THE MEDITERRANEAN, PHYSICAL AND HISTORICAL. 269 



ever arose at the bidding of a single man ; not only vast and beautiful, 

 but marking one of the most important epochs in the history of archi- 

 tecture. 



Though now obstructed with a mass of narrow, tortuous streets, its 

 salient features are distinctly visible. The great temple, probably the 

 mausoleum of the founder, has become the cathedral, and after the 

 Pantheon at Eome there is no finer specimen of a heathen temple 

 turned into a Christian church. Strange it is that the tomb of him 

 whose reign was marked by such unrelenting persecution of the Chris- 

 tians should have been accepted as the model of those baptisteries so 

 common I3" constructed in the following centuries. 



Of Diocletian's Salona, one of the chief cities of the Roman world, 

 but little now remains save traces of the long, irregular walls. Eecent 

 excavations have brought to light much that is interesting, but all of 

 the Christian epoch, such as a large basilica which had been used as 

 a necropolis, and a baptistery, one of those copied from the temple of 

 Spalato, on the mosaic pavement of which can still be read the text, 

 Sicut cervus desiderat fontem aquarum ita anima mea ad te Deus. 



The final partition of the Roman Empire took place in 365 ; 40 years 

 later the barbarians of the North began to invade Italy and the south 

 of Europe; and in 429, Genseric, at the head of his Vandal hordes, 

 crossed over into Africa from Andalusia, a province which still bears 

 their name, devastating the country as far as the Cyreuaica. He sub- 

 sequently annexed the Balearic Islands, Corsica, and Sardinia; he 

 ravaged the coasts of Italy and Sicily, and even of Greece and Illyria; 

 but the most memorable of his exploits was the unresisted sack of 

 Rome, whence he returned to Africa laden with treasure and bearing 

 the Empress Eudoxia a captive in his train. 



The degenerate emperors of the West were powerless to avenge this 

 insult; but Byzantium, though at this time sinking to decay, did 

 make a futile attempt to attack the Vandal monarch in his African 

 stronghold. It was not, however, till 533, in the reigu of Justinian, 

 when the successors of Genseric had fallen into luxurious habits and 

 had lost the rough valor of their ancestors, that Belisarius was able to 

 break their power and take their last king a prisoner to Constantinople. 

 The Vandal domination in Africa was destroyed, but that of the 

 Byzantines was never thoroughly consolidated ; it rested not on its 

 own strength, but on the weakness of its enemies; and it was quite 

 unable to cope with the next great wave of invasion which swept over 

 the land, perhaps the most extraordinary event in the world's history, 

 save only the introduction of Christianity. 



In 647, 27 years after the Hedjira of Mohammed, Abdulla ibn Saad 

 started from Egypt for the conquest of Africa with an army of 40,000 

 men. • 



The expedition had two determining causes — the hope of plunder 

 and the desire to promulgate the religion of El Islam. The sands and 



