54 JOURNEY FROM cities. After the destruction of Carthage it flourished under the government of the Romans, and was remarkable, as we are informed by Sallust, for its fidelity and obedience After the occupation of Northern Africa by the Vandals, the walls and fortifications of Leptis appear to have been dismantled or destroyed f : they were probably afterwards restored under Justinian, when the city became the residence of the Prefect Sergius ; and we find them, on the authority of Leo Africanus, to have been finally demohshed by the Saracens F rom that time the city appears to have been wholly abandoned ; and its remains were employed in the construction of Modern Tripoly, as Leo has also informed us.

During the Prefecture of Sergius, who presided over the district of Tripolis §, Leptis Magna was attacked by a neighbouring African tribe ; and Sergius himself, after some previous successes, was reduced * Nam Leptitani jam inde a principio belli Jugurthini ad Bestiam Consulem et postea Romam miserant, amicitiam, societatemque rogatum. Dein, ubi ea impetrata fuere semper boni, fideiesque mansere ; et cuncta a Bestia, Albino, Metelloque imperata gnavitur fecerant. — (Bell. Jugurth. § 77.)

•f- At Gizerichus alia moliri non desiit. Nam, prseter Carthaginem, Africae urbes nudavit omnes. . . — (Procop. Hist. Vandal, a Grotio, Lib. 1. p. 17.

f Questa citta (Leptis M.) fu edificata da Romani con mura alte di pietre grosse: la quale fu due volte rovinata da Macomettani, e delle sue pietre e colonne fu edificata Tripoli. — (5ta. parte, p. 72.)

Leo here alludes to the restoration of the city, and not to its first erection by the Phoenicians.

§ Bacchi (Solomonis frater erat) filios duos regendis Africae partibus misit Imperator; Pentapoli Cyrum, natu majorem, Tripoli Sergium. — (Procopius, Hist. Vandal, Lib. 2. p. 119.)