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

By the skill of Boniface, and perhaps by the ignorance of the
Vandals, the siege of Hippo was protracted above fourteen months:
the sea was continually open; and when the adjacent country had
been exhausted by irregular rapine, the besiegers themselves were
compelled by famine to relinquish their enterprise. The
importance and danger of Africa were deeply felt by the regent of
the West. Placidia implored the assistance of her eastern ally;
and the Italian fleet and army were reenforced by Asper, who
sailed from Constantinople with a powerful armament. As soon as
the force of the two empires was united under the command of
Boniface, he boldly marched against the Vandals; and the loss of
a second battle irretrievably decided the fate of Africa. He
embarked with the precipitation of despair; and the people of
Hippo were permitted, with their families and effects, to occupy
the vacant place of the soldiers, the greatest part of whom were
either slain or made prisoners by the Vandals. The count, whose
fatal credulity had wounded the vitals of the republic, might
enter the palace of Ravenna with some anxiety, which was soon
removed by the smiles of Placidia. Boniface accepted with
gratitude the rank of patrician, and the dignity of
master-general of the Roman armies; but he must have blushed at
the sight of those medals, in which he was represented with the
name and attributes of victory. 32 The discovery of his fraud,
the displeasure of the empress, and the distinguished favor of
his rival, exasperated the haughty and perfidious soul of Ætius.
He hastily returned from Gaul to Italy, with a retinue, or rather
with an army, of Barbarian followers; and such was the weakness
of the government, that the two generals decided their private
quarrel in a bloody battle. Boniface was successful; but he
received in the conflict a mortal wound from the spear of his
adversary, of which he expired within a few days, in such
Christian and charitable sentiments, that he exhorted his wife, a
rich heiress of Spain, to accept Ætius for her second husband.
But Ætius could not derive any immediate advantage from the
generosity of his dying enemy: he was proclaimed a rebel by the
justice of Placidia; and though he attempted to defend some
strong fortresses, erected on his patrimonial estate, the
Imperial power soon compelled him to retire into Pannonia, to the
tents of his faithful Huns. The republic was deprived, by their
mutual discord, of the service of her two most illustrious
champions. 33

32 (return) [ Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 67. On one side, the head
of Valentinian; on the reverse, Boniface, with a scourge in one
hand, and a palm in the other, standing in a triumphal car, which
is drawn by four horses, or, in another medal, by four stags; an
unlucky emblem! I should doubt whether another example can be
found of the head of a subject on the reverse of an Imperial
medal. See Science des Medailles, by the Pere Jobert, tom. i. p.
132-150, edit. of 1739, by the haron de la Bastie. * Note: Lord
Mahon, Life of Belisarius, p. 133, mentions one of Belisarius on
the authority of Cedrenus—M.]

33 (return) [ Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, p. 185)
continues the history of Boniface no further than his return to
Italy. His death is mentioned by Prosper and Marcellinus; the
expression of the latter, that Ætius, the day before, had
provided himself with a longer spear, implies something like a
regular duel.]

It might naturally be expected, after the retreat of Boniface,
that the Vandals would achieve, without resistance or delay, the
conquest of Africa. Eight years, however, elapsed, from the
evacuation of Hippo to the reduction of Carthage. In the midst of
that interval, the ambitious Genseric, in the full tide of
apparent prosperity, negotiated a treaty of peace, by which he
gave his son Hunneric for a hostage; and consented to leave the
Western emperor in the undisturbed possession of the three
Mauritanias. 34 This moderation, which cannot be imputed to the
justice, must be ascribed to the policy, of the conqueror.

His throne was encompassed with domestic enemies, who accused the
baseness of his birth, and asserted the legitimate claims of his
nephews, the sons of Gonderic. Those nephews, indeed, he
sacrificed to his safety; and their mother, the widow of the
deceased king, was precipitated, by his order, into the river
Ampsaga. But the public discontent burst forth in dangerous and
frequent conspiracies; and the warlike tyrant is supposed to have
shed more Vandal blood by the hand of the executioner, than in
the field of battle. 35 The convulsions of Africa, which had
favored his attack, opposed the firm establishment of his power;
and the various seditions of the Moors and Germans, the Donatists
and Catholics, continually disturbed, or threatened, the
unsettled reign of the conqueror. As he advanced towards
Carthage, he was forced to withdraw his troops from the Western
provinces; the sea-coast was exposed to the naval enterprises of
the Romans of Spain and Italy; and, in the heart of Numidia, the
strong inland city of Corta still persisted in obstinate
independence. 36 These difficulties were gradually subdued by the
spirit, the perseverance, and the cruelty of Genseric; who
alternately applied the arts of peace and war to the
establishment of his African kingdom. He subscribed a solemn
treaty, with the hope of deriving some advantage from the term of
its continuance, and the moment of its violation. The vigilance
of his enemies was relaxed by the protestations of friendship,
which concealed his hostile approach; and Carthage was at length
surprised by the Vandals, five hundred and eighty-five years
after the destruction of the city and republic by the younger
Scipio. 37

34 (return) [ See Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 186.
Valentinian published several humane laws, to relieve the
distress of his Numidian and Mauritanian subjects; he discharged
them, in a great measure, from the payment of their debts,
reduced their tribute to one eighth, and gave them a right of
appeal from their provincial magistrates to the praefect of Rome.
Cod. Theod. tom. vi. Novell. p. 11, 12.]

