d almost
bloodless, victory. [51] The tyrant escaped from the field of battle to
the sea-shore; and threw himself into a small vessel, with the hope of
reaching in safety some friendly port of the empire of the East; but the
obstinacy of the wind drove him back into the harbor of Tabraca, [52]
which had acknowledged, with the rest of the province, the dominion of
Honorius, and the authority of his lieutenant. The inhabitants, as a
proof of their repentance and loyalty, seized and confined the person of
Gildo in a dungeon; and his own despair saved him from the intolerable
torture of supporting the presence of an injured and victorious brother.
[53] The captives and the spoils of Africa were laid at the feet of the
emperor; but more sincere, in the midst of prosperity, still affected to
consult the laws of the republic; and referred to the senate and people
of Rome the judgment of the most illustrious criminals. [54] Their trial
was public and solemn; but the judges, in the exercise of this obsolete
and precarious jurisdiction, were impatient to punish the African
magistrates, who had intercepted the subsistence of the Roman people.
The rich and guilty province was oppressed by the Imperial ministers,
who had a visible interest to multiply the number of the accomplices of
Gildo; and if an edict of Honorius seems to check the malicious
industry of informers, a subsequent edict, at the distance of ten years,
continues and renews the prosecution of the which had been committed in
the time of the general rebellion. [55] The adherents of the tyrant who
escaped the first fury of the soldiers, and the judges, might derive
some consolation from the tragic fate of his brother, who could never
obtain his pardon for the extraordinary services which he had performed.
After he had finished an important war in the space of a single winter,
Mascezel was received at the court of Milan with loud applause, affected
gratitude, and secret jealousy; [56] and his death, which, perhaps, was
the effect of passage of a bridge, the Moorish prince, who accompanied
the master-general of the West, was suddenly thrown from his horse into
the river; the officious haste of the attendants was on the countenance
of Stilicho; and while they delayed the necessary assistance, the
unfortunate Mascezel was irrecoverably drowned. [57]

[Footnote 49: Orosius must be responsible for the account. The
presumption of Gildo and his various train of Barbarians is cele