The

entertain a hope, or even a wish, of returning to | to receive, in the emperor's name, the ensigns of the banks of the Elbe, where their brethren, of a their regal dignity. They were astonished by the spirit less adventurous, still wandered in their rapid event, and trembled in the presence of their native forests. It was impossible for cowards to conqueror. But his approaching departure soon resurmount the barriers of unknown seas and hostile lieved the apprehensions of a savage and superstibarbarians it was impossible for brave men to tious people; the number of their wives allowed them expose their nakedness and defeat before the eyes to disregard the safety of their infant hostages; and of their countrymen, to describe the kingdoms which when the Roman general hoisted sail in the port of they had lost, and to claim a share of the humble Carthage, he heard the cries, and almost beheld the inheritance, which, in a happier hour, they had flames, of the desolated province. Yet he persisted almost unanimously renounced. In the country in his resolution; and leaving only a part of his between the Elbe and the Oder, several populous guards to reinforce the feeble garrisons, he intrusted villages of Lusatia are inhabited by the Vandals, the command of Africa to the eunuch Solomon," they still preserve their language, their customs, who proved himself not unworthy to be the sucand the purity of their blood; support, with some cessor of Belisarius. In the first invasion, some impatience, the Saxon or Prussian yoke; and serve, detachments, with two officers of merit, were surwith secret and voluntary allegiance, the descend- prised and intercepted; but Solomon speedily asant of their ancient kings, who in his garb and sembled his troops, marched from Carthage into present fortune is confounded with the meanest of the heart of the country, and in two great battles his vassals.P The name and situation of this un- destroyed sixty thousand of the barbarians. happy people might indicate their descent from one Moors depended on their multitude, their swiftness, common stock with the conquerors of Africa. But and their inaccessible mountains; and the aspect the use of a Sclavonian dialect more clearly repreand smell of their camels are said to have produced sents them as the last remnant of the new colonies, some confusion in the Roman cavalry. But as soon who succeeded to the genuine Vandals, already as they were commanded to dismount, they derided scattered or destroyed in the age of Procopius.q this contemptible obstacle; as soon as the columns If Belisarius had been tempted to ascended the hills, the naked and disorderly crowd feat of the Moors, hesitate in his allegiance, he might was dazzled by glittering arms and regular evoluA. D. 535. have urged, even against the emperor tions; and the menace of their female prophets was himself, the indispensable duty of saving Africa repeatedly fulfilled, that the Moors should be disfrom an enemy more barbarous than the Vandals. comfited by a beardless antagonist. The victorious The origin of the Moors is involved in darkness: eunuch advanced thirteen days' journey from Carthey were ignorant of the use of letters. Their thage, to besiege mount Aurasius, the citadel and limits cannot be precisely defined: a boundless con- at the same time the garden of Numidia. That tinent was open to the Libyan shepherds; the change range of hills, a branch of the great Atlas, contains, of seasons and pastures regulated their motions; within a circumference of one hundred and twenty and their rude, huts and slender furniture were miles, a rare variety of soil and climate; the intertransported with the same ease as their arms, their mediate valleys and elevated plains abound with families, and their cattle, which consisted of sheep, rich pastures, perpetual streams, and fruits of a oxen, and camels. During the vigour of the Roman delicious taste and uncommon magnitude. This power, they observed a respectful distance from fair solitude is decorated with the ruins of Lambesa, Carthage and the sea-shore; under the feeble reign a Roman city, once the seat of a legion, and the of the Vandals, they invaded the cities of Numidia, residence of forty thousand inhabitants. The Ionic occupied the sea-coast from Tangier to Cæsarea, temple of Esculapius is encompassed with Moorish and pitched their camps, with impunity, in the fer- huts; and the cattle now graze in the midst of tile province of Byzacium. The formidable strength an amphitheatre, under the shade of Corinthian and artful conduct of Belisarius secured the neu- columns. A sharp perpendicular rock rises above trality of the Moorish princes, whose vanity aspired the level of the mountain, where the African princes

