The plague of the western wind at the sounding of the second trumpet, was to fall upon the Sea, or Western Empire, by means of a great mountain burning with fire cast into it, and turning it to blood.  Accordingly in the year 407, that Empire began to be invaded by the Visigoths, Vandals, Alans, Sueves, Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Heruli, Quadi, Gepides; and by these wars it was broken into ten kingdoms, and miserably wasted:  and Rome itself, the burning mountain, was besieged and taken by the Ostrogoths, in the beginning of these miseries.

The plague of the southern wind at the sounding of the third trumpet, was to cause a great star, burning as it were a lamp, to fall from heaven upon the rivers and fountains of waters, the Western Empire now divided into many kingdoms, and to turn them to wormwood and blood, and make them bitter.  Accordingly Genseric, the King of the Vandals and Alans in Spain, A.C. 427, enter’d Africa with an army of eighty thousand men; where he invaded the Moors, and made war upon the Romans, both there and on the sea-coasts of Europe, for fifty years together, almost without intermission, taking Hippo A.C. 431, and Carthage the capital of Africa A.C. 439.  In A.C. 455, with a numerous fleet and an army of three hundred thousand Vandals and Moors, he invaded Italy, took and plundered Rome, Naples, Capua, and many other cities; carrying thence their wealth with the flower of the people into Africa:  and the next year, A.C. 456, he rent all Africa from the Empire, totally expelling the Romans.  Then the Vandals invaded and took the Islands of the Mediterranean, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Ebusus, Majorca, Minorca, &c. and Ricimer besieged the Emperer Anthemius in Rome, took the city, and gave his soldiers the plunder, A.C. 472.  The Visigoths about the same time drove the Romans out of Spain:  and now the Western Emperor, the great star which fell from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, having by all these wars gradually lost almost all his dominions, was invaded, and conquered in one year by Odoacer King of the Heruli, A.C. 476.  After this the Moors revolted A.C. 477, and weakned the Vandals by several wars, and took Mauritania from them.  These wars continued till the Vandals were conquered by Belisarius, A.C. 534. and by all these wars Africa was almost depopulated, according to Procopius, who reckons that above five millions of men perished in them.  When the Vandals first invaded Africa, that country was very populous, consisting of about 700 bishopricks, more than were in all France, Spain and Italy together:  but by the wars between the Vandals, Romans and Moors, it was depopulated to that degree, that Procopius tells us, it was next to a miracle for a traveller to see a man.