Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/66

 46 THE DECLINE AND FALL of poetry and panegyric may add, perhaps with some degree of truthj that the unknown regions of Tliule were stained with the blood of the Picts ; that the oars of Theodosius dashed the waves of the Hyperborean ocean ; and that the distant Orkneys were the scene of his naval victoiy over the Saxon pirates.*^^ He left the province with a fair, as well as splendid, reputation : and was immediately promoted to the rank of master-general of the cavalry, by a prince who could ap})laud without envy the merit of his servants. In the important station of the upper Danube, the conqueror of Britain checked and defeated the armies of the Alemanni before he was chosen to suppress the revolt of Africa, m. AFitiCA. III. The prince who refuses to be the judge, instructs his Romanus. people to considcr him as the accomjjlice, of his ministers. The 4c. ■ ' military command of Africa had been long exercised by Count Romanus, and his abilities were not inadequate to his station : but, as sordid interest was the sole motive of his conduct, he acted, on most occasions, as if he had been the enemy of the province and the friend of the Barbarians of the desert. The three flourishing cities of Oea, Leptis, and Sabrata, which, under the name of Tripoli, had long constituted a federal union,i24 were obliged, for the first time, to shut their gates against a hostile invasion ; several of their most honourable citizens were sm-prised and massacred ; the villages, and even the suburbs, were pillaged ; and the vines and fruit-trees of that rich territory were extirpated by the malicious savages of Getulia. The un- happy provincials implored the protection of Romanus ; but they soon found that their military governor was not less cruel and rapacious than the Barbarians. As they were incapable of furnishing the four thousand camels, and the exorbitant pre- 123 Horrescit. . . ratibus. . . iinpervia Thule. Ille. . . ncc falso nomine Pictos Edomuit. Scotumque vago mucrone secutus. Fregit Hyperboreas rem is audacibus undas. Claudian, in iii. Cons. Honorii, vev. 53, &-c. Maduerunt Saxone fuso. Orcades : incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule. Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis lerne. In iv. Cons. Hon. ver. 31, &c. See likewise Pacatus (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 5). But it is not easy to appreciate the intrinsic value of flattery and metaphor. Compare the British victories of Bolanus (Statius. Silv. v. 2) with his real character (Tacit, in Vit. Agricol. c. 16), !'-■* Ammianus frequently mentions their concilium annuum, legitimum, &c. Leptis and Sabrata are long since ruined ; but the city of Oea, the native country of Apuleius, still flourishes under the provincial denomination of Tripoli. See Cellarius (Geograph. Antiqua, torn. ii. part ii. p. 81), D'Anville (Geographic Ancienne, torn. iii. p. 71, 72), and Marmol (Afrique, torn. ii. p. 562).