[Footnote 1: This is the opinion of Captain Smyth, who examined the remains of Leptis Magna with attention (in the year 1817); and who has obligingly favoured us with the plans and account of it which are given at the end of the chapter.] [Footnote 2: Nam Leptitani jam inde a principio belli Jugurthini ad Bestiam Consulem et postea Romam miserant, amicitiam, societatemque rogatum. Dein, ubi ea impetrata fuere semper boni, fidelesque mansere; et cuncta a Bestia, Albino, Metelloque imperata gnavitur fecerant.—(Bell. Jugurth. § 77.)] [Footnote 3: At Gizerichus alia moliri non desiit. Nam, præter Carthaginem, Africæ urbes nudavit omnes . . .—(Procop. Hist. Vandal. à Grotio, Lib. 1. p. 17.)] [Footnote 4: Questa città (Leptis M.) fu edificata da Romani con mura alte di pietre grosse: la quale fu due volte rovinata da Macomettani, e delle sue pietre e colonne fu edificata Tripoli.—(5ta. parte, p. 72.) Leo here alludes to the restoration of the city, and not to its first erection by the Phœnicians.] [Footnote 5: Bacchi (Solomonis frater erat) filios duos regendis Africæ partibus misit Imperator; Pentapoli Cyrum, natu majorem, Tripoli Sergium.—(Procopius, Hist. Vandal, Lib. 2. p. 119.)] [Footnote 6: Solomon, the uncle of Sergius, was intrusted with the command of the army by Belisarius, when that general left the African coast, and governed with the title of Exarch. After his death at Tebeste, Sergius was appointed by the Emperor Justinian to succeed him, and rendered himself odious by his profligacy and cruelties.—(See Procopius, Hist. Vandal., Lib. 2.)] [Footnote 7: Now Tibesh, in the kingdom of Algiers.] [Footnote 8: Such is the substance of this affair as related by Procopius; and we may add, in the words of the eloquent Gibbon, “The arrival of fresh troops, and more skilful commanders, soon checked the insolence of the Moors: seventeen of their princes were slain in the same battle; and the doubtful and transient submission of their tribes was celebrated with lavish applause by the people of Constantinople. Successive inroads had reduced the province of Africa to one-third of the measure of Italy; yet the Roman emperors continued to reign above a century over Carthage, and the fruitful coast of the Mediterranean.” The state of Northern Africa, at this period of the empire, is strongly painted in the observations which follow.