Within three days of a popular tumult which closed in ignominy the life of another feeble emperor, Genseric advanced from the port of Ostia to the gates of the defenceless city. An unarmed procession, headed by the bishop and clergy, met him and implored his mercy. But, though the barbarian conqueror promised to spare the unresisting multitude, to protect the buildings from fire, and to exempt the captives from torture, Rome and its inhabitants were given over to the licentious mercies of his army—a tardy but terrible revenge for the Roman sack of Carthage. During fourteen days and nights there was one almost uninterrupted scene of plunder and sacrilege, and all that remained of public or private wealth, of sacred or profane treasure, was transported to the vessels of the Vandal king. The “gold table” and “the golden candlestick with seven branches,” which, three and a half centuries before, Titus had carried away from Jerusalem, were now transferred, by a barbarian conqueror, from Rome to Africa. The gorgeous decorations of the Christian churches, and of the Pagan temples, constituted a rich prize to the host of Genseric. Having time to collect and ships to transport any removable article of value in the capital, the conqueror spared neither church nor temple, dwelling-house, nor palace. The magnificent furniture and massive plate with which the palace of the emperor was furnished, were gathered up with disorderly rapine; even brass and copper were not beneath the notice of the Vandals, and were, whenever found, as carefully removed as articles of gold and silver. The Empress Eudoxia herself, at whose instigation, it is said, Genseric had been led to undertake his expedition, was compelled, with her daughters, to follow as a captive in the train of the conqueror, and to expiate, during a seven years’ exile in Africa, a treason of which her subjects alone had any ground of complaint.[345] [Sidenote: Rise of Constantinople.]