GEN'SEEIC, King of the Vandals, was -an illegitimate son of Godigiselus, who led the Vandals into Spain. After the death of his brother Gonderic, Genseric became sole ruler. In the year 429, he invaded Africa on the invitation of count Boniface; the viceroy of Valentinian III., emperor of the west, who had been goaded on to rebellion through the machinations of his rival Aetius, the conqueror of Attila. Genseric's army at first amounted to 50,000 warriors, full of barbarian valor, and hungry for conquest and plunder. As they swept along through Mauritania, the Kabvle .mountaineers and the Donatist heretics, maddened by persecution and fanaticism, swelled the terrible horde, and more than equalled their savage associates in acts of cruelty and blood thirstiness. The friends of Boniface, astonished that the hero who alone had main tained the cause of the emperor and his mother Placidia during their exile and distress, should have been guilty of such a crime, attempted, with ultimate success, to bring' about an interview between the count of Africa and an agent of the empress. Then, when too late, were the imaginary provocations he had received explained, and the fraud of Aetius detected, for the army he had hurriedly collected to oppose the Vandals, having been twice defeated by Genseric, he was compelled to retire to Italy, where he was soon afterwards slain by Actius. All Africa w. of Carthage fell into the hands of Genseric, who shortly after seized that city itself, and made it (439 A.D.) the capital of his new dominions. Part of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, was likewise taken posses sion of by him. In the year 451, he encouraged Attila to undertake his great but fatal expedition against Gaul. Tradition states that, at the request of Eudoxia, the widow of Valentinian, who was eager for revenge upon her husband's murderer, Maximus, Genseric, in the year 455, marched against Rome, which he took, and abandoned lo his soldiers for 14 days. On leaving the city, he carried with him the empress and her two daughters, one of whom became the wife of his son Huneric. The empire twice endeavored to avenge the indignities it had suffered, but without success. First the western emperor, Majorian, fitted out a fleet against the Vandals in 457, which war destroyed by Genseric in the bay of Carthagena; second, the eastern emperor, Leo, sent an expedition under the command cf Heraclius and others in 463, which was also destroyed off the city of Bona. Genseric died in 477, in the possession of all his con quests, leaving behind him the reputation of being the greatest of the Vandal kings. His appearance was not imposing; according.to Jornandes, he was "of low stature, and lame on account of a fall from his horse," but "deep in his designs, taciturn, averse to pleasure, capable of being transported into fury, greedy of conquest, and cunning in sowing the seeds of discord among nations, and exciting them against each other."
Strange to say, a rude, even a savage religiosity burned in the heart of Genscrie, and, it may be, grimly sanctified, in his own eyes, his wide-spread devastations. He seems to have regarded himself as a of God." Once, when leaving the harbor of Carthage on an expedition, time pilot asked him whither he was going. "Against all who have incurred the wrath of God," In creed, Genseric was a fierce Arian, and inflicted the severest persecutions upon the orthodox or Catholic party.
GEN'rIAN (Gentian), a genus of plants of the natural order Gentianacecs, with 5-cleft sometimes 4-cleft—calyx, and 1-celled capsule. The species are numerous, natives of temperate parts of Europe, Asia, and America, many of them growing in high moun tain pastures and meadows, which they adorn by their beautiful blue or yellow flowers.—The genus is said to derive its name from Gentius, king of 111yria, who was vanquished by the Romans about 160 B.C., and to whom is ascribed the introduction into use of the species still chiefly used in medicine. This species, COMMON GENTIAN, or YELLOW GENTIAN (G. lutea), is abundant in the meadows of the Alps and Pyrenees, at an elevation of 3,000 to 6,000 feet. It has a stein about 3 ft. high, ovate-oblong and numerous whorls of yellow flowers. The part employed in medicine is the root, which is cylindrical, ringed, and more or less branched; and which appears in commpree in a dried state, in pieces varying from a few inches to more than a foot in length, and from half an inch to 2 in. in thickness. It is collected by the peasants of the Alps. Although gentian root has been examined by various chemists, its con stituents are not very clearly known; it contains, however (1), an oil in small quantity; (2), a pale yellow crystalline matter, termed gentisin or gentisic acid; (3), a bitter prin ciple, gentianite, on which its medicinal properties mainly depend; (4), pectin or pectic acid, which probably causes the gelatinization that sometimes occurs in infusion of gentian; and (5), sugar, in consequence of which an infusion is capable of undergoing vinous fermentation, and of forming the "bitter snaps" or " engiangeist" which is much employed by the peasants on the Swiss Alps, to fortify the system againSt fogs and damps. (As "bitter snaps" contains a narcotic principle, due probably to the oil of gentian, strangers unaccustomed to its use should take it with caution.) Gentian is a highly valued medicine, a simple tonic bitter Without astringency, and is much used in diseases of the digestive organs, and sometimes as an anthelmintic.