35 (return) [ Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. l. ii. c. 5,
p. 26. The cruelties of Genseric towards his subjects are
strongly expressed in Prosper’s Chronicle, A.D. 442.]

36 (return) [ Possidius, in Vit. Augustin. c. 28, apud Ruinart,
p. 428.]

37 (return) [ See the Chronicles of Idatius, Isidore, Prosper,
and Marcellinus. They mark the same year, but different days, for
the surprisal of Carthage.]

A new city had arisen from its ruins, with the title of a colony;
and though Carthage might yield to the royal prerogatives of
Constantinople, and perhaps to the trade of Alexandria, or the
splendor of Antioch, she still maintained the second rank in the
West; as the Rome (if we may use the style of contemporaries) of
the African world. That wealthy and opulent metropolis 38
displayed, in a dependent condition, the image of a flourishing
republic. Carthage contained the manufactures, the arms, and the
treasures of the six provinces. A regular subordination of civil
honors gradually ascended from the procurators of the streets and
quarters of the city, to the tribunal of the supreme magistrate,
who, with the title of proconsul, represented the state and
dignity of a consul of ancient Rome. Schools and gymnasia were
instituted for the education of the African youth; and the
liberal arts and manners, grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy, were
publicly taught in the Greek and Latin languages. The buildings
of Carthage were uniform and magnificent; a shady grove was
planted in the midst of the capital; the new port, a secure and
capacious harbor, was subservient to the commercial industry of
citizens and strangers; and the splendid games of the circus and
theatre were exhibited almost in the presence of the Barbarians.
The reputation of the Carthaginians was not equal to that of
their country, and the reproach of Punic faith still adhered to
their subtle and faithless character. 39 The habits of trade, and
the abuse of luxury, had corrupted their manners; but their
impious contempt of monks, and the shameless practice of
unnatural lusts, are the two abominations which excite the pious
vehemence of Salvian, the preacher of the age. 40 The king of the
Vandals severely reformed the vices of a voluptuous people; and
the ancient, noble, ingenuous freedom of Carthage (these
expressions of Victor are not without energy) was reduced by
Genseric into a state of ignominious servitude. After he had
permitted his licentious troops to satiate their rage and
avarice, he instituted a more regular system of rapine and
oppression. An edict was promulgated, which enjoined all persons,
without fraud or delay, to deliver their gold, silver, jewels,
and valuable furniture or apparel, to the royal officers; and the
attempt to secrete any part of their patrimony was inexorably
punished with death and torture, as an act of treason against the
state. The lands of the proconsular province, which formed the
immediate district of Carthage, were accurately measured, and
divided among the Barbarians; and the conqueror reserved for his
peculiar domain the fertile territory of Byzacium, and the
adjacent parts of Numidia and Getulia. 41

38 (return) [ The picture of Carthage; as it flourished in the
fourth and fifth centuries, is taken from the Expositio totius
Mundi, p. 17, 18, in the third volume of Hudson’s Minor
Geographers, from Ausonius de Claris Urbibus, p. 228, 229; and
principally from Salvian, de Gubernatione Dei, l. vii. p. 257,
258.]

39 (return) [ The anonymous author of the Expositio totius Mundi
compares in his barbarous Latin, the country and the inhabitants;
and, after stigmatizing their want of faith, he coolly concludes,
Difficile autem inter eos invenitur bonus, tamen in multis pauci
boni esse possunt P. 18.]

40 (return) [ He declares, that the peculiar vices of each
country were collected in the sink of Carthage, (l. vii. p. 257.)
In the indulgence of vice, the Africans applauded their manly
virtue. Et illi se magis virilis fortitudinis esse crederent, qui
maxime vires foeminei usus probositate fregissent, (p. 268.) The
streets of Carthage were polluted by effeminate wretches, who
publicly assumed the countenance, the dress, and the character of
women, (p. 264.) If a monk appeared in the city, the holy man was
pursued with impious scorn and ridicule; de testantibus ridentium
cachinnis, (p. 289.)]

41 (return) [ Compare Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p.
189, 190, and Victor Vitensis, de Persecut Vandal. l. i. c. 4.]

