o servitude, the genius
of Belisarius must have secretly rebelled. He was immediately declared
consul for the ensuing year, and the day of his inauguration resembled
the pomp of a second triumph: his curule chair was borne aloft on the
shoulders of captive Vandals; and the spoils of war, gold cups, and rich
girdles, were profusely scattered among the populace.

Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.--Part III.

But the purest reward of Belisarius was in the faithful execution of a
treaty for which his honor had been pledged to the king of the Vandals.
The religious scruples of Gelimer, who adhered to the Arian heresy, were
incompatible with the dignity of senator or patrician: but he received
from the emperor an ample estate in the province of Galatia, where the
abdicated monarch retired, with his family and friends, to a life of
peace, of affluence, and perhaps of content. The daughters of Hilderic
were entertained with the respectful tenderness due to their age and
misfortune; and Justinian and Theodora accepted the honor of educating
and enriching the female descendants of the great Theodosius. The
bravest of the Vandal youth were distributed into five squadrons of
cavalry, which adopted the name of their benefactor, and supported
in the Persian wars the glory of their ancestors. But these rare
exceptions, the reward of birth or valor, are insufficient to explain
the fate of a nation, whose numbers before a short and bloodless war,
amounted to more than six hundred thousand persons. After the exile of
their king and nobles, the servile crowd might purchase their safety by
abjuring their character, religion, and language; and their degenerate
posterity would be insensibly mingled with the common herd of African
subjects. Yet even in the present age, and in the heart of the Moorish
tribes, a curious traveller has discovered the white complexion and long
flaxen hair of a northern race; and it was formerly believed, that the
boldest of the Vandals fled beyond the power, or even the knowledge,
of the Romans, to enjoy their solitary freedom on the shores of the
Atlantic Ocean. Africa had been their empire, it became their prison;
nor could they entertain a hope, or even a wish, of returning to the
banks of the Elbe, where their brethren, of a spirit less adventurous,
still wandered in their native forests. It was impossible for cowards
to surmount the barriers of unknown seas and hostile Barbar