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Updated: May 24, 2025
An oath was required from the bishops, who were assembled at Carthage, that they would support the succession of his son Hilderic, and that they would renounce all foreign or transmarine correspondence. This engagement, consistent, as it should seem, with their moral and religious duties, was refused by the more sagacious members of the assembly.
They disobeyed, and their disobedience was punished by a second exile of two hundred and twenty bishops into Sardinia; where they languished fifteen years, till the accession of the gracious Hilderic. The two islands were judiciously chosen by the malice of their Arian tyrants.
The usurpation by Gelimer of the Vandalic crown of Africa, which belonged of right to Hilderic, first encouraged Justinian to undertake the African war. Hilderic had granted toleration to the Catholics, and for this reason was held in reproach by his Arian subjects. His compulsory abdication afforded the emperor of the East an opportunity of interfering in the cause of orthodoxy.
But the Catholics accepted, with cold and transient gratitude, a favor so inadequate to their pretensions, and the virtues of Hilderic offended the prejudices of his countrymen. The Arian clergy presumed to insinuate that he had renounced the faith, and the soldiers more loudly complained that he had degenerated from the courage, of his ancestors.
The safety of the East enabled the emperor to employ his forces against the Vandals; and the internal state of Africa afforded an honorable motive, and promised a powerful support, to the Roman arms. According to the testament of the founder, the African kingdom had lineally descended to Hilderic, the eldest of the Vandal princes.
Hilderic, who had succeeded Thrasamund on the Vandal throne in Africa, had put Amalafrida, the queen dowager, the sister of Theodoric, to death. In June 531, he was deposed. Now Hilderic favoured the Catholics, was the ally of the empire, and was descended on his mother's side from the great Theodosius. Justinian determined to avenge him, and in avenging him to reconquer Africa for the empire.
The emperor, might be tempted, and his counsellors were constrained, to give credit to this seasonable revelation: but they derived more rational hope from the revolt, which the adherents of Hilderic or Athanasius had already excited on the borders of the Vandal monarchy.
They were weakened by the southern climate, by sensual indulgence, and by strife among themselves. Justinian was ready to profit by this diminished capacity of resistance. Gelimer, king of the Vandals, had put to death Hilderic, a kinsman of Theodosius I. The emperor made this an occasion of attacking the Vandal kingdom, which was distracted by religious differences and contention.
But his successor, Hilderic, the gentle son of the savage Hunneric, preferred the duties of humanity and justice to the vain obligation of an impious oath; and his accession was gloriously marked by the restoration of peace and universal freedom.
Gelimer retired with hasty steps towards the desert of Numidia: but he had soon the consolation of learning that his private orders for the execution of Hilderic and his captive friends had been faithfully obeyed. The tyrant's revenge was useful only to his enemies.
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