Genseric

“ The devil, the demon of your race, helped you.'
"'Who?' I asked.
"'Why, that Genseric, the son of Orcus. You Asdings boast of your descent from pagan gods; but these, so the priest taught us, were demons. That is the reason of his luck, his victories.'
"I laughed, but he went on: 'He said so himself. Once, when Genseric left the harbor of Carthage on his corsair ship and the helmsman asked where he should turn the prow, the wicked tyrant answered: "Let us drift with the wind and waves toward whomsoever God's anger is directed against."' Is that true, brother?" ”

“ Two years after, Genseric plundered Rome, and brought innumerable captives from Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, into Africa, whom the Moors and Vandals shared among them on the shore, separating without any regard or compassion weeping wives from their husbands, and children from their parents. Deogratias sold every thing, even the gold and silver vessels of the church, to redeem as many as possible; he provided them with lodgings and beds, and furnished them with all succors, and though in a decrepit old age, visited those that were sick every day, and often in the night. ”

“ With every returning spring, the fleet of Genseric ravaged the coasts of Italy and Sicily, and even of Greece and Illyria, sometimes bearing off the inhabitants to slavery, and sometimes levelling their cities to the ground. Emboldened by long impunity, he attacked every government alike. ”

“ Anxious to explore, with his own eyes, the state of the Vandals, he ventured, after disguising the color of his hair, to visit Carthage, in the character of his own ambassador: and Genseric was afterwards mortified by the discovery, that he had entertained and dismissed the emperor of the Romans. Such an anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but it is a fiction which would not have been imagined, unless in the life of a hero. ”

“ Many thousand Romans of every age and condition Genseric carried as slaves to Carthage, together with Eudocia and her daughters, the eldest of whom Genseric compelled to marry his son Hunnerich. After sixteen years of unwilling marriage Eudocia at last escaped, and through great perils reached Jerusalem, where she died and was buried beside her grandmother, that other Eudocia, the beautiful Athenais whom St. Pulcheria gave to her brother for bride, and whose romantic exaltation to the throne of the East ended in banishment at Jerusalem. ”

“ But in 454, at the request of the emperor Valentinian, Genseric allowed the Catholics to choose a bishop of Carthage, and St. Deogratias was raised to that dignity, who died soon after Genseric was returned from the plunder of Rome. The persecution growing hotter, many suffered torments for the faith, and several received the crown of martyrdom. ”

“ It was natural enough that Genseric should hate those whom he had injured: the nobility and senators of Carthage were exposed to his jealousy and resentment; and all those who refused the ignominious terms, which their honor and religion forbade them to accept, were compelled by the Arian tyrant to embrace the condition of perpetual banishment. Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the East, were filled with a crowd of exiles, of fugitives, and of ingenuous captives, who solicited the public compassion ”

“ Genīsus, a man of Cyzicus, killed by the Argonauts, &c. Flaccus, bk. 3, li. 45.
Genius, a spirit or dæmon, which, according to the ancients, presided over the birth and life of every man. See: Dæmon.
Gensĕric, a famous Vandal prince, who passed from Spain to Africa, where he took Carthage. He laid the foundation of the Vandal kingdom in Africa, and in the course of his military expeditions invaded Italy, and sacked Rome in July, 455.
Gentius, a king of Illyricum, who imprisoned the Roman ambassadors at the request of Perseus king of Macedonia. ”

“ Careless of the distinctions of age, or sex, or rank, they employed every species of indignity and torture, to force from the captives a discovery of their hidden wealth. The stern policy of Genseric justified his frequent examples of military execution: he was not always the master of his own passions, or of those of his followers; and the calamities of war were aggravated by the licentiousness of the Moors, and the fanaticism of the Donatists. ”

“ Yet this various multitude amounted only to fifty thousand effective men; and though Genseric artfully magnified his apparent strength, by appointing eighty chinarchs, or commanders of thousands, the fallacious increase of old men, of children, and of slaves, would scarcely have swelled his army to the number of four-score thousand persons. 15 But his own dexterity, and the discontents of Africa, soon fortified the Vandal powers, by the accession of numerous and active allies. ”

“ Like most of the Vandals, he was a cruel and cunning man, but he had great ability in many ways. He fought in battles even when a boy and was known far and wide for his bravery and skill as a leader.
About the time that Genseric became king, the governor of the Roman province in the north of Africa, on the Mediterranean coast, was a man called Count Boniface. This Count Boniface had been a good and loyal officer of Rome; but a plot was formed against him by Aëtius, the general who had fought Attila at Châlons. ”

“ Many of the Roman soldiers had married the widows and daughters of the Vandals. As their own, by the double right of conquest and inheritance, they claimed the estates which Genseric had assigned to his victorious troops. They heard with disdain the cold and selfish representations of their officers, that the liberality of Justinian had raised them from a savage or servile condition; that they were already enriched by the spoils of Africa, the treasure, the slaves, and the movables of the vanquished Barbarians ”

“ III. The zeal of Genseric and his successors for the conversion of the Catholics must have rendered them still more jealous to guard the purity of the Vandal faith. Before the churches were finally shut, it was a crime to appear in a Barbarian dress; and those who presumed to neglect the royal mandate were rudely dragged backwards by their long hair. [101] The Palatine officers who refused to profess the religion of their prince were ignominiously stripped of their honours and employments ”

“ Near the confluence of the Mincio and the Po he was met by Leo, whose eloquence persuaded him to turn back. Legend has sought to enhance the impressiveness of the occurrence by an unnecessarily imagined miracle. The pope was less successful with Genseric when the Vandal chief arrived under the walls of Rome in 455, but he secured a promise that there should be no incendiarism or murder, and that three of the oldest basilicas should be exempt from plunder—a promise which seems to have been faithfully observed. ”

