the use of poison; and if the trembling guests, who were invited to
the table of Gildo, presumed to express fears, the insolent suspicion
served only to excite his fury, and he loudly summoned the ministers of
death. Gildo alternately indulged the passions of avarice and lust;
[38] and if his days were terrible to the rich, his nights were not
less dreadful to husbands and parents. The fairest of their wives and
daughters were prostituted to the embraces of the tyrant; and afterwards
abandoned to a ferocious troop of Barbarians and assassins, the black,
or swarthy, natives of the desert; whom Gildo considered as the only of
his throne. In the civil war between Theodosius and Eugenius, the count,
or rather the sovereign, of Africa, maintained a haughty and suspicious
neutrality; refused to assist either of the contending parties with
troops or vessels, expected the declaration of fortune, and reserved for
the conqueror the vain professions of his allegiance. Such professions
would not have satisfied the master of the Roman world; but the death
of Theodosius, and the weakness and discord of his sons, confirmed the
power of the Moor; who condescended, as a proof of his moderation,
to abstain from the use of the diadem, and to supply Rome with the
customary tribute, or rather subsidy, of corn. In every division of the
empire, the five provinces of Africa were invariably assigned to the
West; and Gildo had to govern that extensive country in the name of
Honorius, but his knowledge of the character and designs of Stilicho
soon engaged him to address his homage to a more distant and feeble
sovereign. The ministers of Arcadius embraced the cause of a perfidious
rebel; and the delusive hope of adding the numerous cities of Africa to
the empire of the East, tempted them to assert a claim, which they were
incapable of supporting, either by reason or by arms. [39]

[Footnote 37: Claudian may have exaggerated the vices of Gildo; but his
Moorish extraction, his notorious actions, and the complaints of St.
Augustin, may justify the poet's invectives. Baronius (Annal. Eccles.
A.D. 398, No. 35-56) has treated the African rebellion with skill and
learning.]

[Footnote 38:

Instat terribilis vivis, morientibus haeres,
Virginibus raptor, thalamis obscoenus adulter.
Nulla quies: oritur praeda cessante libido,
Divitibusque dies, et nox metuenda maritis.
Mauris clarissima quaeque
Fastidita datur.
----De