Page:1909historyofdec04gibbuoft.djvu/26

 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap.xxxvi [A.d. 440, The woods of Mount Atlas afforded an inexhaustible nursery of timber ; his new subjects were skilled in the arts of navi- gation and shipbuilding ; he animated his daring Vandals to embrace a mode of warfare which would render every maritime country accessible to their arms ; the Moors and Africans were allured by the hopes of plunder; and, after an interval of six centuries, the fleets that issued from the port of Carthage again claimed the empire of the Mediterranean. The success of the Vandals, the conquest of Sicily, the sack of Palermo, and the frequent descents on the coast of Lucania, awakened and alarmed the mother of Valentinian and the sister of Theodosius. Alliances were formed, and armaments, expensive and in- effectual, were prepared, for the destruction of the common enemy, who reserved his courage to encounter those dangers which his policy could not prevent or elude. The designs of the Eoman government were repeatedly baffled by his artful delays, ambiguous promises, and apparent concessions ; 1 and the interposition of his formidable confederate, the king of the Huns, recalled the emperors from the conquest of Africa to the care of their domestic safety. The revolutions of the palace, which left the Western empire without a defender and with- out a lawful prince, dispelled the apprehensions, and stimu- lated the avarice, of Genseric. He immediately equipped a numerous fleet of Vandals and Moors, and cast anchor at the mouth of the Tiber, about three months after the death of Valentinian and the elevation of Maximus to the Imperial throne. The The private life of the senator Petronius Maximus 2 was and r re°ig e n often alleged as a rare example of human felicity. His birth emperor was noble and illustrious, since he descended from the Anician I.d X 455 US ' family ; his dignity was supported by an adequate patrimony in land and money; and these advantages of fortune were [By a treaty in a.d. 442 between the Empire and the Vandals, the Mauretanian provinces (Csesariana and Sitifensis) and (partially at least) Numidia were restored to the Empire, and Proconsularis and Byzacena were definitely ceded to the Vandals. See the Novels 18 and 33 of Valentinian III., and Prosper ad aim. Martroye (Genseric, 135) shows that the evidence of Victor Vitensis (1, 4) accords with this.] Sidonius Apollinaris composed the thirteenth epistle of the second book to refute the paradox of his friend Serranus, who entertained a singular, though generouB, enthusiasm for the deceased emperor. This epistle, with some indul- gence, may olaim the praise of an elegant composition ; and it throws much light on the charaoter of Maximus.