“ He possessed the genuine courage that can despise not only dangers, but injuries: and it was impossible either to corrupt, or deceive, or intimidate the firm integrity of his soul.” 6 The Barbarians, who had seated themselves in the Western provinces, were insensibly taught to respect the faith and valor of the patrician Ætius. He soothed their passions, consulted their prejudices, balanced their interests, and checked their ambition. 611 A seasonable treaty, which he concluded with Genseric, protected Italy from the depredations of the Vandals ”

“ What may we not expect from the fury of the wounded boar!
FIESCO (laughing) . The blind, unwieldy monster, which at first rattles its heavy bones, threatening, with gaping jaws, to devour the high and low, the near and distant, at last stumbles at a thread—Genoese, 'tis in vain! The epoch of the masters of the sea is past—Genoa is sunk beneath the splendor of its name. Its state is such as once was Rome's, when, like a tennis-ball, she leaped into the racket of young Octavius. Genoa can be free no longer; Genoa must be fostered by a monarch; therefore do homage to the mad-brained Gianettino. ”

“ There are thirty Parish Churches, and at San Lorenzo they show a large Dish made out of One Emerald, which they say was given to King Solomon by the Queen of Sheba. The Genoese are a cunning and industrious People, with a great gusto for the Arts, but terrible Thieves. The Government a Republic, headed by a Doge, that is chosen every two years from among the Nobility, and must be a Genoese, at least Fifty years of age, and no Byblow. ”

“ The Pharisees affirm that some things only, but not all, are the work of fate (τῆς εἱμαρμένης) , and some are in our own power, whether they should take place or whether they should not occur; the sect of the Essenes maintain that fate governs all things,66 and that nothing can befal man contrary to its determination and will (ψῆφος) ; whilst the Sadducees reject fate, saying that there is no such thing, and that human events do not proceed from it, and ascribe all to ourselves, so that we ourselves are the cause of our fortunes, and receive what is evil from our own inconsiderateness. ”

“ It is very surprising that the Essenes, whose exemplary Virtues elicited the unbounded admiration of even the Greeks and Romans, and whose doctrines and practices contributed so materially to the spread of Christianity, should be so little known among intelligent Christians. The current information upon this remarkable sect or order of Judaism, to be found in ecclesiastical histories and Cyclopædias, is derived from the short notices of Philo, Pliny, Josephus, Solinus, Porphyry, Eusebius, and Epiphanius. ”

“ Cicero, Varro and Festus have defined the Roman gens and gentilis, which were strictly analogous to the Grecian, with sufficient fullness to show that descent was in the male line. From the nature of the gens, descent was either in the female line or the male, and included but a moiety of the descendants of the founder. It is precisely like the family among ourselves. Those who are descended from the males bear the family name, and they constitute a gens in the full sense of the term, but in a state of dispersion, and without any bond of union excepting those nearest in degree. ”

“ Christ commended that elevated spiritual life, which enables [24] a man to abstain from marriage for the kingdom of heaven’s sake, and which cannot be attained by all men save those to whom it is given ( Matt. xix. 10–12 ; comp. also 1 Cor. viii .) ; so the Essenes who, as a body, in waiting for the kingdom of heaven (‏מלכות השמים‎) abstained from connubial intercourse. The Essenes did not offer animal sacrifices, but strove to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which they regarded as a reasonable service; the Apostle Paul exhorts the Romans to do the same. ”

“ The Roman definition of a gens and of a gentilis, and the line in which descent was traced should be presented before the characteristics of the gens are considered. In the Topics of Cicero a gentilis is defined as follows: Those are gentiles who are of the same name among themselves. This is insufficient. Who were born of free parents. Even that is not sufficient. No one of whose ancestors has been a slave. Something still is wanting. Who have never suffered capital [Pg 283] diminution. ”

“ I like Gennaro's love for his unknown parent. The deepest feelings of the human heart are those given to the unattainable and the mysterious. Love for the known and the possessed takes the more endurable (is it not so?) ”

“ Ah! if the prayers of this young man of Nazareth are answered! if there are to be no more slaves!'
'No more slaves? Why, Genevieve, you are mad; is it possible! No more slaves? That their life be rendered as sweet as possible, be it so; but no more slaves would be the end of the world.—Look you, Genevieve, it is these exaggerations that do so much harm to this young Nazarene.'
'He is not believed by the rich and powerful.—Yesterday, at the supper with Pontius Pilate, standing behind you, I did not lose a word. ”

“ The word was also used of the slaves alone, and rarely of the property alone. In a still wider and more important sense the word was applied to a larger group of related persons, the gēns, consisting of all the "households" (familiae in the sense of §17) who derived their descent through males from a common ancestor. This remote ancestor, could his life have lasted through all the intervening centuries, would have been the pater familiās of all the persons included in the gēns, and all would have been subject to his potestās. ”

“ Essenism and Christianity is unquestionable. Essenism urged on its disciples to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness: so Christ ( Matt. vi. 33 ; Luke xii. 31 ) . The Essenes forbade the laying up of treasures upon earth: so Christ ( Matt. vi. 19–21 ) . The Essenes demanded of those who wished to join them to sell all their possessions, and to divide it among the poor brethren: so Christ ( Matt. xix. 21 ; Luke xii. 33 ) . The Essenes had all things in common, and appointed one of the brethren as steward to manage the common bag ”

“ Philo tells us that some derived it from the Greek homonym ὁσιότης holiness, because the Essenes were above all others worshippers of God; but he rejects it as incorrect (vide infra, p. 32) without giving us another derivation. 2. Josephus does not expressly give any derivation of it, but simply says, “the third sect who really seem to practise holiness (ὁ δὴ καὶ δοκεῖ σεμνότητα ἀσκεῖν) are called Essenes.” ”