The nation of the Vandals had disappeared; they once amounted to 160,000 warriors, without including the children, the women, or the slaves. Their numbers were infinitely surpassed by the number of the Moorish families extirpated in a relentless war; and the same destruction was retaliated on the Romans and their allies, who perished by the climate, their mutual quarrels, and the rage of the barbarians. When Procopius first landed, he admired the populousness of the cities and country, strenuously exercised in the labours of commerce and agriculture. In less than twenty years, that busy scene was converted into a silent solitude; the wealthy citizens escaped to Sicily and Constantinople; and the secret historian has confidently affirmed that five millions of Africans were consumed by the wars and government of the emperor Justinian. INVASION OF THE COTRIGUR HUNS [Sidenote: [559-563 A.D.]] The repose of the aged Belisarius was crowned by a last victory which saved the emperor and the capital. The barbarians who annually visited the provinces of Europe were less discouraged by some accidental defeat than they were excited by the double hope of spoil and of subsidy. In the thirty-second winter of Justinian’s reign, the Danube was deeply frozen; Zabergan led the cavalry of the Cotrigur (or Cotugur) Huns, and his standard was followed by a promiscuous multitude. The savage chief passed, without opposition, the river and the mountains, spread his troops over Macedonia and Thrace, and advanced with no more than seven thousand horse to the long walls which should have defended the territory of Constantinople. But the works of man are impotent against the assaults of nature; a recent earthquake had shaken the foundations of the wall, and the forces of the empire were employed on the distant frontiers of Italy, Africa, and Persia. The seven schools, or companies of the guards or domestic troops, had been augmented to the number of fifty-five hundred men, whose ordinary station was in the peaceful cities of Asia. But the places of the brave Armenians were insensibly supplied by lazy citizens, who purchased an exemption from the duties of civil life, without being exposed to the dangers of military service. Of such soldiers, few could be tempted to sally from the gates; and none could be persuaded to remain in the field unless they wanted strength and speed to escape from the Cotrigurs.