bed to the policy, of the conqueror. His throne was
encompassed with domestic enemies, who accused the baseness of his
birth, and asserted the legitimate claims of his nephews, the sons of
Gonderic. Those nephews, indeed, he sacrificed to his safety; and their
mother, the widow of the deceased king, was precipitated, by his
order, into the river Ampsaga. But the public discontent burst forth in
dangerous and frequent conspiracies; and the warlike tyrant is supposed
to have shed more Vandal blood by the hand of the executioner, than in
the field of battle. The convulsions of Africa, which had favored his
attack, opposed the firm establishment of his power; and the various
seditions of the Moors and Germans, the Donatists and Catholics,
continually disturbed, or threatened, the unsettled reign of the
conqueror. As he advanced towards Carthage, he was forced to withdraw
his troops from the Western provinces; the sea-coast was exposed to the
naval enterprises of the Romans of Spain and Italy; and, in the heart
of Numidia, the strong inland city of Corta still persisted in obstinate
independence. These difficulties were gradually subdued by the spirit,
the perseverance, and the cruelty of Genseric; who alternately applied
the arts of peace and war to the establishment of his African kingdom.
He subscribed a solemn treaty, with the hope of deriving some advantage
from the term of its continuance, and the moment of its violation. The
vigilance of his enemies was relaxed by the protestations of friendship,
which concealed his hostile approach; and Carthage was at length
surprised by the Vandals, five hundred and eighty-five years after the
destruction of the city and republic by the younger Scipio.

A new city had arisen from its ruins, with the title of a colony; and
though Carthage might yield to the royal prerogatives of Constantinople,
and perhaps to the trade of Alexandria, or the splendor of Antioch, she
still maintained the second rank in the West; as the _Rome_ (if we may
use the style of contemporaries) of the African world. That wealthy and
opulent metropolis displayed, in a dependent condition, the image of a
flourishing republic. Carthage contained the manufactures, the arms,
and the treasures of the six provinces. A regular subordination of
civil honors gradually ascended from the procurators of the streets and
quarters of the city, to the tribunal of the supreme magistrate, who,
with the title of proconsul, represe