It was natural enough that Genseric should hate those whom he had
injured: the nobility and senators of Carthage were exposed to
his jealousy and resentment; and all those who refused the
ignominious terms, which their honor and religion forbade them to
accept, were compelled by the Arian tyrant to embrace the
condition of perpetual banishment. Rome, Italy, and the provinces
of the East, were filled with a crowd of exiles, of fugitives,
and of ingenuous captives, who solicited the public compassion;
and the benevolent epistles of Theodoret still preserve the names
and misfortunes of Cælestian and Maria. 42 The Syrian bishop
deplores the misfortunes of Cælestian, who, from the state of a
noble and opulent senator of Carthage, was reduced, with his wife
and family, and servants, to beg his bread in a foreign country;
but he applauds the resignation of the Christian exile, and the
philosophic temper, which, under the pressure of such calamities,
could enjoy more real happiness than was the ordinary lot of
wealth and prosperity. The story of Maria, the daughter of the
magnificent Eudaemon, is singular and interesting. In the sack of
Carthage, she was purchased from the Vandals by some merchants of
Syria, who afterwards sold her as a slave in their native
country. A female attendant, transported in the same ship, and
sold in the same family, still continued to respect a mistress
whom fortune had reduced to the common level of servitude; and
the daughter of Eudaemon received from her grateful affection the
domestic services which she had once required from her obedience.
This remarkable behavior divulged the real condition of Maria,
who, in the absence of the bishop of Cyrrhus, was redeemed from
slavery by the generosity of some soldiers of the garrison. The
liberality of Theodoret provided for her decent maintenance; and
she passed ten months among the deaconesses of the church; till
she was unexpectedly informed, that her father, who had escaped
from the ruin of Carthage, exercised an honorable office in one
of the Western provinces. Her filial impatience was seconded by
the pious bishop: Theodoret, in a letter still extant, recommends
Maria to the bishop of Aegae, a maritime city of Cilicia, which
was frequented, during the annual fair, by the vessels of the
West; most earnestly requesting, that his colleague would use the
maiden with a tenderness suitable to her birth; and that he would
intrust her to the care of such faithful merchants, as would
esteem it a sufficient gain, if they restored a daughter, lost
beyond all human hope, to the arms of her afflicted parent.

42 (return) [ Ruinart (p. 441-457) has collected from Theodoret,
and other authors, the misfortunes, real and fabulous, of the
inhabitants of Carthage.]

Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, I am tempted
to distinguish the memorable fable of the Seven Sleepers; 43
whose imaginary date corresponds with the reign of the younger
Theodosius, and the conquest of Africa by the Vandals. 44 When
the emperor Decius persecuted the Christians, seven noble youths
of Ephesus concealed themselves in a spacious cavern in the side
of an adjacent mountain; where they were doomed to perish by the
tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should be firmly
secured by the a pile of huge stones. They immediately fell into
a deep slumber, which was miraculously prolonged without injuring
the powers of life, during a period of one hundred and
eighty-seven years. At the end of that time, the slaves of
Adolius, to whom the inheritance of the mountain had descended,
removed the stones to supply materials for some rustic edifice:
the light of the sun darted into the cavern, and the Seven
Sleepers were permitted to awake. After a slumber, as they
thought of a few hours, they were pressed by the calls of hunger;
and resolved that Jamblichus, one of their number, should
secretly return to the city to purchase bread for the use of his
companions. The youth (if we may still employ that appellation)
could no longer recognize the once familiar aspect of his native
country; and his surprise was increased by the appearance of a
large cross, triumphantly erected over the principal gate of
Ephesus. His singular dress, and obsolete language, confounded
the baker, to whom he offered an ancient medal of Decius as the
current coin of the empire; and Jamblichus, on the suspicion of a
secret treasure, was dragged before the judge. Their mutual
inquiries produced the amazing discovery, that two centuries were
almost elapsed since Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from
the rage of a Pagan tyrant. The bishop of Ephesus, the clergy,
the magistrates, the people, and, as it is said, the emperor
Theodosius himself, hastened to visit the cavern of the Seven
Sleepers; who bestowed their benediction, related their story,
and at the same instant peaceably expired. The origin of this
marvellous fable cannot be ascribed to the pious fraud and
credulity of the modern Greeks, since the authentic tradition may
be traced within half a century of the supposed miracle. James of
Sarug, a Syrian bishop, who was born only two years after the
death of the younger Theodosius, has devoted one of his two
hundred and thirty homilies to the praise of the young men of
Ephesus. 45 Their legend, before the end of the sixth century,
was translated from the Syriac into the Latin language, by the
care of Gregory of Tours. The hostile communions of the East
preserve their memory with equal reverence; and their names are
honorably inscribed in the Roman, the Abyssinian, and the Russian
calendar. 46 Nor has their reputation been confined to the
Christian world. This popular tale, which Mahomet might learn
when he drove his camels to the fairs of Syria, is introduced as
a divine revelation, into the Koran. 47 The story of the Seven
Sleepers has been adopted and adorned by the nations, from Bengal
to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion; 48 and some
vestiges of a similar tradition have been discovered in the
remote extremities of Scandinavia. 49 This easy and universal
belief, so expressive of the sense of mankind, may be ascribed to
the genuine merit of the fable itself. We imperceptibly advance
from youth to age, without observing the gradual, but incessant,
change of human affairs; and even in our larger experience of
history, the imagination is accustomed, by a perpetual series of
causes and effects, to unite the most distant revolutions. But if
the interval between two memorable eras could be instantly
annihilated; if it were possible, after a momentary slumber of
two hundred years, to display the new world to the eyes of a
spectator, who still retained a lively and recent impression of
the old, his surprise and his reflections would furnish the
pleasing subject of a philosophical romance. The scene could not
be more advantageously placed, than in the two centuries which
elapsed between the reigns of Decius and of Theodosius the
Younger. During this period, the seat of government had been
transported from Rome to a new city on the banks of the Thracian
Bosphorus; and the abuse of military spirit had been suppressed
by an artificial system of tame and ceremonious servitude. The
throne of the persecuting Decius was filled by a succession of
Christian and orthodox princes, who had extirpated the fabulous
gods of antiquity: and the public devotion of the age was
impatient to exalt the saints and martyrs of the Catholic church,
on the altars of Diana and Hercules. The union of the Roman
empire was dissolved; its genius was humbled in the dust; and
armies of unknown Barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of
the North, had established their victorious reign over the
fairest provinces of Europe and Africa.

