Chapter XXXIII: Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.—Part I

Death Of Honorius.—Valentinian III.—Emperor Of The East.
—Administration Of His Mother Placidia—Ætius And
Boniface.—Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.

During a long and disgraceful reign of twenty-eight years,
Honorius, emperor of the West, was separated from the friendship
of his brother, and afterwards of his nephew, who reigned over
the East; and Constantinople beheld, with apparent indifference
and secret joy, the calamities of Rome. The strange adventures of
Placidia 1 gradually renewed and cemented the alliance of the two
empires. The daughter of the great Theodosius had been the
captive, and the queen, of the Goths; she lost an affectionate
husband; she was dragged in chains by his insulting assassin; she
tasted the pleasure of revenge, and was exchanged, in the treaty
of peace, for six hundred thousand measures of wheat. After her
return from Spain to Italy, Placidia experienced a new
persecution in the bosom of her family. She was averse to a
marriage, which had been stipulated without her consent; and the
brave Constantius, as a noble reward for the tyrants whom he had
vanquished, received, from the hand of Honorius himself, the
struggling and the reluctant hand of the widow of Adolphus. But
her resistance ended with the ceremony of the nuptials: nor did
Placidia refuse to become the mother of Honoria and Valentinian
the Third, or to assume and exercise an absolute dominion over
the mind of her grateful husband. The generous soldier, whose
time had hitherto been divided between social pleasure and
military service, was taught new lessons of avarice and ambition:
he extorted the title of Augustus: and the servant of Honorius
was associated to the empire of the West. The death of
Constantius, in the seventh month of his reign, instead of
diminishing, seemed to inerease the power of Placidia; and the
indecent familiarity 2 of her brother, which might be no more
than the symptoms of a childish affection, were universally
attributed to incestuous love. On a sudden, by some base
intrigues of a steward and a nurse, this excessive fondness was
converted into an irreconcilable quarrel: the debates of the
emperor and his sister were not long confined within the walls of
the palace; and as the Gothic soldiers adhered to their queen,
the city of Ravenna was agitated with bloody and dangerous
tumults, which could only be appeased by the forced or voluntary
retreat of Placidia and her children. The royal exiles landed at
Constantinople, soon after the marriage of Theodosius, during the
festival of the Persian victories. They were treated with
kindness and magnificence; but as the statues of the emperor
Constantius had been rejected by the Eastern court, the title of
Augusta could not decently be allowed to his widow. Within a few
months after the arrival of Placidia, a swift messenger announced
the death of Honorius, the consequence of a dropsy; but the
important secret was not divulged, till the necessary orders had
been despatched for the march of a large body of troops to the
sea-coast of Dalmatia. The shops and the gates of Constantinople
remained shut during seven days; and the loss of a foreign
prince, who could neither be esteemed nor regretted, was
celebrated with loud and affected demonstrations of the public
grief.

1 (return) [ See vol. iii. p. 296.]

2 (return) [ It is the expression of Olympiodorus (apud Phetium
p. 197;) who means, perhaps, to describe the same caresses which
Mahomet bestowed on his daughter Phatemah. Quando, (says the
prophet himself,) quando subit mihi desiderium Paradisi, osculor
eam, et ingero linguam meam in os ejus. But this sensual
indulgence was justified by miracle and mystery; and the anecdote
has been communicated to the public by the Reverend Father
Maracci in his Version and Confutation of the Koran, tom. i. p.
32.]

