number of their subordinate officers, clerks, messengers, or assistants,
was minutely expressed; three hundred and ninety-six for the praefect
himself, fifty for each of his vicegerents; and the rigid definition of
their fees and salaries was more effectual to confirm the right than to
prevent the abuse. These magistrates might be oppressive, but they
were not idle; and the subtile questions of justice and revenue were
infinitely propagated under the new government, which professed to
revive the freedom and equity of the Roman republic. The conqueror was
solicitous to extract a prompt and plentiful supply from his African
subjects; and he allowed them to claim, even in the third degree, and
from the collateral line, the houses and lands of which their families
had been unjustly despoiled by the Vandals. After the departure of
Belisarius, who acted by a high and special commission, no ordinary
provision was made for a master-general of the forces; but the office
of Praetorian praefect was intrusted to a soldier; the civil and military
powers were united, according to the practice of Justinian, in the chief
governor; and the representative of the emperor in Africa, as well as in
Italy, was soon distinguished by the appellation of Exarch.

Yet the conquest of Africa was imperfect till her former sovereign was
delivered, either alive or dead, into the hands of the Romans. Doubtful
of the event, Gelimer had given secret orders that a part of his
treasure should be transported to Spain, where he hoped to find a secure
refuge at the court of the king of the Visigoths. But these intentions
were disappointed by accident, treachery, and the indefatigable pursuit
of his enemies, who intercepted his flight from the sea-shore, and
chased the unfortunate monarch, with some faithful followers, to the
inaccessible mountain of Papua, in the inland country of Numidia. He was
immediately besieged by Pharas, an officer whose truth and sobriety were
the more applauded, as such qualities could seldom be found among the
Heruli, the most corrupt of the Barbarian tribes. To his vigilance
Belisarius had intrusted this important charge and, after a bold attempt
to scale the mountain, in which he lost a hundred and ten soldiers,
Pharas expected, during a winter siege, the operation of distress
and famine on the mind of the Vandal king. From the softest habits of
pleasure, from the unbounded command of industry and wealth, he
was reduced to share th