Page:1909historyofdec04gibbuoft.djvu/353

chap, xli] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 305 officers of the household ; and in the moments of festivity, when the impartial spectators applauded the fortune and merit of Belisarius, his envious flatterers secretly shed their venom on every word and gesture which might alarm the suspicions of a jealous monarch. One day was given to these pompous scenes, which may not be despised as useless, if they attracted the popular veneration ; but the active mind of Belisarius, which in the pride of victory could suppose a defeat, had already resolved that the Koman empire in Africa should not depend on the chance of arms or the favour of the people. The fortifications of Carthage had alone been exempted from the general proscrip- tion ; but in the reign of ninety -five years they were suffered to decay by the thoughtless and indolent Vandals. A wiser con- queror restored with incredible dispatch the walls and ditches of the city. His liberality encouraged the workmen ; the soldiers, the mariners, and the citizens vied with each other in the salutary labour ; and Gelimer, who had feared to trust his person in an open town, beheld with astonishment and despair the rising strength of an impregnable fortress. That unfortunate monarch, after the loss of his capital, £^ f de " applied himself to collect the remains of an army scattered, G^iimer rather than destroyed, by the preceding battle ; and the hopes J^ n ^ s - of pillage attracted some Moorish bands to the standard of November _ .. [Decem- Gehnier. He encamped in the fields of Bulla, four days' ber] journey from Carthage ; insulted the capital, which he deprived of the use of an aqueduct ; proposed an high reward for the head of every Eoman; affected to spare the persons and property of his African subjects ; and secretly negotiated with the Arian sectaries and the confederate Huns. Under these circumstances, the conquest of Sardinia served only to aggravate his distress ; he reflected, with the deepest anguish, that he had wasted in that useless enterprise five thousand of his bravest troops ; and he read,' 28 with grief and shame, the vic- torious letter of his brother Zano, who expressed a sanguine con- [Tzazo] fidence that the king, after the example of their ancestors, had already chastised the rashness of the Roman invader. "Alas! my brother," replied Gelimer, « Heaven has declared against Constantinople, and Carthage, to the royal banqueting room (Procopius, Vandal. 1. i. c. 21. Ducange, Gloss. Grasc. p. 277, Ae<t>uc6v, ad Alexiad. p. 412). 28 [He did not read it, for it had fallen into the hands of the Romans.] VOL. iv. — 20