While the ministers of Constantinople deliberated, the vacant
throne of Honorius was usurped by the ambition of a stranger. The
name of the rebel was John; he filled the confidential office of
Primicerius, or principal secretary, and history has attributed
to his character more virtues, than can easily be reconciled with
the violation of the most sacred duty. Elated by the submission
of Italy, and the hope of an alliance with the Huns, John
presumed to insult, by an embassy, the majesty of the Eastern
emperor; but when he understood that his agents had been
banished, imprisoned, and at length chased away with deserved
ignominy, John prepared to assert, by arms, the injustice of his
claims. In such a cause, the grandson of the great Theodosius
should have marched in person: but the young emperor was easily
diverted, by his physicians, from so rash and hazardous a design;
and the conduct of the Italian expedition was prudently intrusted
to Ardaburius, and his son Aspar, who had already signalized
their valor against the Persians. It was resolved, that
Ardaburius should embark with the infantry; whilst Aspar, at the
head of the cavalry, conducted Placidia and her son Valentinian
along the sea-coast of the Adriatic. The march of the cavalry was
performed with such active diligence, that they surprised,
without resistance, the important city of Aquileia: when the
hopes of Aspar were unexpectedly confounded by the intelligence,
that a storm had dispersed the Imperial fleet; and that his
father, with only two galleys, was taken and carried a prisoner
into the port of Ravenna. Yet this incident, unfortunate as it
might seem, facilitated the conquest of Italy. Ardaburius
employed, or abused, the courteous freedom which he was permitted
to enjoy, to revive among the troops a sense of loyalty and
gratitude; and as soon as the conspiracy was ripe for execution,
he invited, by private messages, and pressed the approach of,
Aspar. A shepherd, whom the popular credulity transformed into an
angel, guided the eastern cavalry by a secret, and, it was
thought, an impassable road, through the morasses of the Po: the
gates of Ravenna, after a short struggle, were thrown open; and
the defenceless tyrant was delivered to the mercy, or rather to
the cruelty, of the conquerors. His right hand was first cut off;
and, after he had been exposed, mounted on an ass, to the public
derision, John was beheaded in the circus of Aquileia. The
emperor Theodosius, when he received the news of the victory,
interrupted the horse-races; and singing, as he marched through
the streets, a suitable psalm, conducted his people from the
Hippodrome to the church, where he spent the remainder of the day
in grateful devotion. 3

3 (return) [ For these revolutions of the Western empire, consult
Olympiodor, apud Phot. p. 192, 193, 196, 197, 200; Sozomen, l.
ix. c. 16; Socrates, l. vii. 23, 24; Philostorgius, l. xii. c.
10, 11, and Godefroy, Dissertat p. 486; Procopius, de Bell.
Vandal. l. i. c. 3, p. 182, 183, in Chronograph, p. 72, 73, and
the Chronicles.]

In a monarchy, which, according to various precedents, might be
considered as elective, or hereditary, or patrimonial, it was
impossible that the intricate claims of female and collateral
succession should be clearly defined; 4 and Theodosius, by the
right of consanguinity or conquest, might have reigned the sole
legitimate emperor of the Romans. For a moment, perhaps, his eyes
were dazzled by the prospect of unbounded sway; but his indolent
temper gradually acquiesced in the dictates of sound policy. He
contented himself with the possession of the East; and wisely
relinquished the laborious task of waging a distant and doubtful
war against the Barbarians beyond the Alps; or of securing the
obedience of the Italians and Africans, whose minds were
alienated by the irreconcilable difference of language and
interest. Instead of listening to the voice of ambition,
Theodosius resolved to imitate the moderation of his grandfather,
and to seat his cousin Valentinian on the throne of the West. The
royal infant was distinguished at Constantinople by the title of
Nobilissimus: he was promoted, before his departure from
Thessalonica, to the rank and dignity of Caesar; and after the
conquest of Italy, the patrician Helion, by the authority of
Theodosius, and in the presence of the senate, saluted
Valentinian the Third by the name of Augustus, and solemnly
invested him with the diadem and the Imperial purple. 5 By the
agreement of the three females who governed the Roman world, the
son of Placidia was betrothed to Eudoxia, the daughter of
Theodosius and Athenais; and as soon as the lover and his bride
had attained the age of puberty, this honorable alliance was
faithfully accomplished. At the same time, as a compensation,
perhaps, for the expenses of the war, the Western Illyricum was
detached from the Italian dominions, and yielded to the throne of
Constantinople. 6 The emperor of the East acquired the useful
dominion of the rich and maritime province of Dalmatia, and the
dangerous sovereignty of Pannonia and Noricum, which had been
filled and ravaged above twenty years by a promiscuous crowd of
Huns, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Bavarians. Theodosius and
Valentinian continued to respect the obligations of their public
and domestic alliance; but the unity of the Roman government was
finally dissolved. By a positive declaration, the validity of all
future laws was limited to the dominions of their peculiar
author; unless he should think proper to communicate them,
subscribed with his own hand, for the approbation of his
independent colleague. 7

4 (return) [ See Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis, l. ii. c. 7. He
has laboriously out vainly, attempted to form a reasonable system
of jurisprudence from the various and discordant modes of royal
succession, which have been introduced by fraud or force, by time
or accident.]

