CHAP. He is exe cuted at Carthage, A. D. 376. State of But the Africa had been lost by the vices of Romanus ; it was restored by the virtues of Theodosius: and our curiosity may be usefully directed to the inquiry of the respective treatment which the two generals received from the imperial court. The authority of Count Romanus had been suspended by the master-general of the cavalry; and he was committed to safe and honourable custody till the end of the war. His crimes were proved by the most authentic evidence; and the public expected, with some inpatience, the decree of severe justice. partial and powerful favour of Mellobaudes encouraged him to challenge his legal judges, to obtain repeated delays for the purpose of procuring a crowd of friendly witnesses, and, finally, to cover his guilty conduct, by the additional guilt of fraud and forgery. About the same time, the restorer of Britain and Africa, on a vague suspicion that his name and services were superior to the rank of a subject, was ignominiously beheaded at Carthage. Valentinian no longer reigned; and the death of Theodosius, as well as the impunity of Romanus, may justly be imputed to the arts of the ministers who abused the confidence, and deceived the inexperienced youth, of his sons ‡. If the geographical accuracy of Ammianus had been fortunately bestowed on the British exploits of Theodosius, we should have traced, with eager curiosity, * Ammianus, xxviii. 4. Orosius, 1. vii. c. 33. p. 551, 552. Jerom. in Chron. p. 187. XXV. curiosity, the distinct and domestic footsteps of CHAP. his march. But the tedious enumeration of the unknown and uninteresting tribes of Africa may be reduced to the general remark, that they were all of the swarthy race of the Moors; that they inhabited the back settlements of the Mauritanian and Numidian provinces, the country, as they have since been termed by the Arabs, of dates and of locusts *; and that, as the Roman power declined in Africa, the boundary of civilized manners and cultivated land was insensibly contracted. Beyond the utmost limits of the Moors, the vast and inhospitable desert of the South extends above a thousand miles to the banks of the Niger. The ancients who had a very faint and imperfect knowledge of the great peninsula of Africa, were sometimes tempted to believe, that the torrid zone must ever remain destitute of inhabitants † and they sometimes amused their fancy by filling the vacant space with headless men, or rather monsters; with horned X 3 * Leo Africanus (in the Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 78 -83.) has traced a curious picture of the people and the country; which are more minutely described in the Afrique de Marmol. tom. iii. P. 1-54. This uninhabitable zone was gradually reduced, by the improvements of ancient geography, from forty-five to twen ty-four, or even sixteen, degrees of latitude. See a learned and judicious note of Dr Robertson, Hist. of America, vol. i. p. 426. Intra, si credere libet, vix jam homines et magis semiferi .. Blemmyes, Satyri, &c. Pomponius Mela, i. 4. p. 26. edit. Voss. in 8vo. Pliny philosophically explains (vi. 35.) the irregularities of nature, which he had credulously admitted (v. 8.). XXV. CHAP. horned and cloven-footed satyrs; with fabu lous centaurs; and with human pigmies, who waged a bold and doubtful warfare against the cranes. Carthage would have trembled at the strange intelligence, that the countries, on either. side of the equator, were filled with innumerable nations, who differed only in their colour from the ordinary appearance of the human species; and the subjects of the Roman empire might have anxiously expected, that the swarms of Barbarians, which issued from the North, would soon be encountered from the South by new swarms of Barbarians, equally fierce, and equally formidable. These gloomy terrors would indeedhave been dispelled by a more intimate acquaintance with the character of their African enemies. The inaction of the negroes does not seem to be the *If the satyr was the Ourang-outang, the great human ape (Buffon, Hist. Nat. tom. xiv. p. 43, &c.), one of that species might actually be shewn alive at Alexandria in the reign of Constantine. Yet some difficulty will still remain about the conversation which St Anthony held with one of these pious savages in the desert of Thebais (Jerom. in Vit. Paul, Eremit. tom. i. p. 238.). ↑ St Anthony likewise met one of these monsters; whose existence was seriously asserted by the emperor Claudius. The public laughed; but this præfect of Egypt had the address to send an artful preparation, the embalmed corpse of an Hippocentaur; which was preserved almost a century afterwards in the imperial palace. See Pliny (Hist. Natur. vii. 3.), and the judicious observations of Freret (Mémoires de l'Acad. tom. vii. p. 321, &c.). The fable of the pygmies is as old as Homer (Iliad. iii. 6.). The pigmies of India and Ethiopia were (trispithami) twenty-seven inches high. Every spring their cavalry (mounted on rams and goats) marched in battle array, to destroy the cranes eggs, aliter (says Pliny) futuris gregibus non resisti. Their houses were built of mud, feathers, and egg-shells. Sce Pliny (vi. 35. vii. 2.), and Strabo (l. ii. p. 121.). ́ XXV. the effect, either of their virtue, or of their pù- CHAP. sillanimity. They indulge, like the rest of mankind, their passions and appetites; and the adjacent tribes are engaged in frequent acts of hostility *. But their rude ignorance has never invented any effectual weapons of defence, or of destruction; they appear incapable of forming any extensive plans of government, or conquest; and the obvious inferiority of their mental faculties has been discovered and abused by the nations of the temperate zone. Sixty thousand blacks are annually embarked from the coast of Guinea, never to return to their native country; but they are embarked in chains : and this constant emigration, which, in the space of two centuries, might have furnished armies to overrun the globe, accuses the guilt of Europe, and the weakness of Africa. IV. The EAST. The Per sian war, A. D. IV. The ignominious treaty which saved the army of Jovian, had been faithfully executed on the side of the Romans: and as they had solemnly renounced the sovereign and alliance of Ar- 365-3781 menia and Iberia, those tributary kingdoms were exposed, without protection, to the arms of the Persian monarch Sapor entered the Arme * The third and fourth volumes of the valuable Histoire des Voyages describe the present state of the negroes. The nations of the sea-coast have been polished by European commerce; and those of the inland country have been improved by Moorish colonies. + Histoire Philosophique et Politique, &c. tom. iv. p. 192. The evidence of Ammianus is original and decisive (xxvii. 12.). Moses of Chorene (1. iii. c. 17. p. 249. and c. 31. p. 269.), and Procopius (de Bell. Persico, 1. i. c. 5. p. 17. edit. Louvre), have been consulted: but those historians, who confound distinct facts, repeat the same events, and introduce strange stories, must be used with diffidence and caution. XXV. CHAP. nian territories at the head of a formidable host of cuirassiers, of archers, and of mercenary foot; but it was the invariable practice of Sapor to mix war and negociation, and to consider falsehood and perjury as the most powerful instruments of regal policy. He affected to praise the prudent and moderate conduct of the king of Armenia; and the unsuspicious Tiranus was persuaded, by the repeated assurances of insidious friendship, to deliver his person into the hands of a faithless and cruel enemy. In the midst of a splendid entertainment, he was bound in chains of silver, as an honour due to the blood of the Arsacides; and, after a short confinement in the Tower of Oblivion at Ecbatana, he was released from the miseries of life, either by his own dagger, or by that of an assassin. The kingdom of Armenia was reduced to the state of a Persian province; the administration was shared between a distinguished satrap and a favourite eunuch; and Sapor marched, without delay, to subdue the mar tial spirit of the Iberians. Sauromaces, who reigned in that country by the permission of the emperors, was expelled by a superior force; and, as an insult on the majesty of Rome, the King of kings placed a diadem on the head of his abject vassal Aspacuras. The city of Artogerassa * was the only place of Armenia which presumed to * Perhaps Artagera, or Ardis; under whose walls Caius, the grandson of Augustus, was wounded. This fortress was situate above Amida, near one of the sources of the Tigris. See d'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 106. |