodatus wrote to implore her protection, reminding her of the

confidence which she and her husband had always placed in her

former promises.” See on Amalasontha and the authors of her death

an excellent dissertation of M. de Sainte Croix in the Archives

Littéraires published by M. Vaudenbourg, No. 50, t. xvii. p.

216.—G.]

56 (return) [ Yet Procopius discredits his own evidence (Anecdot.

c. 16) by confessing that in his public history he had not spoken

the truth. See the epistles from Queen Gundelina to the Empress

Theodora (Var. x. 20, 21, 23, and observe a suspicious word, de

illâ personà, &c.), with the elaborate Commentary of Buat (tom.

x. pp. 177–185).]

57 (return) [ For the conquest of Sicily, compare the narrative

of Procopius with the complaints of Totila (Gothic. l. i. c. 5.

l. iii. c. 16). The Gothic queen had lately relieved that

thankless island (Var. ix. 10, 11).]

58 (return) [ The ancient magnitude and splendor of the five

quarters of Syracuse are delineated by Cicero (in Verrem. actio

ii. l. iv. c. 52, 53), Strabo (l. vi. p. 415), and D’Orville

Sicula (tom. ii. pp. 174–202). The new city, restored by

Augustus, shrunk towards the island.]

58a (return) [ A hundred (there was no room on board for more).

Gibbon has again been misled by Cousin’s translation. Lord Mahon,

p. 157—M.]

59 (return) [ Procopius (Vandal. l. ii. c. 14, 15) so clearly

relates the return of Belirarius into Sicily (p. 146, edit.

Hoeschelii), that I am astonished at the strange misapprehension

and reproaches of a learned critic (Œuvres de la Mothe le Vayer,

tom, viii. pp. 162, 163).]

Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.—Part III.

Although Theodatus descended from a race of heroes, he was

ignorant of the art, and averse to the dangers, of war. Although

he had studied the writings of Plato and Tully, philosophy was

incapable of purifying his mind from the basest passions, avarice

and fear. He had purchased a sceptre by ingratitude and murder:

at the first menace of an enemy, he degraded his own majesty and

that of a nation, which already disdained their unworthy

sovereign. Astonished by the recent example of Gelimer, he saw

himself dragged in chains through the streets of Constantinople:

the terrors which Belisarius inspired were heightened by the

eloquence of Peter, the Byzantine ambassador; and that bold and

subtle advocate persuaded him to sign a treaty, too ignominious

to become the foundation of a lasting peace. It was stipulated,

that in the acclamations of the Roman people, the name of the

emperor should be always proclaimed before that of the Gothic

king; and that as often as the statue of Theodatus was erected in

brass on marble, the divine image of Justinian should be placed

on its right hand. Instead of conferring, the king of Italy was

reduced to solicit, the honors of the senate; and the consent of

the emperor was made indispensable before he could execute,

against a priest or senator, the sentence either of death or

confiscation. The feeble monarch resigned the possession of

Sicily; offered, as the annual mark of his dependence, a crown of

gold of the weight of three hundred pounds; and promised to

supply, at the requisition of his sovereign, three thousand

Gothic auxiliaries, for the service of the empire. Satisfied with

these extraordinary concessions, the successful agent of

Justinian hastened his journey to Constantinople; but no sooner

had he reached the Alban villa, 60 than he was recalled by the

anxiety of Theodatus; and the dialogue which passed between the

king and the ambassador deserves to be represented in its

original simplicity. “Are you of opinion that the emperor will

ratify this treaty? Perhaps. If he refuses, what consequence will

ensue? War. Will such a war, be just or reasonable? Most

assuredly: every to his character. What is your meaning? You are

a philosopher—Justinian is emperor of the Romans: it would all

become the disciple of Plato to shed the blood of thousands in

his private quarrel: the successor of Augustus should vindicate

his rights, and recover by arms the ancient provinces of his

empire.” This reasoning might not convince, but it was sufficient

to alarm and subdue the weakness of Theodatus; and he soon

descended to his last offer, that for the poor equivalent of a

pension of forty-eight thousand pounds sterling, he would resign

the kingdom of the Goths and Italians, and spend the remainder of

his days in the innocent pleasures of philosophy and agriculture.

Both treaties were intrusted to the hands of the ambassador, on

the frail security of an oath not to produce the second till the

first had been positively rejected. The event may be easily

foreseen: Justinian required and accepted the abdication of the

Gothic king. His indefatigable agent returned from Constantinople

to Ravenna, with ample instructions; and a fair epistle, which

praised the wisdom and generosity of the royal philosopher,

granted his pension, with the assurance of such honors as a

subject and a Catholic might enjoy; and wisely referred the final

execution of the treaty to the presence and authority of

Belisarius. But in the interval of suspense, two Roman generals,

who had entered the province of Dalmatia, were defeated and slain

by the Gothic troops. From blind and abject despair, Theodatus

capriciously rose to groundless and fatal presumption, 61 and

dared to receive, with menace and contempt, the ambassador of

Justinian; who claimed his promise, solicited the allegiance of

his subjects, and boldly asserted the inviolable privilege of his

own character. The march of Belisarius dispelled this visionary

pride; and as the first campaign 62 was employed in the reduction

of Sicily, the invasion of Italy is applied by Procopius to the

second year of the Gothic war. 63

60 (return) [ The ancient Alba was ruined in the first age of

Rome. On the same spot, or at least in the neighborhood,

successively arose. 1. The villa of Pompey, &c.; 2. A camp of the

Praetorian cohorts; 3. The modern episcopal city of Albanum or

Albano. (Procop. Goth. l. ii. c. 4 Oluver. Ital. Antiq tom. ii.

p. 914.)]

61 (return) [ A Sibylline oracle was ready to pronounce—Africa

capta munitus cum nato peribit; a sentence of portentous

ambiguity, (Gothic. l. i. c. 7,) which has been published in

unknown characters by Opsopaeus, an editor of the oracles. The

Pere Maltret has promised a commentary; but all his promises have

been vain and fruitless.]

62 (return) [ In his chronology, imitated, in some degree, from

Thucydides, Procopius begins each spring the years of Justinian

and of the Gothic war; and his first aera coincides with the

first of April, 535, and not 536, according to the Annals of

Baronius, (Pagi, Crit. tom. ii. p. 555, who is followed by

Muratori and the editors of Sigonius.) Yet, in some passages, we

are at a loss to reconcile the dates of Procopius with himself,

and with the Chronicle of Marcellinus.]