5 (return) [ The original writers are not agreed (see Muratori,
Annali d’Italia tom. iv. p. 139) whether Valentinian received the
Imperial diadem at Rome or Ravenna. In this uncertainty, I am
willing to believe, that some respect was shown to the senate.]

6 (return) [ The count de Buat (Hist. des Peup es de l’Europe,
tom. vii. p. 292-300) has established the reality, explained the
motives, and traced the consequences, of this remarkable
cession.]

7 (return) [ See the first Novel of Theodosius, by which he
ratifies and communicates (A.D. 438) the Theodosian Code. About
forty years before that time, the unity of legislation had been
proved by an exception. The Jews, who were numerous in the cities
of Apulia and Calabria, produced a law of the East to justify
their exemption from municipal offices, (Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit.
viii. leg. 13;) and the Western emperor was obliged to
invalidate, by a special edict, the law, quam constat meis
partibus esse damnosam. Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit. i. leg. 158.]

Valentinian, when he received the title of Augustus, was no more
than six years of age; and his long minority was intrusted to the
guardian care of a mother, who might assert a female claim to the
succession of the Western empire. Placidia envied, but she could
not equal, the reputation and virtues of the wife and sister of
Theodosius, the elegant genius of Eudocia, the wise and
successful policy of Pulcheria. The mother of Valentinian was
jealous of the power which she was incapable of exercising; 8 she
reigned twenty-five years, in the name of her son; and the
character of that unworthy emperor gradually countenanced the
suspicion that Placidia had enervated his youth by a dissolute
education, and studiously diverted his attention from every manly
and honorable pursuit. Amidst the decay of military spirit, her
armies were commanded by two generals, Ætius 9 and Boniface, 10
who may be deservedly named as the last of the Romans. Their
union might have supported a sinking empire; their discord was
the fatal and immediate cause of the loss of Africa. The invasion
and defeat of Attila have immortalized the fame of Ætius; and
though time has thrown a shade over the exploits of his rival,
the defence of Marseilles, and the deliverance of Africa, attest
the military talents of Count Boniface. In the field of battle,
in partial encounters, in single combats, he was still the terror
of the Barbarians: the clergy, and particularly his friend
Augustin, were edified by the Christian piety which had once
tempted him to retire from the world; the people applauded his
spotless integrity; the army dreaded his equal and inexorable
justice, which may be displayed in a very singular example. A
peasant, who complained of the criminal intimacy between his wife
and a Gothic soldier, was directed to attend his tribunal the
following day: in the evening the count, who had diligently
informed himself of the time and place of the assignation,
mounted his horse, rode ten miles into the country, surprised the
guilty couple, punished the soldier with instant death, and
silenced the complaints of the husband by presenting him, the
next morning, with the head of the adulterer. The abilities of
Ætius and Boniface might have been usefully employed against the
public enemies, in separate and important commands; but the
experience of their past conduct should have decided the real
favor and confidence of the empress Placidia. In the melancholy
season of her exile and distress, Boniface alone had maintained
her cause with unshaken fidelity: and the troops and treasures of
Africa had essentially contributed to extinguish the rebellion.
The same rebellion had been supported by the zeal and activity of
Ætius, who brought an army of sixty thousand Huns from the
Danube to the confines of Italy, for the service of the usurper.
The untimely death of John compelled him to accept an
advantageous treaty; but he still continued, the subject and the
soldier of Valentinian, to entertain a secret, perhaps a
treasonable, correspondence with his Barbarian allies, whose
retreat had been purchased by liberal gifts, and more liberal
promises. But Ætius possessed an advantage of singular moment in
a female reign; he was present: he besieged, with artful and
assiduous flattery, the palace of Ravenna; disguised his dark
designs with the mask of loyalty and friendship; and at length
deceived both his mistress and his absent rival, by a subtle
conspiracy, which a weak woman and a brave man could not easily
suspect. He had secretly persuaded 11 Placidia to recall Boniface
from the government of Africa; he secretly advised Boniface to
disobey the Imperial summons: to the one, he represented the
order as a sentence of death; to the other, he stated the refusal
as a signal of revolt; and when the credulous and unsuspectful
count had armed the province in his defence, Ætius applauded his
sagacity in foreseeing the rebellion, which his own perfidy had
excited. A temperate inquiry into the real motives of Boniface
would have restored a faithful servant to his duty and to the
republic; but the arts of Ætius still continued to betray and to
inflame, and the count was urged, by persecution, to embrace the
most desperate counsels. The success with which he eluded or
repelled the first attacks, could not inspire a vain confidence,
that at the head of some loose, disorderly Africans, he should be
able to withstand the regular forces of the West, commanded by a
rival, whose military character it was impossible for him to
despise. After some hesitation, the last struggles of prudence
and loyalty, Boniface despatched a trusty friend to the court, or
rather to the camp, of Gonderic, king of the Vandals, with the
proposal of a strict alliance, and the offer of an advantageous
and perpetual settlement.

