on confugiunt, Barbari tamen
esse coguntur, scilicet ut est pars magna Hispanorum, et non minima
Gallorum.... De Bagaudis nunc mihi sermo est, qui per malos judices
et cruentos spoliati, afflicti, necati postquam jus Romanae libertatis
amiserant, etiam honorem Romani nominis perdiderunt.... Vocamus
rabelles, vocamus perditos quos esse compulimua criminosos. De Gubernat.
Dei, l. v. p. 158, 159.]

Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire.--Part I.

Sack Of Rome By Genseric, King Of The Vandals.--His Naval
Depredations.--Succession Of The Last Emperors Of The West,
Maximus, Avitus, Majorian, Severus, Anthemius, Olybrius,
Glycerius, Nepos, Augustulus.--Total Extinction Of The
Western Empire.--Reign Of Odoacer, The First Barbarian King
Of Italy.

The loss or desolation of the provinces, from the Ocean to the Alps,
impaired the glory and greatness of Rome: her internal prosperity was
irretrievably destroyed by the separation of Africa. The rapacious
Vandals confiscated the patrimonial estates of the senators, and
intercepted the regular subsidies, which relieved the poverty and
encouraged the idleness of the plebeians. The distress of the Romans
was soon aggravated by an unexpected attack; and the province, so long
cultivated for their use by industrious and obedient subjects, was
armed against them by an ambitious Barbarian. The Vandals and Alani, who
followed the successful standard of Genseric, had acquired a rich and
fertile territory, which stretched along the coast above ninety days'
journey from Tangier to Tripoli; but their narrow limits were pressed
and confined, on either side, by the sandy desert and the Mediterranean.
The discovery and conquest of the Black nations, that might dwell
beneath the torrid zone, could not tempt the rational ambition of
Genseric; but he cast his eyes towards the sea; he resolved to create a
naval power, and his bold resolution was executed with steady and active
perseverance.

The woods of Mount Atlas afforded an inexhaustible nursery of
timber: his new subjects were skilled in the arts of navigation and
ship-building; he animated his daring Vandals to embrace a mode of
warfare which would render every maritime country accessible to their
arms; the Moors and Africans were allured by the hopes of plunder; and,
after an interval of six centuries, the fleets that issued from the port
of Carthage again claimed the empire of the Mediterra