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
[Footnote 1: The complete series of the Vandal war is related by
Procopius in a regular and elegant narrative, (l. i. c. 9 - 25,
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.
[Footnote 2: 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.)]
[Footnote 3: For what quality of the mind or body? For speed, or beauty, or valor? - In what language did the Vandals read Homer?
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 praefect, "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.
[Footnote 4: 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. ^* 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
[Footnote 5: (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.]
[Footnote 6: The two first Persian campaigns of Belisarius are
fairly and copiously related by his secretary, (Persic. l. i. c.
12 - 18.)]
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote 7: 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 Homer ^8 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.
[Footnote 8: 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.]
[Footnote 9: (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.]
[Footnote 10: 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.
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 dignity 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 praefect 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
[Footnote 11: 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.]
[Footnote 12: 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.)]
[Footnote 13: 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. -
[Footnote 15: 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. ^* 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, or 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.
[Footnote 16: 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.)]
[Footnote *: Rather into the present Lake of Tunis. Lord Mahon,
[Footnote 18: 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: ^* 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.
[Footnote *: 80,000. Hist. Arc. c. 18. Gibbon has been misled by the translation. See Lord ov. p. 99. - M.]