8 (return) [ Cassiodorus (Variar. l. xi. Epist. i. p. 238) has
compared the regencies of Placidia and Amalasuntha. He arraigns
the weakness of the mother of Valentinian, and praises the
virtues of his royal mistress. On this occasion, flattery seems
to have spoken the language of truth.]

9 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 12, and Godefroy’s
Dissertat. p. 493, &c.; and Renatus Frigeridus, apud Gregor.
Turon. l. ii. c. 8, in tom. ii. p. 163. The father of Ætius was
Gaudentius, an illustrious citizen of the province of Scythia,
and master-general of the cavalry; his mother was a rich and
noble Italian. From his earliest youth, Ætius, as a soldier and
a hostage, had conversed with the Barbarians.]

10 (return) [ For the character of Boniface, see Olympiodorus,
apud Phot. p. 196; and St. Augustin apud Tillemont, Mémoires
Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 712-715, 886. The bishop of Hippo at length
deplored the fall of his friend, who, after a solemn vow of
chastity, had married a second wife of the Arian sect, and who
was suspected of keeping several concubines in his house.]

11 (return) [ Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, 4, p.
182-186) relates the fraud of Ætius, the revolt of Boniface, and
the loss of Africa. This anecdote, which is supported by some
collateral testimony, (see Ruinart, Hist. Persecut. Vandal. p.
420, 421,) seems agreeable to the practice of ancient and modern
courts, and would be naturally revealed by the repentance of
Boniface.]

After the retreat of the Goths, the authority of Honorius had
obtained a precarious establishment in Spain; except only in the
province of Gallicia, where the Suevi and the Vandals had
fortified their camps, in mutual discord and hostile
independence. The Vandals prevailed; and their adversaries were
besieged in the Nervasian hills, between Leon and Oviedo, till
the approach of Count Asterius compelled, or rather provoked, the
victorious Barbarians to remove the scene of the war to the
plains of Boetica. The rapid progress of the Vandals soon
acquired a more effectual opposition; and the master-general
Castinus marched against them with a numerous army of Romans and
Goths. Vanquished in battle by an inferior army, Castinus fled
with dishonor to Tarragona; and this memorable defeat, which has
been represented as the punishment, was most probably the effect,
of his rash presumption. 12 Seville and Carthagena became the
reward, or rather the prey, of the ferocious conquerors; and the
vessels which they found in the harbor of Carthagena might easily
transport them to the Isles of Majorca and Minorca, where the
Spanish fugitives, as in a secure recess, had vainly concealed
their families and their fortunes. The experience of navigation,
and perhaps the prospect of Africa, encouraged the Vandals to
accept the invitation which they received from Count Boniface;
and the death of Gonderic served only to forward and animate the
bold enterprise. In the room of a prince not conspicuous for any
superior powers of the mind or body, they acquired his bastard
brother, the terrible Genseric; 13 a name, which, in the
destruction of the Roman empire, has deserved an equal rank with
the names of Alaric and Attila. The king of the Vandals is
described to have been of a middle stature, with a lameness in
one leg, which he had contracted by an accidental fall from his
horse. His slow and cautious speech seldom declared the deep
purposes of his soul; he disdained to imitate the luxury of the
vanquished; but he indulged the sterner passions of anger and
revenge. The ambition of Genseric was without bounds and without
scruples; and the warrior could dexterously employ the dark
engines of policy to solicit the allies who might be useful to
his success, or to scatter among his enemies the seeds of hatred
and contention. Almost in the moment of his departure he was
informed that Hermanric, king of the Suevi, had presumed to
ravage the Spanish territories, which he was resolved to abandon.

