Having made himself master of Carthage, and having confiscated all the estates belonging to the Roman nobles and senators, Genseric at once resolved to build a fleet for the blockade of the Tiber, and to treat the Imperial City as she had treated Carthage. His bold resolve was executed with steady and active perseverance. The woods on Mount Atlas afforded an inexhaustible supply of timber suitable for his purpose, while the Moors and Africans, alike skilled in the arts of ship-building and navigation, were ready to execute commands which held out the hope of unlimited plunder. Nor, indeed, was Genseric without other and certain inducements to act at once on the plan he had proposed to himself. In the first place, he could hardly have failed to know that since the invasion of Alaric, the nobles and senators of Rome had sunk into their former state of apathy and indolence; that they were giving no heed to the dangers besetting their capital, while they had taken no warning from the losses they had sustained by the frequent invasions of the barbarians. “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof” had become their maxim and that of the Emperor Maximus, who, however incapable of administering an empire, might at least have ascertained the extent and the object of the naval preparations on the opposite shore of Africa. Yet, like his nobles, he was content to await in luxurious ease the approach of the enemy, careless alike of any means of defence, of negotiation, or of retreat.[344] [Sidenote: His capture of Rome.]