arians, who, in the
division of the booty, separated the wives from their husbands, and
the children from their parents. The charity of Deogratias, bishop of
Carthage, was their only consolation and support. He generously sold the
gold and silver plate of the church to purchase the freedom of some, to
alleviate the slavery of others, and to assist the wants and infirmities
of a captive multitude, whose health was impaired by the hardships which
they had suffered in their passage from Italy to Africa. By his order,
two spacious churches were converted into hospitals; the sick were
distributed into convenient beds, and liberally supplied with food and
medicines; and the aged prelate repeated his visits both in the day
and night, with an assiduity that surpassed his strength, and a tender
sympathy which enhanced the value of his services. Compare this scene
with the field of Cannae; and judge between Hannibal and the successor of
St. Cyprian.

The deaths of AEtius and Valentinian had relaxed the ties which held
the Barbarians of Gaul in peace and subordination. The sea-coast was
infested by the Saxons; the Alemanni and the Franks advanced from the
Rhine to the Seine; and the ambition of the Goths seemed to meditate
more extensive and permanent conquests. The emperor Maximus relieved
himself, by a judicious choice, from the weight of these distant cares;
he silenced the solicitations of his friends, listened to the voice of
fame, and promoted a stranger to the general command of the forces of
Gaul. Avitus, the stranger, whose merit was so nobly rewarded, descended
from a wealthy and honorable family in the diocese of Auvergne. The
convulsions of the times urged him to embrace, with the same ardor, the
civil and military professions: and the indefatigable youth blended the
studies of literature and jurisprudence with the exercise of arms and
hunting. Thirty years of his life were laudably spent in the public
service; he alternately displayed his talents in war and negotiation;
and the soldier of AEtius, after executing the most important embassies,
was raised to the station of Praetorian praefect of Gaul. Either the merit
of Avitus excited envy, or his moderation was desirous of repose, since
he calmly retired to an estate, which he possessed in the neighborhood
of Clermont. A copious stream, issuing from the mountain, and falling
headlong in many a loud and foaming cascade, discharged its waters into
a lake about two miles