Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/256

 236 THE DECLINE AND FALL legions of Honorius was too well acquainted with the manners of his countrymen to entertain any serious apprehension of a naked and disorderly host of Barbarians ; whose left arm, in- stead of a shield, was protected only by a mantle ; who were totally disarmed as soon as they had darted their javelin from their right hand ; and whose horses had never been tiiught to bear tlie control, or to obey the guidance, of the bridle. He fixed his camp of five thousand veterans in the face of a superior enemy, and, after the delay of three days, gave the signal of a ^Battle of At- general engagement.^^ As Mascezel advanced before the front "'■' with fair offers of peace and pardon, he encountered one of the foremost standard-bearers of the Africans, and, on his refusal to yield, struck him on the arm with his sword. The arm, and the standard, sunk under the weight of the blow ; and the imaginary act of submission was hastily repeated by all the standards of the line. At this signal, the disaffected cohorts proclaimed the name of their lawful sovereign ; the Barbarians, astonished by the defection of their Roman allies, dispersed, according to their custom, in tumultuary flight ; and Mascezel obtained the honours of an easy, and almost bloodless, victory.^"^ The tyrant escaped from the field of battle to the seashore, and threw himself into a small vessel, with the hope of reaching in safety some friendly port of the empire of the East ; but the obstinacy of the w^ind drove him back into the harbour of [Tabarca] Tabraca,^^ which had acknowledged, with the rest of the province, the dominion of Honorius and the authority of his lieutenant. The inhabitants, as a proof of their repentance and loyalty, seized and confined the person of Gildo in a dungeon ; and his own despair saved him from the intolerable torture of support- ing the presence of an injured and victorious brother. ^^ The captives and the spoils of Africa were laid at the feet of the emperor ; but Stilicho, whose moderation appeared more con- spicuous and more sincere in the midst of prosperity, still affected to consult the laws of the republic, and referred to the 61 St. Ambrose, who had been dead about a year, revealed, in a vision, the time and place of the victory. Mascezel afterwards related his dream to Paulinus, the original biographer of the saint, from whom it might tp.5ily pass to Orosius. 52Zosimus (1. V. p. 303 [c. 11]) supposes an obstinate combat ; but the narrative of Orosius appears to conceal a real fact, under the disguise of a miracle. ^3 Tabraca lay between the two Hippos (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. ii. p. 112; d'Anville, tom. iii. p. 84). Orosius has distinctly named the field of battle, but our ignorance cannot define the precise situation. 54 The death of Gildo is expressed by Claudian (1. Cons. Stil. 1. 357) and his best interpreters, Zosinius and Orosius.