Book 3

1.1. The Median war, then, came for the Emperor Justinian to this end; but I now go on to tell what he wrought against the Vandals and the Moors. And it shall first be told whence the army of the Vandals attacked the land of the Romans.

1.2. When Theodosius, the Emperor of the Romans, had vanished from among men, a man who had been most just and good in war, both his sons succeeded to his kingship, Arcadius the elder to the eastern portion, and Honorius the younger to the western.

1.3. The Roman dominion had been divided thus from of old, from the time of Constantine and his sons, who, having transferred the kingship to Byzantium and made the city greater and far more illustrious, allowed it to be named after himself.

1.4. The earth is encompassed in a circle by the ocean, either the whole or the greater part (for we do not yet know anything clearly about this); and it is cleft in two into two continents by a certain outflow from it, which breaks in at the western part and makes this very sea, beginning from Gadeira and reaching to the Maeotic Lake itself.

1.5. Of these two continents the one on the right as one sails into the sea up to the lake is called Asia, beginning from Gadeira and the other of the Pillars of Heracles.

1.6. The natives call the fortress there Septem, since seven hills appear there; for septem means seven in the Latin tongue.

1.7. And the whole continent opposite it has been called Europe. And the strait there divides each continent by about eighty-four stades, but from there on they are separated from one another by great seas as far as the Hellespont.

1.8. For here they come together again about Sestos and Abydos, and again at Byzantium and Chalcedon as far as the rocks called of old the Cyaneae, where now is the place named Hieron. For in these places they are separated from one another by a measure of ten stades and less than this.

1.9. From the one of the Pillars of Heracles to the other, going along the shore and not going round the Ionian Gulf and the so-called Euxine Sea, but crossing from Chalcedon to Byzantium and from Dryous to the continent opposite, the journey is two hundred and eighty-five days for an unencumbered man.

1.10. For to reckon exactly all the parts about the Euxine Sea, which goes from Byzantium to the lake, was impossible, the barbarians beyond the river Ister, which they also call the Danube, making the shore there by no means passable for the Romans, except that from Byzantium to the mouths of the Ister is a journey of twenty-two days, which it befits one reckoning to place in Europe.

1.11. And on the side of Asia, that is, from Chalcedon to the river Phasis, which flowing from the Colchians goes down to the Pontus, the journey is accomplished in forty days.

1.12. So that the whole dominion of the Romans, at least by the journey along the sea, comes to a measure of three hundred and forty-seven days, if one, as has been said, crosses the Ionian Gulf, reaching to about eight hundred stades, from Dryous.

1.13. For the passage of the gulf reaches a journey of not less than four days. So great was the Roman realm, at least in ancient time.

1.14. And to the one holding the dominion of the West fell the greater part of Libya, reaching to a journey of ninety days; for so much is it from Gadeira to the borders of Tripolis in Libya; and in Europe he received a journey of seventy-five days;

1.15. for so much chances to be from the other of the Pillars of Heracles to the Ionian Gulf. And one might add the circuit of the gulf too.

1.16. And the emperor of the East was allotted a journey of a hundred and twenty days, from the borders of Cyrene in Libya as far as Epidamnus, which lies by the Ionian Gulf itself, now called Dyrrhachium, and all that is about the Euxine Sea, as said before, is under the Romans.

1.17. And a journey of one day reaches two hundred and ten stades, as much as to go from Athens to Megara. Thus the Emperors of the Romans divided each continent between them.

1.18. And of the islands, Britain, which is outside the Pillars of Heracles and by far the greatest of all islands, was assigned to the western portion, as was likely; and within them Ebusa, lying in the sea, as it were in a Propontis after the inflow of the ocean, reaching to about a seven days' journey, and two others near it, called in the native tongue Maiorica and Minorica.

1.19. And of the islands in the sea, each fell to one of the two emperors, according as it chanced to lie within the borders of the one.

2.1. And while Honorius held the kingship toward the setting sun, barbarians seized his land; who they were and in what manner shall be told.

2.2. There were many other Gothic nations both before and now, but the greatest and most worthy of account of all are the Goths and the Vandals and the Visigoths and the Gepids. Of old, however, they were named Sauromatae and Melanchlaeni; and there are some who called these nations Getic.

2.3. All these differ from one another in name, as has been said, but in nothing else at all.

2.4. For they are all white in body and fair-haired, tall and good in countenance, and use the same laws,

2.5. and have practised the things of God alike. For they are all of the Arian faith, and they have one tongue, called Gothic; and it seems to me that they were all of one nation in old time, but were later distinguished by the names of those who led each of them.

2.6. This people dwelt of old beyond the river Ister. Afterward the Gepids held the places about Singidunum and Sirmium, both within and outside the river Ister, where indeed they are settled even to my time.

2.7. Of the others, the Visigoths, rising up thence, at first came into alliance with the Emperor Arcadius, but at a later time (for the faith toward the Romans does not know how to dwell among barbarians), with Alaric leading them, they turned to plot against each emperor, and beginning from Thrace they treated all Europe as hostile.

2.8. The Emperor Honorius before this sat in Rome, having nothing hostile in mind, but content, I think, if someone allowed him to remain quietly in his palace.

2.9. But when the barbarians were reported to be, not far off, but somewhere among the Taulantii with a great army, leaving the palace in no order he fled to Ravenna, a strong city lying at the very end of the Ionian Gulf.

2.10. There are some who say that he himself brought in the barbarians, a faction having arisen against him from his subjects; but to me they tell things not to be believed,

2.11. so far as one may reckon from the man's character. The barbarians, since nothing hostile met them, became the most savage of all men. For the cities they took they so destroyed that no token of them is left to my time, especially within the Ionian Gulf, except that it chanced one tower or one gate or some such thing was left to them;

2.12. and they killed all the men they met, alike old and young, sparing neither women nor children. Whence even to this day Italy chances to be sparsely peopled.