Manners and de

o A single voice had protested, and Genseric dismissed, without a formal answer, the Vandals of Germany: but those of Africa derided his prudence, and affected to despise the poverty of their forests. (Procopius, Vandal. I. i. c. 22.)

p From the mouth of the great elector (in 1687) Tollius describes the secret royalty and rebellious spirit of the Vandals of Brandenburgh, who could muster five or six thousand soldiers who had procured some cannon, &c. (Itinerar. Hungar. p. 42. apud Dubos, Hist. de la Monarchie Françoise, tom. i. p. 182, 183.) The veracity, not of the elector, but of Tollius himself, may justly be suspected.

q Procopius (1. i. c. 22.) was in total darkness-ovde μvnun is Oude ovoua es eμe owCera. Under the reign of Dagobert, (Á. D. 630.) the Sclavonian tribes of the Sorbi and Venedi already bordered on Thuringia. (Mascou, Hist. of the Germans, xv. 3, 4, 5.)]

Sallust represents the Moors as a remnant of the army of Heracles, (de Bell. Jugurth. c. 21.) and Procopius (Vandal. 1. ii. c. 10.) as the posterity of the Cananæans who fled from the robber Joshua. (Ansns.) He quotes two columns, with a Phoenician inscription. I believe in the columns-I doubt the inscription-and I reject the pedigree.

8 Virgil (Georgic. iii. 339.) and Pomponius Mela (i. 8.) describe the wandering life of the African shepherds, similar to that of the Arabs

and Tartars; and Shaw (p. 222.) is the best commentator on the poet and the geographer.

t The customary gifts were a sceptre, a crown or cap, a white cloak, a figured tunic and shoes, all adorned with gold and silver, nor were these precious metals less acceptable in the shape of coin. (Procop. Van dal. I. i. c. 25.)

See the African government and warfare of Solomon, in Procopius. (Vandal. I. ii. c. 10, 11, 12, 13. 19, 20.) He was recalled, and again restored; and his last victory dates in the thirteenth year of Justinian. (A. D. 539.) An accident in his childhood had rendered him a ennuch (1. i. c. 11.) the other Roman generals were amply furnished with beards, πώγονος επιπλαμενοι. (1. ii. c. 8.)

x This natural antipathy of the horse for the camel, is affirmed by the ancients; Xenophon. Cyropæd. 1. vi. p. 438. 1. vii. p. 483. 492 edit. Hutchinson. Polyæn. Stratagem. vii. 6. Plin. Hist. Nat. viii. 26. Elian de Natur. Animal. 1. iii. c. 7.) but it is disproved by daily experience, and derided by the best judges, the orientals. (Voyage d'Olearius, p. 553.) y Procopius is the first who describes mount Aurasius. (Vandal. 1. ii. c. 13. De Edific. 1. vi. c. 7.) He may be compared with Leo Africanus, (dell Africa, parte v. in Ramusio, tom, i. fol. 77. recto,) Marmol. (tom. ii. p. 430.) and Shaw, (p. 56-59.)

|

of the Vandals. The long continuConquests of the ance of the Italian war delayed the Romans in Spain, punishment of the Visigoths; and the A. D. 550–620. eyes of Theudes were closed before they tasted the fruits of his mistaken policy. After his death, the sceptre of Spain was disputed by a civil war. The weaker candidate solicited the protection of Justinian, and ambitiously subscribed a treaty of alliance, which deeply wounded the independence and happiness of his country. Several cities, both on the ocean and the Mediterranean, were ceded to the Roman troops, who afterwards refused to evacuate those pledges, as it should seem, either of safety or payment; and as they were fortified by perpetual supplies from Africa, they maintained their impreg

