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Chap, xxxvii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 89 fiscation. 90 But the cruel and absurd enterprise of subduing the minds of a whole people was undertaken by the Vandals alone. Genseric himself, in his early youth, had renounced the orthodox communion ; and the apostate could neither grant Genseric. -r-r J i. c J AD - 429-477 nor expect a sincere forgiveness. He was exasperated to nnd that the Africans who had fled before him in the field still pre- sumed to dispute his will in synods and churches ; and his ferocious mind was incapable of fear or of compassion. His Catholic subjects were oppressed by intolerant laws and arbitrary punishments. The language of Genseric was furious and for- midable ; the knowledge of his intentions might justify the most unfavourable interpretations of his actions ; and the Arians were reproached with the frequent executions which stained the palace and the dominions of the tyrant. 91 Arms and ambition were, however, the ruling passions of the monarch of the sea. But Hunneric, his inglorious son, who seemed to inherit only Hunneric. his vices, tormented the Catholics with the same unrelenting A,D ' m fury which had been fatal to his brother, his nephews, and the friends and favourites of his father, and, even to the Arian patriarch, who was inhumanly burnt alive in the midst of Carthage. The religious war was preceded and prepared by an insidious truce ; persecution was made the serious and import- ant business of the Vandal court ; and the loathsome disease, which hastened the death of Hunneric, revenged the injuries, without contributing to the deliverance, of the church. The throne of Africa was successively filled by the two nephews of Hunneric; by Gundamund, who reigned about twelve, and by Thrasimund, who governed the nation above twenty-seven, years. Gunda- Their administration was hostile and oppressive to the orthodox T^ n m party. Gundamund appeared to emulate, or even to surpass, the cruelty of his uncle ; and, if at length he relented, if he recalled the bishops and restored the freedom of Athanasian worship, a premature death intercepted the benefits of his tardy clemency. His brother, Thrasimund, was the greatest and 90 Such are the contemporary complaints of Sidonius, bishop of Clermont (1. vii. c. 6, p. 182, &c. edit. Sirmond). Gregory of Tours, who quotes this Epistle (1. ii. c. 25, in torn. ii. p. 174), extorts an unwarrantable assertion that, of the nine vacancies in Aquitain, some had been produced by episcopal martyrdoms. 91 [But Gaiseric's religious policy varied with his relations to the Empire ; and we can mark two peaces of the Catholic Church of Africa during his reign : a.d. 454-457, and 475-477, Vict. Vit. i. 24 and 51. There was no edict against the Catholics till a.d. 484.]