ophrasto, in Biblioth. Patrum, tom.
viii. p. 664, 665. He was a Christian, and composed this Dialogue (the
Theophrastus) on the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of
the body; besides twenty-five Epistles, still extant. See Cave, (Hist.
Litteraria, p. 297,) and Fabricius, (Biblioth. Graec. tom. i. p. 422.)]

[Footnote 125: Justinian. Codex. l. i. tit. xxvii. Marcellin. in Chron.
p. 45, in Thesaur. Temporum Scaliger. Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i.
c. 7. p. 196. Gregor. Magnus, Dialog. iii. 32. None of these witnesses
have specified the number of the confessors, which is fixed at sixty in
an old menology, (apud Ruinart. p. 486.) Two of them lost their speech
by fornication; but the miracle is enhanced by the singular instance of
a boy who had never spoken before his tongue was cut out. ]

The Vandals and the Ostrogoths persevered in the profession of Arianism
till the final ruin of the kingdoms which they had founded in Africa and
Italy. The Barbarians of Gaul submitted to the orthodox dominion of the
Franks; and Spain was restored to the Catholic church by the voluntary
conversion of the Visigoths.

This salutary revolution [126] was hastened by the example of a royal
martyr, whom our calmer reason may style an ungrateful rebel. Leovigild,
the Gothic monarch of Spain, deserved the respect of his enemies, and
the love of his subjects; the Catholics enjoyed a free toleration, and
his Arian synods attempted, without much success, to reconcile their
scruples by abolishing the unpopular rite of a second baptism. His
eldest son Hermenegild, who was invested by his father with the royal
diadem, and the fair principality of Boetica, contracted an honorable
and orthodox alliance with a Merovingian princess, the daughter of
Sigebert, king of Austrasia, and of the famous Brunechild. The beauteous
Ingundis, who was no more than thirteen years of age, was received,
beloved, and persecuted, in the Arian court of Toledo; and her religious
constancy was alternately assaulted with blandishments and violence by
Goisvintha, the Gothic queen, who abused the double claim of maternal
authority. [127] Incensed by her resistance, Goisvintha seized the
Catholic princess by her long hair, inhumanly dashed her against the
ground, kicked her till she was covered with blood, and at last
gave orders that she should be stripped, and thrown into a basin, or
fish-pond. [128] Love and honor might excite Hermenegild to resent this
injuriou