deposited their wives and treasure; and a proverb is familiar to the Arabs, that the man may eat fire, who dares to attack the craggy cliffs and inhospitable natives of mount Aurasius. This hardy enterprise was twice attempted by the eunuch Solomon from the first, he retreated with some disgrace; and in the second, his patience and provisions were almost exhausted; and he must again have retired, if he had not yielded to the impetuous courage of his troops, who audaciously scaled, to the astonishment of the Moors, the mountain, the hostile camp, and the summit of the Geminian rock. A citadel was erected to secure this important conquest, and to remind the barbarians of their defeat and as Solomon pursued his march to the west, the long-lost province of Mauritanian Sitifinable stations, for the mischievous purpose of was again annexed to the Roman empire. The Moorish war continued several years after the departure of Belisarius; but the laurels which he resigned to a faithful lieutenant, may be justly ascribed to his own triumph.

Neutrality of the The experience of past faults, which Visigoths. may sometimes correct the mature age of an individual, is seldom profitable to the successive generations of mankind. The nations of antiquity, careless of each other's safety, were separately vanquished and enslaved by the Romans. This awful lesson might have instructed the barbarians of the west to oppose, with timely counsels and confederate arms, the unbounded ambition of Justinian. Yet the same error was repeated, the same consequences were felt, and the Goths, both of Italy and Spain, insensible of their approaching danger, beheld with indifference, and even with joy, the rapid downfall of the Vandals. After the failure of the royal line, Theudes, a valiant and powerful chief, ascended the throne of Spain, which he had formerly administered in the name of Theodoric and his infant grandson. Under his command, the Visigoths besieged the fortress of Ceuta on the African coast: but, while they spent the sabbath-day in peace and devotion, the pious security of their camp was invaded by a sally from the town; and the king himself, with some difficulty and danger, escaped from the hands of a sacrilegious enemy. It was not long before his pride and resentment were gratified by a suppliant embassy from the unfortunate Gelimer, who implored, in his distress, the aid of the Spanish monarch. But instead of sacrificing these unworthy passions to the dictates of generosity and prudence, Theudes amused the ambassadors, till he was secretly informed of the loss of Carthage, and then dismissed them with obscure and contemptuous advice, to seek in their native country a true knowledge of the state

z Isidor. Chron. p. 722. edit. Grot. Mariana, Hist. Hispan. 1. v. c. 8. p. 173. Yet according to Isidore, the siege of Ceuta, and the death of Theudes, happened, A. E. H. 586: A. D. 548; and the place was defended, not by the Vandals, but by the Romans. a Procopius, Vandal. I. i. c. 24.

b See the original Chronicle of Isidore, and the fifth and sixth books of the History of Spain by Mariana. The Romans were finally expelled by Suintila king of the Visigoths, (A. D. 621-626.) after their re. union to the catholic church.

inflaming the civil and religious factions of the barbarians. Seventy years elapsed before this painful thorn could be extirpated from the bosom of the monarchy; and as long as the emperors retained any share of these remote and useless possessions, their vanity might number Spain in the list of their provinces, and the successors of Alaric in the rank of their vassals.

с

Belisarius threatens the Ostrogoths of Italy, A. D. 534.

The error of the Goths who reigned in Italy was less excusable than that of their Spanish brethren, and their punishment was still more immediate and terrible. From a motive of private revenge, they enabled their most dangerous enemy to destroy their most valuable ally. A sister of the great Theodoric had been given in marriage to Thrasimond the African king: on this occasion, the fortress of Lilybæum in Sicily was resigned to the Vandals: and the princess Amalafrida was attended by a martial train of one thousand nobles, and five thousand Gothic soldiers, who signalized their valour in the Moorish wars. Their merit was over-rated by themselves, and perhaps neglected by the Vandals; they viewed the country with envy, and the conquerors with disdain; but their real or fictitious conspiracy was prevented by a massacre; the Goths were oppressed, and the captivity of Amalafrida was soon followed by her secret and suspicious death. eloquent pen of Cassiodorius was employed to reproach the Vandal court with the cruel violation of every social and public duty; but the vengeance which he threatened in the name of his sovereign, might be derided with impunity, as long as Africa was protected by the sea, and the Goths were destitute of a navy. In the blind impotence of grief and indignation, they joyfully saluted the approach of the Romans, entertained the fleet of Belisarius in the ports of Sicily, and were speedily delighted or alarmed by the surprising intelligence, that their