Impatient of the insult, Genseric pursued the hasty retreat of
the Suevi as far as Merida; precipitated the king and his army
into the River Anas, and calmly returned to the sea-shore to
embark his victorious troops. The vessels which transported the
Vandals over the modern Straits of Gibraltar, a channel only
twelve miles in breadth, were furnished by the Spaniards, who
anxiously wished their departure; and by the African general, who
had implored their formidable assistance. 14

12 (return) [ See the Chronicles of Prosper and Idatius. Salvian
(de Gubernat. Dei, l. vii. p. 246, Paris, 1608) ascribes the
victory of the Vandals to their superior piety. They fasted, they
prayed, they carried a Bible in the front of the Host, with the
design, perhaps, of reproaching the perfidy and sacrilege of
their enemies.]

13 (return) [ Gizericus (his name is variously expressed) statura
mediocris et equi casu claudicans, animo profundus, sermone
rarus, luxuriae contemptor, ira turbidus, habendi cupidus, ad
solicitandas gentes providentissimus, semina contentionum jacere,
odia miscere paratus. Jornandes, de Rebus Geticis, c. 33, p. 657.
This portrait, which is drawn with some skill, and a strong
likeness, must have been copied from the Gothic history of
Cassiodorus.]

14 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Idatius. That bishop, a
Spaniard and a contemporary, places the passage of the Vandals in
the month of May, of the year of Abraham, (which commences in
October,) 2444. This date, which coincides with A.D. 429, is
confirmed by Isidore, another Spanish bishop, and is justly
preferred to the opinion of those writers who have marked for
that event one of the two preceding years. See Pagi Critica, tom.
ii. p. 205, &c.]

Our fancy, so long accustomed to exaggerate and multiply the
martial swarms of Barbarians that seemed to issue from the North,
will perhaps be surprised by the account of the army which
Genseric mustered on the coast of Mauritania. The Vandals, who in
twenty years had penetrated from the Elbe to Mount Atlas, were
united under the command of their warlike king; and he reigned
with equal authority over the Alani, who had passed, within the
term of human life, from the cold of Scythia to the excessive
heat of an African climate. The hopes of the bold enterprise had
excited many brave adventurers of the Gothic nation; and many
desperate provincials were tempted to repair their fortunes by
the same means which had occasioned their ruin. Yet this various
multitude amounted only to fifty thousand effective men; and
though Genseric artfully magnified his apparent strength, by
appointing eighty chinarchs, or commanders of thousands, the
fallacious increase of old men, of children, and of slaves, would
scarcely have swelled his army to the number of four-score
thousand persons. 15 But his own dexterity, and the discontents
of Africa, soon fortified the Vandal powers, by the accession of
numerous and active allies. The parts of Mauritania which border
on the Great Desert and the Atlantic Ocean, were filled with a
fierce and untractable race of men, whose savage temper had been
exasperated, rather than reclaimed, by their dread of the Roman
arms. The wandering Moors, 16 as they gradually ventured to
approach the seashore, and the camp of the Vandals, must have
viewed with terror and astonishment the dress, the armor, the
martial pride and discipline of the unknown strangers who had
landed on their coast; and the fair complexions of the blue-eyed
warriors of Germany formed a very singular contrast with the
swarthy or olive hue which is derived from the neighborhood of
the torrid zone. After the first difficulties had in some measure
been removed, which arose from the mutual ignorance of their
respective language, the Moors, regardless of any future
consequence, embraced the alliance of the enemies of Rome; and a
crowd of naked savages rushed from the woods and valleys of Mount
Atlas, to satiate their revenge on the polished tyrants, who had
injuriously expelled them from the native sovereignty of the
land.

15 (return) [ Compare Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p.
190) and Victor Vitensis, (de Persecutione Vandal. l. i. c. 1, p.
3, edit. Ruinart.) We are assured by Idatius, that Genseric
evacuated Spain, cum Vandalis omnibus eorumque familiis; and
Possidius (in Vit. Augustin. c. 28, apud Ruinart, p. 427)
describes his army as manus ingens immanium gentium Vandalorum et
Alanorum, commixtam secum babens Gothorum gentem, aliarumque
diversarum personas.]

16 (return) [ For the manners of the Moors, see Procopius, (de
Bell. Vandal. l. ii. c. 6, p. 249;) for their figure and
complexion, M. de Buffon, (Histoire Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 430.)
Procopius says in general, that the Moors had joined the Vandals
before the death of Valentinian, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p.
190;) and it is probable that the independent tribes did not
embrace any uniform system of policy.]

