worshippers, waylay travellers, or insult courts of justice, in the hope of achieving martyrdom. Failing other resources, they would cast themselves headlong from some lofty rock. “In the actions of these desperate enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God, and abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial philosopher may discover the influence, and the last abuse, of that inflexible spirit which was originally derived from the character and principles of the Jewish nation.” Genseric, King of the Vandals, landed in Africa from Spain in A.D. 429. Born a Catholic, he embraced the Arian heresy, and made common cause with the African Donatists. He swept through Barbary, an easy conqueror. His fleets ravaged the coasts of Italy and Sicily. In A.D. 455 he sacked Rome. For a hundred years the rough Northmen held the fertile provinces. They rased the fortifications, but did not overthrow the Roman cities; they rather succumbed to their luxury. They did not destroy, but they constructed nothing. They had no thought of substituting their own institutions for those of the conquered races. They considered themselves merely a garrison, for which the country must provide subsistence. Their decadence commenced with the death of their leader. In the early part of the sixth century Byzantium set himself to take up the mantle which Rome had let fall. The great Justinian determined to make good his claim to all the former possessions of the Empire. The Vandals were in no condition to offer a vigorous resistance. The native population was everywhere in revolt. The tribes of the Aurès descended from their mountains and sacked the fair cities which had been raised under the protection of the Third Legion—Tebessa, Bagai, Lambessa, and Timgad. Belisarius, the Byzantine general, landed in Tripoli in A.D. 533, and, marching rapidly westward, met with little resistance. In a few years a great part of the corn-growing districts was brought under effective control. All the ports were held by Byzantine garrisons. Barbary was to experience an Indian summer.