Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 4 (1897).djvu/311

to inform the emperor that, in the space of three months, he had achieved the conquest of Africa.

Conquest of Africa by Belisarius. A.D. 534 Belisarius spoke the language of truth. The surviving Vandals yielded, without resistance, their arms and their freedom; the neighbourhood of Carthage submitted to his presence; and the more distant provinces were successively subdued by the report of his victory. Tripoli was confirmed in her voluntary allegiance; Sardinia and Corsica surrendered to an officer, who carried, instead of a sword, the head of the valiant Zano; and the isles of Majorca, Minorca, and Yvica, consented to remain an humble appendage of the African kingdom. Cæsarea, a royal city, which in looser geography may be confounded with the modern Algiers, was situate thirty days' march to the westward of Carthage; by land the road was infested by the Moors; but the sea was open, and the Romans were now masters of the sea. An active and discreet tribune sailed as far as the Straits, where he occupied Septem or Ceuta,^[1] which rises opposite to Gibraltar on the African coast; that remote place was afterwards adorned and fortified by Justinian; and he seems to have indulged the vain ambition of extending his empire to the columns of Hercules. He received the messengers of victory at the time when he was preparing to publish the pandects of the Roman law; and the devout or jealous emperor celebrated the divine goodness, and confessed in silence the merit of his successful general.^[2] Impatient to abolish the temporal and spiritual tyranny of the Vandals, he proceeded, without delay, to the full establishment of the Catholic church. Her jurisdiction, wealth, and immunities, perhaps the most essential part of episcopal religion, were restored and amplified with a liberal hand; the Arian worship was suppressed; the Donatist meetings were proscribed;^[3] and the synod of Carthage, by the voice of two hundred and seventeen bishops,^[4] applauded the just measure of pious retalia-

1. Τὰ τη̂ς πολιτείας προοίμια, is the expression of Procopius (de Ædific. l. vi. c. 7). Ceuta, which has been defaced by the Portuguese, flourished in nobles and palaces, in agriculture and manufactures, under the more prosperous reign of the Arabs (l'Afrique de Marmol, tom. ii. p. 236).
2. See the second and third preambles to the Digest, or Pandects, promulgated A.D. 533, December 16. To the titles of Vandalicus and Africanus, Justinian, or rather Belisarius, had acquired a just claim: Gothicus was premature, and Francicus false and offensive to a great nation.
3. See the original acts in Baronius (A.D. 535, No. 21-54). The emperor applauds his own clemency to the heretics, cum sufficiat eis vivere.
4. Dupin (Geograph. Sacra Africana, p. lix. ad Optat. Milev.) observes and bewails this episcopal decay. In the more prosperous age of the church, he had noticed 690 bishoprics; but, however minute were the dioceses, it is not probable that they all existed at the same time. [Morcelli, Africa Christiana, vol. 1, enumerates 715 bishoprics, and observes (p. 372) that the list is not exhaustive.]