eturned home in a short time after, and was
received with incredible joy. He built a spacious monastery in Byzacena,
but retired to a cell himself, which was situate on the sea-shore. Here
his time was employed in writing, reading, prayer, mortification, and
the manual labor of making mats and umbrellas of palm-tree leaves.
Faustus, who was his bishop, obliged him to resume the government of his
monastery; and many places at the same time sought him for their bishop.
King Thrasimund having prohibited by edict the ordination of orthodox
bishops, several sees by this means had been long vacant and destitute
of pastors. The orthodox prelates resolved to remedy this inconveniency,
as they effectually did; but the king receiving intelligence of the
matter, caused Victor, the primate of Carthage, to be apprehended. All
this time our saint lay concealed, though sought after eagerly by many
citizens for their bishop. Thinking the danger over, he appeared again:
but Ruspa, now a little town called {066} Alfaques, in the district of
Tunis, still remained without a pastor; and by the consent of the
primate, while detained in the custody of the king's messengers,
Fulgentius was forcibly taken out of his cell, and consecrated bishop in
508.

His new dignity made no alteration in his manners. He never wore the
_orarium_, a kind of stole then used by bishops, nor other clothes than
his usual coarse garb, which was the same in winter and summer. He went
sometimes barefoot: he never undressed to take rest, and always rose to
prayer before the midnight office. His diet chiefly consisted of pulse
and herbs, with which he contented himself, without consulting the
palate's gratification by borrowed tastes: but in more advanced years,
finding his sight impaired by such a regimen, he admitted the use of a
little oil. It was only in very considerable bodily indispositions, that
he suffered a drop or two of wine to be mingled with the water which he
drank; and he never could be prevailed upon in any seeming necessity to
use the least quantity of flesh-meat, from the time of his monastic
profession till his death. His modesty, meekness, and humility, gained
him the affection of all, even of the ambitious deacon Felix, who had
opposed his election, and whom the saint received and treated with the
most cordial charity. His great love for a recluse life induced him to
build a monastery near his own house at Ruspa, which he designed to put
under the