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.
citadel, and at the same time the garden, of Numidia. That range
of hills, a branch of the great Atlas, contains, within a
circumference of one hundred and twenty miles, a rare variety of
soil and climate; the intermediate valleys and elevated plains
abound with rich pastures, perpetual streams, and fruits of a
delicious taste and uncommon magnitude. This fair solitude is
decorated with the ruins of Lambesa, a Roman city, once the seat
of a legion, and the residence of forty thousand inhabitants. The
Ionic temple of Æsculapius is encompassed with Moorish huts; and
the cattle now graze in the midst of an amphitheatre, under the
shade of Corinthian columns. A sharp perpendicular rock rises
above the level of the mountain, where the African princes
deposited their wives and treasure; and a proverb is familiar to
the Arabs, that the man may eat fire who dares to attack the
craggy cliffs and inhospitable natives of Mount Aurasius. This
hardy enterprise was twice attempted by the eunuch Solomon: from
the first, he retreated with some disgrace; and in the second,
his patience and provisions were almost exhausted; and he must
again have retired, if he had not yielded to the impetuous
courage of his troops, who audaciously scaled, to the
astonishment of the Moors, the mountain, the hostile camp, and
the summit of the Geminian rock. A citadel was erected to secure
this important conquest, and to remind the Barbarians of their
defeat; and as Solomon pursued his march to the west, the
long-lost province of Mauritanian Sitifi was again annexed to the
Roman empire. The Moorish war continued several years after the
departure of Belisarius; but the laurels which he resigned to a
faithful lieutenant may be justly ascribed to his own triumph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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