OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 235 Monks, or solitaries, because they choose to hve alone, without any witnesses of their actions. They fear the gifts of fortune, from the apprehension of losing them ; and, lest they should be miserable, they embrace a life of voluntary wretchedness. How absurd is their choice ! how perverse their understanding ! to dread the evils, without being able to support the blessings, of the human condition. Either this melancholy madness is the effect of disease, or else the consciousness of guilt urges these unhappy men to exercise on their own bodies the tortures which are inflicted on fugitive slaves by the hand of justice." *^ Such was the contempt of a profane magistrate for the monks of Capraria, who were revered, by the pious Mascezel, as the chosen servants of God.*^ Some of them were persuaded, by his entreaties, to embark on board the fleet ; and it is observed, to the praise of the Roman general, that his days and nights were employed in prayer, fasting, and the occupation of singing psalms. The devout leader, who, with such a reinforcement, appeared confident of victory, avoided the dangerous rocks of Corsica, coasted along the eastern side of Sardinia, and secured his ships against the violence of the south wind, by casting anchor in the safe and capacious harbour of Cagliari, at the distance of one hundred and forty miles from the African shores. ^^ Gildo was prepared to resist the invasion with all the forces Defeat and of Africa. By the liberality of his gifts and promises, he en- do^ a.d. 39s' deavoured to secure the doubtful allegiance of the Roman soldiers, whilst he attracted to his standard the distant tribes of Gaetulia and ^Ethiopia. He proudly reviewed an army of seventy thousand men, and boasted, with the rash presumption which is the forerunner of disgrace, that his numerous cavalry would trample under their horses' feet the troops of Mascezel and in- volve, in a cloud of burning sand, the natives of the cold regions of Gaul and Germany.^o But the Moor who commanded the
- " Claud. Rutil. Numatian. Itinerar. i. 439-448. He afterwards (515-526) mentions
a religious madman on the Isle of Gorgona. For such profane remarks, Rutilius and his accomplices are styled by his commentator Barthius, rabiosi canes diaboli. Tillemont (M^m. Eccl^s. torn. xii. p. 471) more calmly observes that the unbelieving poet praises where he means to censure. ^ Orosius, 1. vii. c. 36, p. 564. Augustin commends two of these savage saints of the Isle of Goats (epist. Ixxxi. apud. Tillemont, M6m. Eccl^s. torn. xiii. p. 317, and Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 398, No. 51). '*'•' Here the first book of the Gildonic war is terminated. The rest of Claudian's poem has been lost ; and we are ignorant how or where the army made good their landing in Africa. s** Orosius must be responsible for the account. The presumption of Gildo and his various train of Barbarians is celebrated by Claudian (i. Cons. Stil. i. 345-355).
