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 304 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xli attempt of forcing the chain of the port ; and the adjacent harbour and surburb of Mandracium were insulted only by the rapine of a private officer who disobeyed and disserted his leaders. But the imperial fleet, advancing with a fair wind, steered through the narrow entrance of the Goletta, and occupied in the deep and capacious lake of Tunis a secure station about five miles from the capital. 26 No sooner was Belisarius informed of their arrival than he dispatched orders that the greatest part of the mariners should be immediately landed to join the triumph, and to swell the apparent numbers, of the Romans. Before he allowed them to enter the gates of Carthage, he exhorted them, in a discourse worthy of himself and the occasion, not to disgrace the glory of their arms ; and to remember that the Vandals had been the tyrants, but that they were the deliverers, of the Africans, who must now be respected as the voluntary and affectionate subjects of their com- mon sovereign. The Romans marched through the streets in close ranks, prepared for battle if an enemy had appeared ; the strict order maintained by the general imprinted on their minds the duty of obedience ; and, in an age in which custom and im- punity almost sanctified the abuse of conquest, the genius of one man repressed the passions of a victorious army. The voice of menace and complaint was silent ; the trade of Carthage was not interrupted ; while Africa changed her master and her government, the shops continued open and busy ; and the soldiers, after sufficient guards had been posted, modestly departed to the houses which were allotted for their reception. Belisarius fixed his residence in the palace ; seated himself on the throne of Genseric ; accepted and distributed the Barbaric spoil ; granted their lives to the suppliant Vandals ; and laboured to repair the damage which the suburb of Mandracium had sustained in the preceding night. At supper he entertained his principal officers with the form and magnificence of a royal banquet. 27 The victor was respectfully served by the captive 26 The neighbourhood of Carthage, the sea, the land, and the rivers, are changed almost as much as the works of man. The isthmus, or neck, of the city is now confounded with the continent : the harbour is a dry plain ; and the lake, or stagnum, no more than a morass, with six or seven feet water in the mid-channel. See d' Anville (G^ographie Ancienne, torn. iii. p. 82), Shaw (Travels, p. 77-84), Marmol (Description de l'Afrique, torn. ii. p. 465), and Thuanus (lviii. 12, torn. iii. p. 534). 27 From Delphi, the name of Delphicum was given, both in Greek and Latin, to a tripod ; and, by an easy analogy, the same appellation was extended at Rome,