transported to the vessels of the Vandal king. The "gold table" and "the golden candlestick with seven branches," which, three and a half centuries before, Titus had carried away from Jerusalem, were now transferred, by a barbarian conqueror, from Rome to Africa. The gorgeous decorations of the Christian churches, and of the Pagan temples, constituted a rich prize to the host of Genseric. Having time to collect and ships to transport any removable article of value in the capital, the conqueror spared neither church nor temple, dwelling-house, nor palace. The magnificent furniture and massive plate with which the palace of the emperor was furnished, were gathered up with disorderly rapine; even brass and copper were not beneath the notice of the Vandals, and were, whenever found, as carefully removed as articles of gold and silver. The Empress Eudoxia herself, at whose instigation, it is said, Genseric had been led to undertake his expedition, was compelled, with her daughters, to follow as a captive in the train of the conqueror, and to expiate, during a seven years' exile in Africa, a treason of which her subjects alone had any ground of complaint.[1]
Rise of Constantinople. When Rome fell, the sovereign of the eastern empire claimed, and long maintained, the fictitious title of Emperor of the Romans, adopting the hereditary names of Cæsar and Augustus, and declaring himself the legitimate successor of the imperial rulers of Rome; and, indeed, if mere splendour was enough to support such a claim, the emperors of Constantinople were well justified in all their assertions. The palaces of Constantinople rivalled, if
- ↑ Gibbon, ch. xxxii.
