ition in a language rarely
spoken in the Byzantine court, by alleging the right of a free people to
remove or punish their chief magistrate, who had failed in the execution
of the kingly office. After this fruitless expostulation, the captive
monarch was more rigorously treated, his nephew was deprived of his
eyes, and the cruel Vandal, confident in his strength and distance,
derided the vain threats and slow preparations of the emperor of the
East. Justinian resolved to deliver or revenge his friend, Gelimer to
maintain his usurpation; and the war was preceded, according to the
practice of civilized nations, by the most solemn protestations, that
each party was sincerely desirous of peace.

The report of an African war was grateful only to the vain and idle
populace of Constantinople, whose poverty exempted them from tribute,
and whose cowardice was seldom exposed to military service. But the
wiser citizens, who judged of the future by the past, revolved in their
memory the immense loss, both of men and money, which the empire had
sustained in the expedition of Basiliscus. The troops, which, after
five laborious campaigns, had been recalled from the Persian frontier,
dreaded the sea, the climate, and the arms of an unknown enemy. The
ministers of the finances computed, as far as they might compute, the
demands of an African war; the taxes which must be found and levied to
supply those insatiate demands; and the danger, lest their own lives, or
at least their lucrative employments, should be made responsible for the
deficiency of the supply. Inspired by such selfish motives, (for we may
not suspect him of any zeal for the public good,) John of Cappadocia
ventured to oppose in full council the inclinations of his master. He
confessed, that a victory of such importance could not be too dearly
purchased; but he represented in a grave discourse the certain
difficulties and the uncertain event. "You undertake," said the praefect,
"to besiege Carthage: by land, the distance is not less than one hundred
and forty days' journey; on the sea, a whole year must elapse before
you can receive any intelligence from your fleet. If Africa should
be reduced, it cannot be preserved without the additional conquest of
Sicily and Italy. Success will impose the obligations of new labors;
a single misfortune will attract the Barbarians into the heart of your
exhausted empire." Justinian felt the weight of this salutary advice; he
was confound