The persecution of the Donatists 17 was an event not less
favorable to the designs of Genseric. Seventeen years before he
landed in Africa, a public conference was held at Carthage, by
the order of the magistrate. The Catholics were satisfied, that,
after the invincible reasons which they had alleged, the
obstinacy of the schismatics must be inexcusable and voluntary;
and the emperor Honorius was persuaded to inflict the most
rigorous penalties on a faction which had so long abused his
patience and clemency. Three hundred bishops, 18 with many
thousands of the inferior clergy, were torn from their churches,
stripped of their ecclesiastical possessions, banished to the
islands, and proscribed by the laws, if they presumed to conceal
themselves in the provinces of Africa. Their numerous
congregations, both in cities and in the country, were deprived
of the rights of citizens, and of the exercise of religious
worship. A regular scale of fines, from ten to two hundred pounds
of silver, was curiously ascertained, according to the
distinction of rank and fortune, to punish the crime of assisting
at a schismatic conventicle; and if the fine had been levied five
times, without subduing the obstinacy of the offender, his future
punishment was referred to the discretion of the Imperial court.
19 By these severities, which obtained the warmest approbation of
St. Augustin, 20 great numbers of Donatists were reconciled to
the Catholic Church; but the fanatics, who still persevered in
their opposition, were provoked to madness and despair; the
distracted country was filled with tumult and bloodshed; the
armed troops of Circumcellions alternately pointed their rage
against themselves, or against their adversaries; and the
calendar of martyrs received on both sides a considerable
augmentation. 21 Under these circumstances, Genseric, a
Christian, but an enemy of the orthodox communion, showed himself
to the Donatists as a powerful deliverer, from whom they might
reasonably expect the repeal of the odious and oppressive edicts
of the Roman emperors. 22 The conquest of Africa was facilitated
by the active zeal, or the secret favor, of a domestic faction;
the wanton outrages against the churches and the clergy of which
the Vandals are accused, may be fairly imputed to the fanaticism
of their allies; and the intolerant spirit which disgraced the
triumph of Christianity, contributed to the loss of the most
important province of the West. 23

17 (return) [ See Tillemont, Mémoires Eccles. tom. xiii. p.
516-558; and the whole series of the persecution, in the original
monuments, published by Dupin at the end of Optatus, p. 323-515.]

18 (return) [ The Donatist Bishops, at the conference of
Carthage, amounted to 279; and they asserted that their whole
number was not less than 400. The Catholics had 286 present, 120
absent, besides sixty four vacant bishoprics.]

19 (return) [ The fifth title of the sixteenth book of the
Theodosian Code exhibits a series of the Imperial laws against
the Donatists, from the year 400 to the year 428. Of these the
54th law, promulgated by Honorius, A.D. 414, is the most severe
and effectual.]

20 (return) [ St. Augustin altered his opinion with regard tosthe
proper treatment of heretics. His pathetic declaration of pity
and indulgence for the Manichæans, has been inserted by Mr.
Locke (vol. iii. p. 469) among the choice specimens of his
common-place book. Another philosopher, the celebrated Bayle,
(tom. ii. p. 445-496,) has refuted, with superfluous diligence
and ingenuity, the arguments by which the bishop of Hippo
justified, in his old age, the persecution of the Donatists.]

21 (return) [ See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 586-592,
806. The Donatists boasted of thousands of these voluntary
martyrs. Augustin asserts, and probably with truth, that these
numbers were much exaggerated; but he sternly maintains, that it
was better that some should burn themselves in this world, than
that all should burn in hell flames.]

22 (return) [ According to St. Augustin and Theodoret, the
Donatists were inclined to the principles, or at least to the
party, of the Arians, which Genseric supported. Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 68.]

23 (return) [ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 428, No. 7, A.D.
439, No. 35. The cardinal, though more inclined to seek the cause
of great events in heaven than on the earth, has observed the
apparent connection of the Vandals and the Donatists. Under the
reign of the Barbarians, the schismatics of Africa enjoyed an
obscure peace of one hundred years; at the end of which we may
again trace them by the fight of the Imperial persecutions. See
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 192. &c.]

