in the luxury of the Roman
province, were delivered, with exquisite cruelty, to the Moors of the
desert. A venerable train of bishops, presbyters, and deacons, with a
faithful crowd of four thousand and ninety-six persons, whose guilt is
not precisely ascertained, were torn from their native homes, by the
command of Hunneric. During the night they were confined, like a herd of
cattle, amidst their own ordure: during the day they pursued their march
over the burning sands; and if they fainted under the heat and fatigue,
they were goaded, or dragged along, till they expired in the hands of
their tormentors. These unhappy exiles, when they reached the Moorish
huts, might excite the compassion of a people, whose native humanity
was neither improved by reason, nor corrupted by fanaticism: but if
they escaped the dangers, they were condemned to share the distress of a
savage life. V. It is incumbent on the authors of persecution previously
to reflect, whether they are determined to support it in the last
extreme. They excite the flame which they strive to extinguish; and it
soon becomes necessary to chastise the contumacy, as well as the crime,
of the offender. The fine, which he is unable or unwilling to discharge,
exposes his person to the severity of the law; and his contempt of
lighter penalties suggests the use and propriety of capital punishment.
Through the veil of fiction and declamation we may clearly perceive,
that the Catholics more especially under the reign of Hunneric, endured
the most cruel and ignominious treatment. Respectable citizens, noble
matrons, and consecrated virgins, were stripped naked, and raised in the
air by pulleys, with a weight suspended at their feet. In this painful
attitude their naked bodies were torn with scourges, or burnt in the
most tender parts with red-hot plates of iron. The amputation of the
ears the nose, the tongue, and the right hand, was inflicted by the
Arians; and although the precise number cannot be defined, it is evident
that many persons, among whom a bishop and a proconsul may be named,
were entitled to the crown of martyrdom. The same honor has been
ascribed to the memory of Count Sebastian, who professed the Nicene
creed with unshaken constancy; and Genseric might detest, as a heretic,
the brave and ambitious fugitive whom he dreaded as a rival. VI. A
new mode of conversion, which might subdue the feeble, and alarm the
timorous, was employed by the Arian ministers. They