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Chapter XXXIII: Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.—Part I.
Death Of Honorius.—Valentinian III.—Emperor Of The East.
—Administration Of His Mother Placidia—Aetius And
Boniface.—Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.
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Death Of Honorius.—Valentinian III.—Emperor Of The East.
—Administration Of His Mother Placidia—Aetius 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, Aetius 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 Aetius; 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 Aetius 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 Aetius, 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 Aetius 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, Aetius 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 Aetius 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 Aetius 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,
Aetius, 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, Memoires 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 Aetius, 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, Memoires 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 Manichaeans, 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 Aetius, 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 Aetius 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 Manichaeans, 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 (Bibliotheque 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, Bibliotheque 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.]
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 Aetius. 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 Aetius for her second husband. But Aetius 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 Aetius, 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 indus try 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 Theod oret still preserve the names and misfortunes of Caelestian and Maria. 42 The Syrian bishop deplores the misfortunes of Caelestian, 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 oy 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 aeras 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
aera 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, Bibliotheque 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.]