The

e See the marriage and fate of Amalafrida in Procopius, (Vandal. 1. i. c. 8, 9.) and in Cassiodorius, (Var. ix. 1.) the expostulation of her royal brother. Compare likewise the Chronicle of Victor Tunnunensis.

d Lilybum was built by the Carthaginians, Olymp. xcv. 4. and in the first Punic war, a strong situation, and excellent harbour, rendered that place an important object to both nations.

revenge was executed beyond the measure of their | tation of the virtues, she revived the prosperity, of hopes, or perhaps of their wishes. To their friendship the emperor was indebted for the kingdom of Africa, and the Goths might reasonably think, that they were entitled to resume the possession of a barren rock, so recently separated as a nuptial gift from the island of Sicily. They were soon undeceived by the haughty mandate of Belisarius, which excited their tardy and unavailing repentance. "The city and promontory of Lilybæum," said the Roman general, "belonged to the Vandals, and I claim them by the right of conquest. Your submission may deserve the favour of the emperor; your obstinacy will provoke his displeasure, and must kindle a war, that can terminate only in your utter ruin. If you compel us to take up arms, we shall contend, not to regain the possession of a single city, but to deprive you of all the provinces which you unjustly withhold from their lawful sovereign." A nation of two hundred thousand soldiers might have smiled at the vain menace of Justinian and his lieutenant: but a spirit of discord and disaffection prevailed in Italy, and the Goths supported, with reluctance, the indignity of a female reign.

Government and

The birth of Amalasontha, the regent death of Amala and queen of Italy,' united the two sontha, queen of Italy, most illustrious families of the barbaA. D. 522–534. rians. Her mother, the sister of Clovis, was descended from the long-haired kings of the Merovingian race; and the regal succession of the Amali was illustrated in the eleventh generation, by her father, the great Theodoric, whose merit might have ennobled a plebeian origin. The sex of his daughter excluded her from the Gothic throne; but his viligant tenderness for his family and his people discovered the last heir of the royal line, whose ancestors had taken refuge in Spain; and the fortunate Eutharic was suddenly exalted to the rank of a consul and a prince. He enjoyed only a short time the charms of Amalasontha, and the hopes of the succession; and his widow, after the death of her husband and father, was left the guardian of her son Athalaric, and the kingdom of Italy. At the age of about twenty-eight years, the endowments of her mind and person had attained their perfect maturity. Her beauty, which, in the apprehension of Theodora herself, might have disputed the con. quest of an emperor, was animated by manly sense, activity, and resolution. Education and experience had cultivated her talents; her philosophic studies were exempt from vanity; and, though she expressed herself with equal elegance and ease in the Greek, the Latin, and the Gothic tongue, the daughter of Theodoric maintained in her counsels a discreet and impenetrable silence. By a faithful imi

e Compare the different passages of Procopius. (Vandal. 1. ii. c. 5. Gothic. I. i. c. 3.)

f For the reign and character of Amalasontha, see Procopius, (Gothic. 1. i. c. 2-4. and Anecdot. c. 16. with the notes of Alemannus, Cassiodorius, (Var. viii. ix. x. and xi. 1.) and Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis c. 59. and De Successione Regnorum, in Muratori, tom. i. p. 241.)

