unpopular regent, a boy-king sinking into his grave invited him to active interference in Italy. In Africa the condition of affairs was equally tempting. [Sidenote: Hilderic’s Reign, 523-30.] We have already mentioned how, on the death of king Thrasamund, the Vandal throne had fallen to his kinsman Hilderic, the son of king Hunneric and the Roman princess, Eudocia. Hilderic was elderly, unversed in affairs of state, and a conscientious Catholic, inheriting from his Roman mother that orthodoxy which his Arian subjects detested. He had but a short reign of seven years, but in it he succeeded in alienating the affections of the Vandals in every way. He incurred great odium for putting to death his predecessor’s widow Amalafrida, the sister of the great Theodoric, because he found her conspiring against him. His wars were uniformly unsuccessful, the Moors of Atlas cut to pieces a whole army, and pushed their incursions close to the gates of Carthage. Probably his open confession of Catholicism, and promotion of Catholics to high office, were even greater sources of wrath. In 530 his cousin Geilamir organised a conspiracy against him, overthrew him with ease, and plunged him into a dungeon. Justinian professed great indignation at this dethroning of an orthodox and friendly sovereign, and resolved to make use of it as a grievance against the new king of the Vandals. Just before the ‘Nika’ sedition broke out he had sent an embassy to Carthage to bid Geilamir replace his cousin on the throne, and be contented with the place of regent. The usurper answered rudely enough: ‘King Geilamir wishes to point out to king Justinian that it is a good thing for rulers to mind their own business.’[11] He trusted to the remoteness of his situation and the domestic troubles of Justinian, and little thought that he was drawing down the storm on his head. Footnote 11: There was deliberate insult in the use of the word βασιλεύς for both monarchs, as if they were equal and bore the same title. For Justinian had fully made up his mind to begin his attack on the West by subduing the Vandals. All things were in his favour, notably the facts that an Arian king was once more making life miserable to the African Catholics, and that Vandal and Ostrogoth had been completely estranged by the murder of Amalafrida nine years before. Amalaswintha favoured rather than discouraged the emperor’s attack on her nearest Teutonic neighbours. There was yet one more piece of good fortune: king Geilamir had just sent off the flower of the Vandal troops to an expedition against Sardinia.