Siege of May 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.27 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,28 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 labours and anxious reflections of Count Boniface were alleviated by the edifying conversation of his friend St. Augustin; 29 till that bishop, the Death of 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 Manichæans, the Donatists, and the Pelagians, against whom he waged a perpetual controversy. Augustin. A.D. 430, 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. 429). 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 (1. 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. 29 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. 29 The life of St. Augustin, by Tillemont, fills a quarto volume (Mém. Ecclés. 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. 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.30 According to the judgment of the most impartial critics, the superficial learning of Augustin was confined to the Latin language; 31 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, has been entertained, with public applause and secret reluctance, by the Latin church.33 32 retreat of A.D. 431 By the skill of Boniface, and perhaps by the ignorance of Defeat and the Vandals, the siege of Hippo was protracted above fourteen Boniface. 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 30 Such at least is the account of Victor Vitensis (de Persecut. Vandal. 1. 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 (Bibliothèque Ecclés. 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. [See Appendix 1.] "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 (Confess. 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. 32 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 Manichæan school. 33 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 meanwhile the Protestant Arminians stand aloof, and deride the mutual perplexity of the disputants (see a curious Review of the Controversy, by Le Clerc, Bibliothèque 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. utriusque of her eastern ally; and the Italian fleet and army were reinforced by Aspar, 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 [Magister Placidia. Boniface accepted with gratitude the rank of patrician, militiae 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." The discovery of his fraud, the displeasure of the empress, and the distinguished favour 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 conHis death. flict 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 A.D. 432 34 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 Médailles, by the Père Jobert, tom. i. p. 132-150, edit. of 1739, by the Baroz de la Bastie. [Eckhel, 8, 293, explains these as private medals issued in honour of a charioteer named Bonifatius.] mutual discord, of the service of her two most illustrious champions.35 the Van Africa. Feb. 11) It might naturally be expected, after the retreat of Boniface, Progress of that the Vandals would achieve, without resistance or delay, dals in the conquest of Africa. Eight years however elapsed from the A.D. 431-489 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 [A.D. 495, he gave his son Hunneric for an hostage, and consented to leave the Western emperor in the undisturbed possession of the three Mauritanias.36 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.37 The convulsions of Africa, which had favoured 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, Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 3, p. 185) continues the history of Boniface no farther than his return to Italy. His death is mentioned by Prosper [ad ann. 432] 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. [So Hodgkin, i. 879, who sees here "the influence of Teutonic usages". See further, Appendix 24.] 36 See Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. 1. 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 præfect of Rome. Cod. Theod. tom. vi. Novell. p. 11, 12. [By the treaty of 435 the Vandals seem to have been recognized in the possession of the three Mauretanian provinces and a part of Numidia. Hippo was restored to the Empire. See Martroye, Genséric, p. 128.] Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. 1. ii. c. 5, p. 26. The cruelties of Genseric towards his subjects are strongly expressed in Prosper's Chronicle, A.D. 442. VOL. III.-28 tine] 38 [Constan- the strong inland city of Cirta still persisted in obstinate independence. 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. A new city had arisen from its ruins, with the title of a colony; and, though Carthage might yield to the royal prerogaOctober 9 tives of Constantinople, and perhaps to the trade of Alexandria They sur- [19 or 23] 39 or the splendour 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 40 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 honours 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 harbour, was subservient to the commercial industry of citizens and strangers; and the splendid games of the circus and theatre were exhibited 38 Possidius, in Vit. Augustin. c. 28, apud Ruinart, p. 428. 39 See the Chronicles of Idatius, Isidore, Prosper, and Marcellinus [and Chron. Pasch.]. They mark the same year, but different days, for the surprisal of Carthage. 40 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 [§ 67 sqq.]. I am surprised that the Notitia should not place either a mint or an arsenal at Carthage, but only a gynæceum or female manufacture. [On Carthage, recently fortified, cp. Audollent, Carthage romaine, 1901.] |