The marriage of Theodoric with Audefleda, the sister of Clovis,

his reign: while she strove with pious care to expiate the faults, and to obliterate the darker memory, of his declining age. The children of Boethius and Symmachus were restored to their paternal inheritance: her extreme lenity never consented to inflict any corporal or pecuniary penalties on her Roman subjects; and she generously despised the clamours of the Goths, who, at the end of forty years, still considered the people of Italy as their slaves or their enemies. Her salutary measures were directed by the wisdom, and celebrated by the eloquence, of Cassiodorius; she solicited and deserved the friendship of the emperor; and the kingdoms of Europe respected, both in peace and war, the majesty of the Gothic throne. But the future happiness of the queen and of Italy depended on the education of her son; who was destined, by his birth, to support the different and almost incompatible characters of the chief of a barbarian camp, and the first magistrate of a civilized nation. From the age of ten years," Athalaric was diligently instructed in the arts and sciences, either useful or ornamental for a Roman prince: and three venerable Goths were chosen to instil the principles of honour and virtue into the mind of their young king. But the pupil who is insensible of the benefits, must abhor the restraints, of education; and the solicitude of the queen, which affection rendered anxious and severe, offended the untractable nature of her son and his subjects. On a solemn festival, when the Goths were assembled in the palace of Ravenna, the royal youth escaped from his mother's apartment, and, with tears of pride and anger, complained of a blow which his stubborn disobedience had provoked her to inflict. The barbarians resented the indignity which had been offered to their king; accused the regent of conspiring against his life and crown; and imperiously demanded, that the grandson of Theodoric should be rescued from the dastardly discipline of women and pedants, and educated, like a valiant Goth, in the society of his equals, and the glorious ignorance of his ancestors. To this rude clamour, importunately urged as the voice of the nation, Amalasontha was compelled to yield her reason, and the dearest wishes of her heart. The king of Italy was abandoned to wine, to women, and to rustic sports: and the indiscreet contempt of the ungrateful youth, betrayed the mischievous designs of his favourites and her enemies. Encompassed with domestic foes, she entered into a secret negociation with the emperor Justinian; obtained the assurance of a friendly reception, and had actually deposited at Dyrrachium in Epirus, a treasure of forty thousand pounds of gold. Happy would it have been for her fame and safety, if she had

may be placed in the year 495, soon after the conquest of Italy. (De Buat, Hist. des Peuples, tom. ix. p. 213.) The nuptials of Eutharic and Amalasontha were celebrated in 515 (Cassiodor. in Chron. p. 453.) h At the death of Theodoric, his grandson Athalaric is described by Procopius as a boy about eight years old,- οκτω γεγονως ετη. Cassiodorius, with authority and reason, adds two years to his age.-Infantulum adhuc vix decennem.

