56 
JOURNEY FROM 
the engagement which afterwards took place was fatal to the cause 
of the Romans ; for Solomon, who had so ably filled the place of 
Belisarius, was slain in the field of Tebeste*, and the Prefect was 
once more compelled to seek safety in flight -}• . 
The tribe Levatae, mentioned in the ISTarrative of Procopius, of 
which we have just given the substance, has in later times been 
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. — r(See Pro- 
copius, Hist. Vandal., Lib. 2.) 
* Now Tibesh, in the kingdom of Algiers. 
F 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 com- 
manders, 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 cele- 
brated with lavish applause by the people of Constantinople. Successive ini'oads 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. 
“But the victories and the losses of Justinian were alike pernicious to mankind ; and 
such was the desolation of Africa, that in many parts a stranger might wander whole 
days without meeting the face either of a friend or an enemy. The nation of the Vandals 
had disappeared ; they once amounted to an hundred and sixty thousand warriors, with- 
out including the children, the women, or the slaves. Their numbers wei'e 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 counWy, strenuously exei’cised in 
the labours of commei'ce and agriculture. In less than twenty years, that busy scene was 
converted into a silent solitude ; the wealthy citizens escaped to Sicily and Constanti- 
nople ; and the secret historian has confidently affirmed, that five millions of Africans 
were consumed by the wars and government of the Emperor Justmlan^ 
a Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. vii. p. 353. 
