Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/139

 CHAPTER VIII

CARTHAGE UNDER THE ROMANS: RECOVERY OF AFRICA FROM THE VANDALS

The Vandalic settlement of Africa (in Imperial nomenclature the name was officially reserved to the north-*west portion of that continent) was more keenly resented by the Romans than the barbaric occupation of any other province of the Western Empire. In other instances disintegration had been gradual and the territory had been resigned to the new possessors with a sense of political inability to retain them, whilst a semblance of fealty to the Eastern Emperor indulged his pretensions to supremacy; but Africa had been snatched away by a sudden conquest, and became a hostile centre from which depredations against the opposite shores of Europe were for long the avowed object of its ruler.

Subsequent kings of the Vandals found the means to cement an alliance with the Empire, and Justinian himself was in amicable relationship with the contemporary member of the dynasty. Internal dissensions, however, had recently effected the abrupt overthrow of his ally and the Emperor vainly intervened on his behalf. A rupture of diplomatic relations followed, smouldering enmities were rekindled, and the question of despatching a military force for the recon