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OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
363
exultation, that the barbarian, so lately an object of terror, now cultivated their lands, drove their cattle to the neighbouring fair, and contributed by his labour to the public plenty. They congratulated their masters on the powerful accession of subjects and soldiers; but they forgot to observe that multitudes of secret enemies, insolent from favour, or desperate from oppression, were introduced into the heart of the empire.[1]
Wars of Africa and Egypt While the Cæsars exercised their valour on the banks of the Rhine and Danube, the presence of the emperors was required on the southern confines of the Roman world. From the Nile to Mount Atlas, Africa was in arms. [296, 297] A confederacy of five Moorish nations issued from their deserts to invade the peaceful provinces.[2] Julian had assumed the purple at Carthage,[3] Achilleus at Alexandria;[4] and even the Blemmyes renewed, or rather continued, their incursions into the Upper Egypt. Scarcely any circumstances have been preserved of the exploits of Maximian in the western parts of Africa; but it appears, by the event, that the progress of his arms was rapid and decisive, that he vanquished the fiercest barbarians of Mauritania, and that he removed them from the mountains, whose inaccessible strength had inspired their inhabitants with a lawless confidence, and habituated them to a life of rapine and violence.[5] A.D. 296 [295]. Conduct of Diocletian in Egypt Diocletian, on his side, opened the campaign in Egypt by the siege of Alexandria, cut off the aqueducts which conveyed the waters of the Nile into every quarter of that immense city,[6] and, rendering his camp impregnable to the sallies of the besieged multitude, he pushed his reiterated attacks with caution and vigour. After a siege of eight months, Alexandria, wasted by the sword and by fire, implored the clemency of the conqueror; but it experienced the- ↑ See the rhetorical exultation of Eumenius. Panegyr. vii. 9.
- ↑ Scaliger (Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 243) decides, in his usual manner, that the Quinque gentiani, or five African nations, were the five great cities, the Pentapolis of the inoffensive province of Cyrene. [The Quinquegentanei had, along with the Bavares, invaded Numidia in 260 A.D., and were routed by the legatus, Macrinius Decianus, C. I. L. viii. 2615. Again about ten years before Maximian's expedition the same peoples were crushed by Aurelius Litua, the præses of Mauretania Cæsariensis.]
- ↑ After this defeat, Julian stabbed himself with a dagger, and immediately leaped into the flames. Victor in Epitome [39, 3. John of Antioch, fr. 164.]
- ↑ [A correction has been made here in the punctuation of the text. See Introduction, p. xlii.]
- ↑ Tu ferocissimos Mauritaniæ populos inaccessis montium jugis et naturali munitione fidentes, expugnasti, recepisti, transtulisti. Panegyr. Vet. vi. 8 [Incert. Pan. Max. et Const. Aug. 8. Maximian was still in Africa on 10 March 298. Frag. Vat. 41.]
- ↑ See the description of Alexandria in Hirtius de Bel. Alexandrin. c. 5.
