e capital; the new port, a
secure and capacious harbor, was subservient to the commercial indus
try of citizens and strangers; and the splendid games of the circus and
theatre were exhibited almost in the presence of the Barbarians. The
reputation of the Carthaginians was not equal to that of their country,
and the reproach of Punic faith still adhered to their subtle and
faithless character. [39] The habits of trade, and the abuse of luxury,
had corrupted their manners; but their impious contempt of monks, and
the shameless practice of unnatural lusts, are the two abominations
which excite the pious vehemence of Salvian, the preacher of the age.
[40] The king of the Vandals severely reformed the vices of a voluptuous
people; and the ancient, noble, ingenuous freedom of Carthage (these
expressions of Victor are not without energy) was reduced by Genseric
into a state of ignominious servitude. After he had permitted his
licentious troops to satiate their rage and avarice, he instituted a
more regular system of rapine and oppression. An edict was promulgated,
which enjoined all persons, without fraud or delay, to deliver their
gold, silver, jewels, and valuable furniture or apparel, to the royal
officers; and the attempt to secrete any part of their patrimony was
inexorably punished with death and torture, as an act of treason against
the state. The lands of the proconsular province, which formed the
immediate district of Carthage, were accurately measured, and divided
among the Barbarians; and the conqueror reserved for his peculiar domain
the fertile territory of Byzacium, and the adjacent parts of Numidia and
Getulia. [41]

[Footnote 38: The picture of Carthage; as it flourished in the fourth
and fifth centuries, is taken from the Expositio totius Mundi, p. 17,
18, in the third volume of Hudson's Minor Geographers, from Ausonius
de Claris Urbibus, p. 228, 229; and principally from Salvian, de
Gubernatione Dei, l. vii. p. 257, 258.]

[Footnote 39: The anonymous author of the Expositio totius Mundi
compares in his barbarous Latin, the country and the inhabitants; and,
after stigmatizing their want of faith, he coolly concludes, Difficile
autem inter eos invenitur bonus, tamen in multis pauci boni esse possunt
P. 18.]

[Footnote 40: He declares, that the peculiar vices of each country were
collected in the sink of Carthage, (l. vii. p. 257.) In the indulgence
of vice, the Africans applauded their manly virtue. Et illi