ve the pity, of
the inexorable tyrant. After a reign of thirty days, Gontharis himself
was stabbed at a banquet by the hand of Artaban; [1002] and it is
singular enough, that an Armenian prince, of the royal family of
Arsaces, should reestablish at Carthage the authority of the Roman
empire. In the conspiracy which unsheathed the dagger of Brutus against
the life of Caesar, every circumstance is curious and important to the
eyes of posterity; but the guilt or merit of these loyal or rebellious
assassins could interest only the contemporaries of Procopius, who, by
their hopes and fears, their friendship or resentment, were personally
engaged in the revolutions of Africa. [2]

[Footnote 1: For the troubles of Africa, I neither have nor desire
another guide than Procopius, whose eye contemplated the image, and
whose ear collected the reports, of the memorable events of his own
times. In the second book of the Vandalic war he relates the revolt of
Stoza, (c. 14--24,) the return of Belisarius, (c. 15,) the victory of
Germanus, (c. 16, 17, 18,) the second administration of Solomon, (c. 19,
20, 21,) the government of Sergius, (c. 22, 23,) of Areobindus, (c.
24,) the tyranny and death of Gontharis, (c. 25, 26, 27, 28;) nor can
I discern any symptoms of flattery or malevolence in his various
portraits.]

[Footnote 1001: Corippus gives a different account of the death of
Stoza; he was transfixed by an arrow from the hand of John, (not the
hero of his poem) who broke desperately through the victorious troops of
the enemy. Stoza repented, says the poet, of his treasonous rebellion,
and anticipated--another Cataline--eternal torments as his punishment.

Reddam, improba, poenas Quas merui.
Furiis socius Catilina cruentis Exagitatus adest.
Video jam Tartara, fundo Flammarumque globos, et clara incendia volvi.
--Johannidos, book iv. line 211.

All the other authorities confirm Gibbon's account of the death of John
by the hand of Stoza. This poem of Corippus, unknown to Gibbon, was
first published by Mazzuchelli during the present century, and is
reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine writers.--M]

[Footnote 1002: This murder was prompted to the Armenian (according to
Corippus) by Athanasius, (then praefect of Africa.)

Hunc placidus cana gravitate coegit
Inumitera mactare virum.
--Corripus, vol. iv. p. 237--M.]

[Footnote 2: Yet I must not refuse him the merit of painting, in
lively colors, the murde