43 (return) [ The choice of fabulous circumstances is of small
importance; yet I have confined myself to the narrative which was
translated from the Syriac by the care of Gregory of Tours, (de
Gloria Martyrum, l. i. c. 95, in Max. Bibliotheca Patrum, tom.
xi. p. 856,) to the Greek acts of their martyrdom (apud Photium,
p. 1400, 1401) and to the Annals of the Patriarch Eutychius,
(tom. i. p. 391, 531, 532, 535, Vers. Pocock.)]

44 (return) [ Two Syriac writers, as they are quoted by
Assemanni, (Bibliot. Oriental. tom. i. p. 336, 338,) place the
resurrection of the Seven Sleepers in the year 736 (A.D. 425) or
748, (A.D. 437,) of the era of the Seleucides. Their Greek acts,
which Photius had read, assign the date of the thirty-eighth year
of the reign of Theodosius, which may coincide either with A.D.
439, or 446. The period which had elapsed since the persecution
of Decius is easily ascertained; and nothing less than the
ignorance of Mahomet, or the legendaries, could suppose an
internal of three or four hundred years.]

45 (return) [ James, one of the orthodox fathers of the Syrian
church, was born A.D. 452; he began to compose his sermons A.D.
474; he was made bishop of Batnae, in the district of Sarug, and
province of Mesopotamia, A.D. 519, and died A.D. 521. (Assemanni,
tom. i. p. 288, 289.) For the homily de Pueris Ephesinis, see p.
335-339: though I could wish that Assemanni had translated the
text of James of Sarug, instead of answering the objections of
Baronius.]

46 (return) [ See the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, Mensis
Julii, tom. vi. p. 375-397. This immense calendar of Saints, in
one hundred and twenty-six years, (1644-1770,) and in fifty
volumes in folio, has advanced no further than the 7th day of
October. The suppression of the Jesuits has most probably checked
an undertaking, which, through the medium of fable and
superstition, communicates much historical and philosophical
instruction.]

47 (return) [ See Maracci Alcoran. Sura xviii. tom. ii. p.
420-427, and tom. i. part iv. p. 103. With such an ample
privilege, Mahomet has not shown much taste or ingenuity. He has
invented the dog (Al Rakim) the Seven Sleepers; the respect of
the sun, who altered his course twice a day, that he might not
shine into the cavern; and the care of God himself, who preserved
their bodies from putrefaction, by turning them to the right and
left.]

48 (return) [ See D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 139; and
Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexandrin. p. 39, 40.]

49 (return) [ Paul, the deacon of Aquileia, (de Gestis
Langobardorum, l. i. c. 4, p. 745, 746, edit. Grot.,) who lived
towards the end of the eight century, has placed in a cavern,
under a rock, on the shore of the ocean, the Seven Sleepers of
the North, whose long repose was respected by the Barbarians.
Their dress declared them to be Romans and the deacon
conjectures, that they were reserved by Providence as the future
apostles of those unbelieving countries.]