History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
chariot-races, and the music and dances of the theatre.
16 (return) [ A centurion of Mark Antony expressed, though in a
more manly train, the same dislike to the sea and to naval
combats, (Plutarch in Antonio, p. 1730, edit. Hen. Steph.)]
1611 (return) [ Rather into the present Lake of Tunis. Lord
Mahon, p. 92.—M.]
17 (return) [ Sullecte is perhaps the Turris Hannibalis, an old
building, now as large as the Tower of London. The march of
Belisarius to Leptis. Adrumetum, &c., is illustrated by the
campaign of Caesar, (Hirtius, de Bello Africano, with the Analyse
of Guichardt,) and Shaw’s Travels (p. 105—113) in the same
country.]
18 (return) [ The paradises, a name and fashion adopted from
Persia, may be represented by the royal garden of Ispahan,
(Voyage d’Olearius, p. 774.) See, in the Greek romances, their
most perfect model, (Longus. Pastoral. l. iv. p. 99—101 Achilles
Tatius. l. i. p. 22, 23.)]
In a march of ten or twelve days, the vigilance of Belisarius was
constantly awake and active against his unseen enemies, by whom,
in every place, and at every hour, he might be suddenly attacked.
An officer of confidence and merit, John the Armenian, led the
vanguard of three hundred horse; six hundred Massagetae covered
at a certain distance the left flank; and the whole fleet,
steering along the coast, seldom lost sight of the army, which
moved each day about twelve miles, and lodged in the evening in
strong camps, or in friendly towns. The near approach of the
Romans to Carthage filled the mind of Gelimer with anxiety and
terror. He prudently wished to protract the war till his brother,
with his veteran troops, should return from the conquest of
Sardinia; and he now lamented the rash policy of his ancestors,
who, by destroying the fortifications of Africa, had left him
only the dangerous resource of risking a battle in the
neighborhood of his capital. The Vandal conquerors, from their
original number of fifty thousand, were multiplied, without
including their women and children, to one hundred and sixty
thousand fighting men: 1811 and such forces, animated with valor
and union, might have crushed, at their first landing, the feeble
and exhausted bands of the Roman general. But the friends of the
captive king were more inclined to accept the invitations, than
to resist the progress, of Belisarius; and many a proud Barbarian
disguised his aversion to war under the more specious name of his
hatred to the usurper. Yet the authority and promises of Gelimer
collected a formidable army, and his plans were concerted with
some degree of military skill. An order was despatched to his
brother Ammatas, to collect all the forces of Carthage, and to
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