atitude, a
favor so inadequate to their pretensions, and the virtues of Hilderic
offended the prejudices of his countrymen. The Arian clergy presumed to
insinuate that he had renounced the faith, and the soldiers more loudly
complained that he had degenerated from the courage, of his ancestors.
His ambassadors were suspected of a secret and disgraceful negotiation
in the Byzantine court; and his general, the Achilles, [3] as he was
named, of the Vandals, lost a battle against the naked and disorderly
Moors. The public discontent was exasperated by Gelimer, whose
age, descent, and military fame, gave him an apparent title to the
succession: he assumed, with the consent of the nation, the reins of
government; and his unfortunate sovereign sunk without a struggle from
the throne to a dungeon, where he was strictly guarded with a faithful
counsellor, and his unpopular nephew the Achilles of the Vandals. But
the indulgence which Hilderic had shown to his Catholic subjects had
powerfully recommended him to the favor of Justinian, who, for the
benefit of his own sect, could acknowledge the use and justice of
religious toleration: their alliance, while the nephew of Justin
remained in a private station, was cemented by the mutual exchange
of gifts and letters; and the emperor Justinian asserted the cause of
royalty and friendship. In two successive embassies, he admonished the
usurper to repent of his treason, or to abstain, at least, from any
further violence which might provoke the displeasure of God and of the
Romans; to reverence the laws of kindred and succession, and to suffer
an infirm old man peaceably to end his days, either on the throne of
Carthage or in the palace of Constantinople. The passions, or even the
prudence, of Gelimer compelled him to reject these requests, which were
urged in the haughty tone of menace and command; and he justified his
ambition in a language rarely spoken in the Byzantine court, by alleging
the right of a free people to remove or punish their chief magistrate,
who had failed in the execution of the kingly office.

After this fruitless expostulation, the captive monarch was more
rigorously treated, his nephew was deprived of his eyes, and the cruel
Vandal, confident in his strength and distance, derided the vain threats
and slow preparations of the emperor of the East. Justinian resolved to
deliver or revenge his friend, Gelimer to maintain his usurpation; and
the war was preceded, accord