XLI.

fined: a boundless continent was opened to the Li-CHAP.
byan shepherds; the change of seasons and pastures
regulated their motions; and their rude huts and
slender furniture were transported with the same
ease as their arms, their families, and their cattle,
which consisted of sheep, oxen, and camels *.
During the vigour 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 prices, whose vanity aspired to receive, in the emperor's name, the ensigns of their regal dignity t. 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 sayage 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 04

in

Saliu, if we

a

1. ii. c. 10.) as the posterity of the Cananæans who fled from the robber Joshua (anons). He quotes two columns, with a Phenician inscription. I believe in the columns--I doubt the in. Whethn . scription and I reject the pedigree.

XLI.

CAP. 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 reinforce the feeble garrisons, he entrusted the command of Africa to the eunuch Solomon *; 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 t. 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 régular evolutions; and the menace of their female prophets was repeatedly fulfilled, that the Moors should be discomfited

discomfited by à beardless antagonist. The victo- cĦA P. rious eunuch advanced thirteen days journey from XLI. Carthage, to besiege mount Aurasius*, the cidadel, 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 vallies 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 Esculapius 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 clifts 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,

* Procopius is the first who describés mount Aurasius (Vandal. 1. ii. c. 13. De Edific. 1. 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 (p. 56

XLI.

of the Visi.

CHA P. 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 Maritanian Sitifi was again annexed to the Roman empire. The Moorish war continued several years after the departure of Belisa, ius; but the laurels which he resigned to a faithful lieutenant, may be

justly ascribed to his own triumph. Neutrality The experience of past faults, which may somegoths. times 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 se parately 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 ambitiou 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 downfal of the Vandals. After the failure of the royal line, Theudes, a valiant and powerful chief, ascended the throne of Spain, which he had former. ly 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 escaped from the hands of a sacrilegious enemy*. CHA P. 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 t. The long continuance Conquests of the Italian war delayed the punishment of the Visigoths; and the eyes of Theudes were closed Spain, before they tasted the fruits of his mistaken po- 550-526. licy. 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 Bar