calmly retired from barbarous faction, to the peace | gociated with Theodatus to betray the province of and splendour of Constantinople. But the mind of Tuscany, and tempted Amalasontha to extricate Amalasontha was inflamed by ambition and revenge; | herself from danger and perplexity, by a free surand while her ships lay at anchor in the port, she render of the kingdom of Italy. A false and serwaited for the success of a crime which her passions | vile epistle was subscribed by the reluctant hand excused or applauded as an act of justice. Three of the captive queen: but the confession of the of the most dangerous malcontents had been sepa- Roman senators, who were sent to Constantinople, rately removed, under the pretence of trust and revealed the truth of her deplorable situation; command, to the frontiers of Italy: they were as- and Justinian, by the voice of a new ambassassinated by her private emissaries; and the blood sador, most powerfully interceded for her life and of these noble Goths rendered the queen-mother liberty. Yet the secret instructions of the same absolute in the court of Ravenna, and justly odious minister were adapted to serve the cruel jealousy to a free people. But if she had lamented the disor- of Theodora, who dreaded the presence and superior ders of her son, she soon wept his irreparable loss; charms of a rival: he prompted, with artful and and the death of Athalaric, who, at the age of sixteen, ambiguous hints, the execution of a crime so useful was consumed by premature intemperance, left her to the Romans; received the intelligence of her destitute of any firm support or legal authority. death with grief and indignation, and denounced, Instead of submitting to the laws of her country, in his master's name, immortal war against the perwhich held as a fundamental maxim, that the suc- fidious assassin. In Italy, as well as in Africa, the cession could never pass from the lance to the distaff, guilt of a usurper appeared to justify the arms the daughter of Theodoric conceived the imprac- of Justinian; but the forces which he prepared, ticable design of sharing, with one of her cousins, were insufficient for the subversion of a mighty the regal title, and of reserving in her own hands kingdom, if their feeble numbers had not been multhe substance of supreme power. He received the tiplied by the name, the spirit, and the conduct of proposal with profound respect and affected grati- an hero. A chosen troop of guards, who served on tude; and the eloquent Cassiodorius announced to horseback, and were armed with lances and buckthe senate and the emperor, that Amalasontha and lers, attended the person of Belisarius: his cavalry Theodatus had ascended the throne of Italy. His was composed of two hundred Huns, three hundred birth (for his mother was the sister of Theodoric) Moors, and four thousand confederates, and the inmight be considered as an imperfect title; and the fantry consisted only of three thousand Isaurians. choice of Amalasontha was more strongly directed Steering the same course as in his former expedition, by her contempt of his avarice and pusillanimity, the Roman consul cast anchor before Catana in which had deprived him of the love of the Italians, Sicily, to survey the strength of the island, and to and the esteem of the barbarians. But Theodatus decide whether he should attempt the conquest, or was exasperated by the contempt which he deserved: peaceably pursue his voyage for the African coast. her justice had repressed and reproached the opHe found a fruitful land and a friendly people. pression which he exercised against his Tuscan Notwithstanding the decay of agriculture, Sicily neighbours; and the principal Goths, united by still supplied the granaries of Rome: the farmers common guilt and resentment, conspired to instigate were graciously exempted from the oppression of Her exile and his slow and timid disposition. The military quarters; and the Goths, who trusted the death, A. D. 535. letters of congratulation were scarcely defence of the island to the inhabitants, had some April 30. despatched, before the queen of Italy reason to complain, that their confidence was unwas imprisoned in a small island of the lake of gratefully betrayed. Instead of soliciting and exBolsena, where after a short confinement, she was pecting the aid of the king of Italy, they yielded to strangled in the bath, by the order, or with the the first summons a cheerful obedience: and this connivance, of the new king, who instructed his province, the first-fruits of the Punic wars, was turbulent subjects to shed the blood of their sove- again, after a long separation, united to the Roman reigns. empire. The Gothic garrison of Palermo, which Justinian beheld with joy the dis- alone attempted to resist, was reduced, after a short sensions of the Goths; and the media-siege, by a singular stratagem. Belisarius introtion of an ally concealed and promoted

Belisarius in

vades and sub-
dues Sicily,
A. D. 525.
Dec. 31.

the ambitious views of the conqueror. His ambassadors, in their public audience, demanded the fortress of Lilybæum, ten barbarian fugitives, and a just compensation for the pillage of a small town on the Illyrian borders; but they secretly ne

i The lake, from the neighbouring towns of Etruria, was styled either Vulsiniensis (now of Bolsena) or Tarquiniensis. It is surrounded with white rocks, and stored with fish and wild-fowl. The younger Pliny (Epist. ii. 96.) celebrates two woody islands that floated on its waters: if a fable, how credulous the ancients!-if a fact, how careless the moderns! Yet, since Pliny, the island may have been fixed by new and gradual successions.

k Yet Procopius discredits his own evidence, (Anecdot. c. 16.) by

duced his ships into the deepest recess of the harbour; their boats were laboriously hoisted with ropes and pulleys to the top-mast head, and he filled them with archers, who, from that superior station, commanded the ramparts of the city. After this easy though successful campaign, the conqueror

confessing that in his public history he had not spoken the truth. See the epistles from queen Gundelina to the empress Theodora. (Var. X. 20, 21. 23. and observe a suspicious word, de illa personâ, &c.) with the elaborate Commentary of Buat, (tom. x. p. 177-185)

1 For the conquest of Sicily, compare the narrative of Procopius with the complaints of Totila. (Gothic. 1. i. c. 5. 1. iii. c. 16.) The Gothic queen had lately relieved that thankless island. (Var. ix. 10, 11.)