The reputation of

almost in the presence of the Barbarians.
the Carthaginians was not equal to that of their country, and
the reproach of Punic faith still adhered to their subtle and
faithless character.41 The habits of trade and the abuse of
luxury had corrupted their manners; but their impious con-
tempt of monks and the shameless practice of unnatural lusts
are the two abominations which excite the pious vehemence of
Salvian, the preacher of the age.42 The king of the Vandals
severely reformed the vices of a voluptuous people; and the
ancient, noble, ingenuous freedom of Carthage (these expressions
of Victor are not without energy) was reduced by Genseric
into a state of ignominious servitude. After he had permitted
his licentious troops to satiate their rage and avarice, he insti-
tuted a more regular system of rapine and oppression. An
edict was promulgated, which enjoined all persons, without
fraud or delay, to deliver their gold, silver, jewels, and valuable
furniture or apparel, to the royal officers; and the attempt to
secrete any part of their patrimony was inexorably punished
with death and torture, as an act of treason against the state.
The lands of the proconsular province, which formed the
immediate district of Carthage, were accurately measured and
divided among the Barbarians; and the conqueror reserved for
his peculiar domain, the fertile territory of Byzacium, and the
adjacent parts of Numidia and Getulia.43

exiles and

It was natural enough that Genseric should hate those whom African he had injured; the nobility and senators of Carthage were captives exposed to his jealousy and resentment; and all those who refused the ignominious terms, which their honour and religion forbade them to accept, were compelled by the Arian tyrant to embrace the condition of perpetual banishment. Rome, Italy,

41 The anonymous author of the Expositio totius Mundi compares, in his barbarous Latin, the country and the inhabitants; and after stigmatizing their want of faith, he coolly concludes: Difficile autem inter eos invenitur bonus, tamen in multis pauci boni esse possunt. P. 18.

42 He declares that the peculiar vices of each country were collected in the sink of Carthage (1. vii. 257 [§ 74]). In the indulgence of vice the Africans applauded their manly virtue. Et illi se magis virilis fortitudinis esse crederent, qui maxime viros fœminei usus probrositate fregissent (p. 268 [§ 87]). The streets of Carthage were polluted by effeminate wretches, who publicly assumed the countenance, the dress, and the character of women (p. 264 [§ 83]). If a monk appeared in the city, the holy man was pursued with impious scorn and ridicule; detestantibus ridentium cachinnis ([cachinnis et d. r. sibilis] p. 289 [viii. 22]).

43 Compare Procopius de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 5, p. 189, 190; and Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. 1. i. c. 4.

Fable of

the seven

sleepers

and the provinces of the East were filled with a crowd of exiles, of fugitives, and of ingenuous captives, who solicited the public compassion; and the benevolent epistles of Theodoret still preserve the names and misfortunes of Calestian and Maria." The Syrian bishop deplores the misfortunes of Calestian, who, from the state of a noble and opulent senator of Carthage, was reduced, with his wife and family, and servants, to beg his bread in a foreign country; but he applauds the resignation of the Christian exile, and the philosophic temper which, under the pressure of such calamities, could enjoy more real happiness than was the ordinary lot of wealth and prosperity. The story of Maria, the daughter of the magnificent Eudæmon, is singular and interesting. In the sack of Carthage, she was purchased from the Vandals by some merchants of Syria, who afterwards sold her as a slave in their native country. A female attendant, transported in the same ship, and sold in the same family, still continued to respect a mistress whom fortune had reduced to the common level of servitude; and the daughter of Eudæmon received from her grateful affection the domestic services which she had once required from her obedience. This remarkable behaviour divulged the real condition of Maria, who, in the absence of the bishop of Cyrrhus, was redeemed from slavery by the generosity of some soldiers of the garrison. The liberality of Theodoret provided for her decent maintenance; and she passed ten months among the deaconesses of the church; till she was unexpectedly informed that her father, who had escaped from the ruin of Carthage, exercised an honourable office in one of the western provinces. Her filial impatience was seconded by the pious bishop Theodoret, in a letter still extant, recommends Maria to the bishop of Egæ, a maritime city of Cilicia, which was frequented, during the annual fair, by the vessels of the West, most earnestly requesting that his colleague would use the maiden with a tenderness suitable to her birth, and that he would intrust her to the care of such faithful merchants as would esteem it a sufficient gain if they restored a daughter, lost beyond all human hope, to the arms of her afflicted parent.

Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, I am

44 Ruinart (p. 444-457) has collected from Theodoret, and other authors, the misfortunes, real and fabulous, of the inhabitants of Carthage.

tempted to distinguish the memorable fable of the SEVEN SLEEPERS; 45 whose imaginary date corresponds with the reign of the younger Theodosius and the conquest of Africa by the Vandals.46 When the emperor Decius persecuted the Christians, seven noble youths of Ephesus concealed themselves in a spacious cavern in the side of an adjacent mountain; where they were doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should be firmly secured with a pile of huge stones. They immediately fell into a deep slumber, which was miraculously prolonged, without injuring the powers of life, during a period of one hundred and eighty-seven years. At the end of that time, the slaves of Adolius, to whom the inheritance of the mountain had descended, removed the stones, to supply materials for some rustic edifice; the light of the sun darted into the cavern, and the seven sleepers were permitted to awake. After a slumber, as they thought, of a few hours, they were pressed by the calls of hunger; and resolved that Jamblichus, one of their number, should secretly return to the city, to purchase bread for the use of his companions. The youth (if we may still employ that appellation) could no longer recognise the once familiar aspect of his native country; and his surprise was increased by the appearance of a large cross, triumphantly erected over the principal gate of Ephesus. His singular dress and obsolete language confounded the baker, to whom he offered an ancient medal of Decius as the current coin of the empire; and Jamblichus, on the suspicion of a secret treasure, was dragged before the judge. Their mutual inquiries produced the amazing discovery that two centuries were almost

45 The choice of fabulous circumstances is of small importance; yet I have confined myself to the narrative which was translated from the Syriac by the care of Gregory of Tours (de Gloriâ Martyrum, l. i. c. 95, in Max. Bibliothecâ Patrum, tom. xi. p. 856), to the Greek acts of their martyrdom (apud Photium, p. 1400, 1401), and to the Annals of the Patriarch Eutychius (tom. i. p. 391, 531, 532, 535. Vers. Pocock). [A Latin and three Greek versions of the Passion of the Seven Sleepers were published by M. Huber in two Programmes of the Metten Gymnasium 1902-3 and 1904-5 (Landshut). See H. Delehaye in Analecta Bollandiana, 24, 503 sq., where other publications on the subject are noted. Cp. below, note 51.]

46 Two Syriac writers, as they are quoted by Assemanni (Bibliot. Oriental. tom. i: p. 336, 338), place the resurrection of the Seven Sleepers in the year 736 (A.D. 425) or 748 (A.D. 437) of the æra of the Seleucides. Their Greek acts, which Photius had read, assign the date of the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Theodosius, which may coincide either with A.D. 439, or 446. The period which had elapsed since the persecution of Decius is easily ascertained; and nothing less than the ignorance of Mahomet, or the legendaries, could suppose an interval of three or four hundred years.