Establishment of the Vandals in Africa
By J.
WHEN Christ abides in the human heart, he is in it as an immortal hope.—Pres. Culross.436 Establishment of the Vandals in Africa.
GIBBON speaks above, of "the invitation which" the Vandals "received from Count Boniface." The way in which that invitation was brought about was this: In the narrative which we have given of the Visigoths under Adolphus the successor of Alaric, Placidia will be remembered as the sister of the Emperor Honorius and the wife of Adolphus. After the death of her husband, she was restored by Wallia, about A. D. 416, to her brother Honorius in exchange for 600,000 measures (about 150,000 bushels) of wheat. After her return she was given by Honorius, much against her will, in marriage to Constantius, a Roman general, and became the mother of a daughter—Honoria—and a son, who, at the age of six years, and under the title of Valentinian III., succeeded to the throne of the western empire. Honorius died Aug. 27, A. D. 423, and the vacant throne was usurped two years by John the Secretary. At this time Placidia was at Constantinople under the protection of her nephew Theodosius the Younger, and Theodosius resolved [A. D. 425] to place Valentinian on the throne of the West. Valentinian being only six years old, and his father being dead, upon Placidia was bestowed the important office of regent during the minority of her son; this authority she exercised twenty-five years—from A. D. 425 to 450. "Her armies were commanded by two generals—Ætius and Boniface—who may be deservedly named as the last of the Romans. Their union might have supported a sinking empire; their discord was the fatal and immediate cause of the loss of Africa."—Dec. and Fall, chap. 33, par. 4. Count Boniface was in command in Africa; Ætius commanded the troops of the empire in Italy; and he concocted a conspiracy to destroy Boniface. "Ætius possessed an advantage of singular moment in a female reign; he was present; he besieged, with artful and insidious flattery, the palace of Ravenna, disguised his dark designs with the mask of loyalty and friendship, and at length deceived both his mistress and his absent rival, by a subtle conspiracy which a weak woman and a brave man could not easily suspect. He had secretly persuaded Placidia to recall [A. D. 427] Boniface from the government of Africa; he secretly advised Boniface to disobey the Imperial summons; to the one he represented the order as a sentence of death; to the other he stated the refusal as a signal of revolt; and when the credulous and unsuspectful Count had armed the province in his defense, Ætius applauded his sagacity in foreseeing the rebellion which his own perfidy had excited. A temperate inquiry into the real motives of Boniface would have restored a faithful servant to his duty and to the republic; but the arts of Ætius still continued to betray and to inflame, and the Count was urged by persecution to embrace the most desperate counsels. The success with which he eluded or repelled the first attacks, could not inspire a vain confidence, that, at the head of some loose, disorderly Africans, he should be able to withstand the regular forces of the West, commanded by a rival, whose military character it was impossible for him to despise. After some hesitation, the last struggles of prudence and loyalty, Boniface dispatched a trusty friend to the court, or rather to the camp, of Gonderic, king of the Vandals, with the proposal of a strict alliance, and the offer of an advantageous and perpetual settlement."—Id. These were the events and this "the invitation" that brought the nation of the Vandals into Africa. The treachery of Ætius was discovered shortly afterward; but the mischief was done, and it was too late to remedy it. "The long and narrow tract of the African coast was filled with frequent monuments of Roman art and magnificence; and the respective degrees of improvement might be accurately measured by the distance from Carthage and the Mediterranean. A simple reflection will impress every thinking mind with the clearest idea of fertility and cultivation. The country was extremely populous; the inhabitants reserved a liberal subsistence for their own use; and the annual exportation, particularly of wheat, was so regular and plentiful that Africa deserved the name of the common granary of Rome and of mankind. On a sudden the seven fruitful provinces, from Tangier to Tripoli, were overwhelmed by the invasion of the Vandals, whose destructive rage has perhaps been exaggerated by popular animosity, religious zeal, and extravagant declamation. "War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice; and the hostilities of barbarians are inflamed by the fierce and lawless spirit which incessantly disturbs their peaceful and domestic society. The Vandals, where they found resistance, seldom gave quarter; and the deaths of their valiant countrymen were expiated by the ruin of the cities under whose walls they had fallen. Careless of the distinctions of age, or sex, or rank, they employed every species of indignity and torture to force from the captives a discovery of their hidden wealth. The stern policy of Genseric justified his frequent examples of military execution; he was not always the master of his own passions, or of those of his followers; and the calamities of war were aggravated by the licentiousness of the Moors and the fanaticism of the Donatists. "The court and the people were astonished by the strange intelligence, that a virtuous hero, after so many favors and so many services, had renounced his allegiance, and invited the barbarians to destroy the province intrusted to his command. The friends of Boniface, who still believed that his criminal behavior might be excused by some honorable motive, solicited, during the absence of Ætius, a free conference with the Count of Africa; and Darius, an officer of high distinction, was named for the important embassy. In their first interview at Carthage, the imaginary provocations were mutually explained; the opposite letters of Ætius were produced and compared; and the fraud was easily detected. "Placidia and Boniface lamented their fatal error; and the Count had sufficient magnanimity to confide in the forgiveness of his sovereign, or to expose his head to her future resentment. His repentance was fervent and sincere; but he soon discovered that it was no longer in his power to restore the edifice which he had shaken to its foundations. Carthage and the Roman garrisons returned with their general to the allegiance of Valentinian; but the rest of Africa was still distracted with war and faction; and the inexorable king of the Vandals, disdaining all terms of accommodation, sternly refused to relinquish the possession of his prey. The band of veterans who marched under the standard of Boniface, and his hasty levies of provincial troops, were defeated with considerable loss; the victorious barbarians insulted the open country; and Carthage, Corta, and Hippo Regius were the only cities that appeared to rise above the general inundation. "The generous mind of Count Boniface was tortured by the exquisite distress of beholding the ruin which he had occasioned, and whose rapid progress he was unable to check. After the loss of a battle, he retired into Hippo Regius, where [A. D. 430, May] he was immediately besieged by an enemy who considered him as the real bulwark of Africa. The maritime colony of Hippo, about two hundred miles westward of Carthage, had formerly acquired the distinguishing epithet of Regius, from the residence of Numidian kings; and some remains of trade and populousness still adhere to the modern city, which is known in Europe by the corrupted name of Bona. The military labors and anxious reflections of Count Boniface were alleviated by the edifying conversation of his friend St. Augustine, till that bishop, the light and pillar of the Catholic church, was gently released [A. D. 430, Aug. 28] in the third month of the siege, and in the seventy-sixth year of his age, from the actual and the impending calamities of his country."—Dec. and Fall, chap. 33, par. 9, 8, 10.