them a second time, let us
try their efficacy in the chastisement of perjury and the vindication of
their own honor." Their honor was vindicated in the field of Tebeste, by
the death of Solomon, and the total loss of his army. [411] The arrival
of fresh troops and more skilful commanders soon checked the insolence
of the Moors: seventeen of their princes were slain in the same battle;
and the doubtful and transient submission of their tribes was celebrated
with lavish applause by the people of Constantinople. Successive inroads
had reduced the province of Africa to one third of the measure of Italy;
yet the Roman emperors continued to reign above a century over Carthage
and the fruitful coast of the Mediterranean. But the victories and the
losses of Justinian were alike pernicious to mankind; and such was the
desolation of Africa, that in many parts a stranger might wander whole
days without meeting the face either of a friend or an enemy. The nation
of the Vandals had disappeared: they once amounted to a hundred and
sixty thousand warriors, without including the children, the women, or
the slaves. Their numbers were infinitely surpassed by the number of
the Moorish families extirpated in a relentless war; and the same
destruction was retaliated on the Romans and their allies, who perished
by the climate, their mutual quarrels, and the rage of the Barbarians.
When Procopius first landed, he admired the populousness of the cities
and country, strenuously exercised in the labors of commerce and
agriculture. In less than twenty years, that busy scene was converted
into a silent solitude; the wealthy citizens escaped to Sicily and
Constantinople; and the secret historian has confidently affirmed, that
five millions of Africans were consumed by the wars and government of
the emperor Justinian. [5]

[Footnote 3: The Moorish wars are occasionally introduced into the
narrative of Procopius, (Vandal. l. ii. c. 19--23, 25, 27, 28. Gothic.
l. iv. c. 17;) and Theophanes adds some prosperous and adverse events in
the last years of Justinian.]

[Footnote 4: Now Tibesh, in the kingdom of Algiers. It is watered by a
river, the Sujerass, which falls into the Mejerda, (Bagradas.) Tibesh
is still remarkable for its walls of large stones, (like the Coliseum of
Rome,) a fountain, and a grove of walnut-trees: the country is
fruitful, and the neighboring Bereberes are warlike. It appears from an
inscription, that, under the reign of Adrian,