The court and the people were astonished by the strange
intelligence, that a virtuous hero, after so many favors, and so
many services, had renounced his allegiance, and invited the
Barbarians to destroy the province intrusted to his command. The
friends of Boniface, who still believed that his criminal
behavior might be excused by some honorable motive, solicited,
during the absence of Ætius, a free conference with the Count of
Africa; and Darius, an officer of high distinction, was named for
the important embassy. 24 In their first interview at Carthage,
the imaginary provocations were mutually explained; the opposite
letters of Ætius were produced and compared; and the fraud was
easily detected. Placidia and Boniface lamented their fatal
error; and the count had sufficient magnanimity to confide in the
forgiveness of his sovereign, or to expose his head to her future
resentment. His repentance was fervent and sincere; but he soon
discovered that it was no longer in his power to restore the
edifice which he had shaken to its foundations. Carthage and the
Roman garrisons returned with their general to the allegiance of
Valentinian; but the rest of Africa was still distracted with war
and faction; and the inexorable king of the Vandals, disdaining
all terms of accommodation, sternly refused to relinquish the
possession of his prey. The band of veterans who marched under
the standard of Boniface, and his hasty levies of provincial
troops, were defeated with considerable loss; the victorious
Barbarians insulted the open country; and Carthage, Cirta, and
Hippo Regius, were the only cities that appeared to rise above
the general inundation.

24 (return) [ In a confidential letter to Count Boniface, St.
Augustin, without examining the grounds of the quarrel, piously
exhorts him to discharge the duties of a Christian and a subject:
to extricate himself without delay from his dangerous and guilty
situation; and even, if he could obtain the consent of his wife,
to embrace a life of celibacy and penance, (Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 890.) The bishop was intimately connected
with Darius, the minister of peace, (Id. tom. xiii. p. 928.)]

The long and narrow tract of the African coast was filled with
frequent monuments of Roman art and magnificence; and the
respective degrees of improvement might be accurately measured by
the distance from Carthage and the Mediterranean. A simple
reflection will impress every thinking mind with the clearest
idea of fertility and cultivation: the country was extremely
populous; the inhabitants reserved a liberal subsistence for
their own use; and the annual exportation, particularly of wheat,
was so regular and plentiful, that Africa deserved the name of
the common granary of Rome and of mankind. On a sudden the seven
fruitful provinces, from Tangier to Tripoli, were overwhelmed by
the invasion of the Vandals; whose destructive rage has perhaps
been exaggerated by popular animosity, religious zeal, and
extravagant declamation. War, in its fairest form, implies a
perpetual violation of humanity and justice; and the hostilities
of Barbarians are inflamed by the fierce and lawless spirit which
incessantly disturbs their peaceful and domestic society. The
Vandals, where they found resistance, seldom gave quarter; and
the deaths of their valiant countrymen were expiated by the ruin
of the cities under whose walls they had fallen. Careless of the
distinctions of age, or sex, or rank, they employed every species
of indignity and torture, to force from the captives a discovery
of their hidden wealth. The stern policy of Genseric justified
his frequent examples of military execution: he was not always
the master of his own passions, or of those of his followers; and
the calamities of war were aggravated by the licentiousness of
the Moors, and the fanaticism of the Donatists. Yet I shall not
easily be persuaded, that it was the common practice of the
Vandals to extirpate the olives, and other fruit trees, of a
country where they intended to settle: nor can I believe that it
was a usual stratagem to slaughter great numbers of their
prisoners before the walls of a besieged city, for the sole
purpose of infecting the air, and producing a pestilence, of
which they themselves must have been the first victims. 25

25 (return) [ The original complaints of the desolation of Africa
are contained 1. In a letter from Capreolus, bishop of Carthage,
to excuse his absence from the council of Ephesus, (ap. Ruinart,
p. 427.) 2. In the life of St. Augustin, by his friend and
colleague Possidius, (ap. Ruinart, p. 427.) 3. In the history of
the Vandalic persecution, by Victor Vitensis, (l. i. c. 1, 2, 3,
edit. Ruinart.) The last picture, which was drawn sixty years
after the event, is more expressive of the author’s passions than
of the truth of facts.]

