re
still bound to it by a most precarious tie; but the loss which
threatened the life of the State most nearly was the loss of Africa. For
this province, the capital of which was the restored and Romanised city
of Carthage, had been for generations the chief exporter of corn to feed
the pauperised population of Rome, and here now dwelt and ruled, and
from hence (428-432) sallied forth to his piratical raids against
Italy, the deadliest enemy of the Roman name, the king of the Vandals,
Gaiseric.[44] The Vandal conquest of Africa was, at the time which we
have now reached, a somewhat old story, nearly a generation having
elapsed since it occurred,[45] but the Vandal sack of Rome, which came
to pass immediately after the death of Valentinian III., and which
marked the beginning of the period of the "Shadow Emperors" was still
near and terrible to the memories of men. No Roman but remembered in
bitterness of soul how in June, 455, the long ships of the Vandals
appeared at the mouth of the Tiber, how Gaiseric and his men landed,
marched to the Eternal City, and entered it unopposed, how they remained
there for a fortnight, not perhaps slaying or ravishing, but with calm
insolence plundering the city of all that they cared to carry away,
stripping off what they supposed to be the golden roof of the Capitol,
removing the statues from their pedestals, transporting everything that
seemed beautiful or costly, and stowing away all their spoils in the
holds of those insatiable vessels of theirs which lay at anchor at
Ostia.

[Footnote 44: Commonly but incorrectly called Genseric. The form used
above, which is that found in nearly all contemporary historians, is now
almost universally employed by German scholars.]

[Footnote 45: The capture of Carthage, which completed the conquest, did
not take place till 439.]

The remembrance of this humiliating capture and the fear that it might
at any moment be repeated, probably with circumstances of greater
atrocity, were the dominant emotions in the hearts of the Roman Senate
and people during the twenty-one years which we are now rapidly
surveying. It was doubtless these feelings which induced them to submit
more patiently than they would otherwise have done to the scarcely
veiled autocracy of an imperfectly Romanised Teuton such as Ricimer. He
was a barbarian, it was true; probably he could not even speak Latin
grammatically; but he was mighty with the barbarian kings, mighty with
the