Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/429

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 409 their mutual discord, of the sei-vice of her two most ilhistrious champions.^^ It might naturally be expected, after the retreat of Boniface, Progress of that the Vandals would achieve, without resistance or delay, in Africa. AD 431-439 the conquest of Africa. Eight years however elapsed from the 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. 435, Feb. he gave his son Hunneric for an hostage, and consented to leave the Western emperor in the undisturbed possession of the three Mauritanias.^'' 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. ■^'^ 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, the strong inland city of Cirta still persisted in obstinate inde- [Constantine] 35 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 long-er spear, implies something like a regular duel. [So iAr. Hodgkin, i. 879, who sees here " the influence of Teutonic usages ''. See further, Appendix 26.] ^8 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 sub- jects ; 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 prasfect of Rome. Cod. Theod. tom. vi. Novell, p. II, 12. [By the treaty of 435 the Vandals iseem to have been recognized in the possession of Numidia, Byzacena, and Proconsularis, with the exception of Car- thage and the adjacent region. It is doubtful what happened at Hippo.] 37 Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. 1. ii. c. 5, p. 26. The cruelties of Gen- seric towards his subjects are strongly expressed in Prosper's Chronicle, A.D, 442.