The generous mind of Count Boniface was tortured by the exquisite
distress of beholding the ruin which he had occasioned, and whose
rapid progress he was unable to check. After the loss of a battle
he retired into Hippo Regius; where he was immediately besieged
by an enemy, who considered him as the real bulwark of Africa.
The maritime colony of Hippo, 26 about two hundred miles westward
of Carthage, had formerly acquired the distinguishing epithet of
Regius, from the residence of Numidian kings; and some remains of
trade and populousness still adhere to the modern city, which is
known in Europe by the corrupted name of Bona. The military
labors, and anxious reflections, of Count Boniface, were
alleviated by the edifying conversation of his friend St.
Augustin; 27 till that bishop, the light and pillar of the
Catholic church, was gently released, in the third month of the
siege, and in the seventy-sixth year of his age, from the actual
and the impending calamities of his country. The youth of
Augustin had been stained by the vices and errors which he so
ingenuously confesses; but from the moment of his conversion to
that of his death, the manners of the bishop of Hippo were pure
and austere: and the most conspicuous of his virtues was an
ardent zeal against heretics of every denomination; the
Manichæans, the Donatists, and the Pelagians, against whom he
waged a perpetual controversy. When the city, some months after
his death, was burnt by the Vandals, the library was fortunately
saved, which contained his voluminous writings; two hundred and
thirty-two separate books or treatises on theological subjects,
besides a complete exposition of the psalter and the gospel, and
a copious magazine of epistles and homilies. 28 According to the
judgment of the most impartial critics, the superficial learning
of Augustin was confined to the Latin language; 29 and his style,
though sometimes animated by the eloquence of passion, is usually
clouded by false and affected rhetoric. But he possessed a
strong, capacious, argumentative mind; he boldly sounded the dark
abyss of grace, predestination, free will, and original sin; and
the rigid system of Christianity which he framed or restored, 30
has been entertained, with public applause, and secret
reluctance, by the Latin church. 31

26 (return) [ See Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. part ii.
p. 112. Leo African. in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 70. L’Afrique de
Marmol, tom. ii. p. 434, 437. Shaw’s Travels, p. 46, 47. The old
Hippo Regius was finally destroyed by the Arabs in the seventh
century; but a new town, at the distance of two miles, was built
with the materials; and it contained, in the sixteenth century,
about three hundred families of industrious, but turbulent
manufacturers. The adjacent territory is renowned for a pure air,
a fertile soil, and plenty of exquisite fruits.]

27 (return) [ The life of St. Augustin, by Tillemont, fills a
quarto volume (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii.) of more than one thousand
pages; and the diligence of that learned Jansenist was excited,
on this occasion, by factious and devout zeal for the founder of
his sect.]

28 (return) [ Such, at least, is the account of Victor Vitensis,
(de Persecut. Vandal. l. i. c. 3;) though Gennadius seems to
doubt whether any person had read, or even collected, all the
works of St. Augustin, (see Hieronym. Opera, tom. i. p. 319, in
Catalog. Scriptor. Eccles.) They have been repeatedly printed;
and Dupin (Bibliothèque Eccles. tom. iii. p. 158-257) has given a
large and satisfactory abstract of them as they stand in the last
edition of the Benedictines. My personal acquaintance with the
bishop of Hippo does not extend beyond the Confessions, and the
City of God.]

29 (return) [ In his early youth (Confess. i. 14) St. Augustin
disliked and neglected the study of Greek; and he frankly owns
that he read the Platonists in a Latin version, (Confes. vii. 9.)
Some modern critics have thought, that his ignorance of Greek
disqualified him from expounding the Scriptures; and Cicero or
Quintilian would have required the knowledge of that language in
a professor of rhetoric.]

30 (return) [ These questions were seldom agitated, from the time
of St. Paul to that of St. Augustin. I am informed that the Greek
fathers maintain the natural sentiments of the Semi-Pelagians;
and that the orthodoxy of St. Augustin was derived from the
Manichaean school.]

31 (return) [ The church of Rome has canonized Augustin, and
reprobated Calvin. Yet as the real difference between them is
invisible even to a theological microscope, the Molinists are
oppressed by the authority of the saint, and the Jansenists are
disgraced by their resemblance to the heretic. In the mean while,
the Protestant Arminians stand aloof, and deride the mutual
perplexity of the disputants, (see a curious Review of the
Controversy, by Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Universelle, tom. xiv. p.
144-398.) Perhaps a reasoner still more independent may smile in
his turn, when he peruses an Arminian Commentary on the Epistle
to the Romans.]