2.13. And they plundered all the money from all Europe, and, the chief point, leaving nothing at all in Rome of either public or private property, they went on to Gaul. And in what manner Alaric took Rome, I shall show.

2.14. When much time had been spent by him in the siege and he was able by neither force nor any other device to take the place, he devised the following.

2.15. Of the young men in his army not yet bearded, but just come of age, he chose out three hundred, whom he knew to be well-born and to lay claim to valour beyond their age, and told them secretly that he was about to make a gift of them to some of the patricians in Rome, as though they were slaves, in word.

2.16. And he charged them that, as soon as they were in those men's houses, displaying much gentleness and prudence, they should eagerly serve in all that was laid upon them by their owners;

2.17. then not long after, on an appointed day, about midday, when all who had taken them would be taking, as is likely, sleep after their meal, they should all come to the gate called Salaria, and falling unexpectedly upon the guards kill them and open the gates as quickly as possible.

2.18. Having charged the young men these things, Alaric at once sent envoys to the members of the senate, declaring that he admired them for their goodwill toward their own emperor, and would no longer trouble them for the future, on account of the valour and faith which they were manifestly so eager to claim, and that, in order that memorials of him might be preserved among fair and good men, he wished to gift each of them with some servants.

2.19. Having signified this and sent the young men not long after, he bade the barbarians prepare for departure, and gave the Romans perception of this.

2.20. And they gladly heard his words and, receiving the gifts, were in much good cheer, being very far from the barbarian's plot.

2.21. For the young men, by being more obedient to their owners, turned away suspicion, and of the army some were already seen rising up and breaking up the siege, while others were reckoned likely to do this same thing very soon.

2.22. And when the appointed day came, Alaric, having armed his whole army for the assault, held it in readiness very near the gate Salaria; for there he had chanced to be encamped at the beginning of the siege.

2.23. And all the young men, coming to this gate at the agreed time of day, falling suddenly upon the guards killed them, and flinging open the gates received Alaric and the army into the city at their pleasure.

2.24. And they set fire to the houses which were near the gate, among which was that of Sallust, who wrote the history for the Romans of old, of which the greater part stands half-burned even to my time; and having plundered the whole city and destroyed most of the Romans, they went on.

2.25. Then they say that at Ravenna one of the eunuchs, evidently a keeper of fowls, announced to the Emperor Honorius that Rome had perished. And he, crying out, said, "And yet it has just eaten from my hands." For he had a very large cock,

2.26. Rome by name; and the eunuch, understanding the word, said that the city of Rome had perished at the hands of Alaric, and the emperor, taking it up, replied, "But I, comrade, thought that Rome my fowl had perished." So great was the folly, they say, with which this emperor was held.

2.27. But some say that Rome was not taken by Alaric thus, but that Proba, a woman most conspicuous in wealth and repute in the Roman senate, took pity on the Romans being destroyed by famine and other suffering, who were even already tasting of one another; and seeing that all good hope had failed them, the river and the harbour being held by the enemy, she bade her servants by night open the gates.

2.28. When Alaric was about to depart from Rome, he proclaimed Attalus, one of the patricians, Emperor of the Romans, investing him with the diadem and the purple and whatever else pertains to imperial dignity. And he did this purposing to depose Honorius from the kingship and to hand over the whole western dominion to Attalus.

2.29. With such a purpose Attalus and Alaric went against Ravenna with a great army. But this Attalus was neither able himself to understand anything nor to be persuaded by one who advised well.

2.30. So when Alaric by no means approved, he sent commanders to Libya without an army. These things, then, were being done thus.

2.31. And the island of Britain revolted from the Romans, and the soldiers there chose for themselves as emperor Constantine, a man not obscure. He at once, having gathered a fleet of ships and a considerable army, invaded Spain and Gaul with a great army as though to enslave them.

2.32. And Honorius had ships in readiness, and awaited the fortunes from Libya, that, if those sent by Attalus should be repulsed, he himself might sail to Libya and hold some portion of his own kingship, but if affairs there should go against him, he might come to Theodosius and be with him.

2.33. For Arcadius having already long before died, Theodosius his son, being still quite a child, held the dominion of the East.

2.34. To Honorius, awaiting these things and carried in the third wave of fortune, marvellous strokes of good fortune befell.

2.35. For God loves to help and assist those who are neither quick-witted nor able to contrive anything of themselves, if they are not wicked, when they are at the utmost loss; which indeed befell this emperor too.

2.36. For from Libya it was suddenly announced that the commanders of Attalus had been destroyed, and a multitude of ships from Byzantium with as many soldiers as possible, come to his aid, were present to him though he had not expected them; and Alaric, having become at variance with Attalus, took from him the imperial appearance and held him, now reckoned in the rank of a private man, in custody.

2.37. And after this Alaric died of disease, and the army of the Visigoths, with Adaulphus leading them, went on to Gaul, and Constantine, worsted in battle, died with his sons.

2.38. The Romans, however, were no longer able to recover Britain, but it, being under tyrants, remained so from then on.

2.39. And the Goths, having made the crossing of the Ister, at first held Pannonia, then, the emperor granting it, dwelt in the regions of Thrace.

2.40. And there, having spent not much time, they mastered the West. But these things will be told in the books about the Goths.

3.1. The Vandals, dwelling about the Maeotic Lake, when they were pressed by famine, went to the Germans, who are now called Franks, and the Rhine river,

3.2. having made companions of the Alani, a Gothic nation. Then thence, with Godigisclus leading them, they settled in Spain, which is the first land of the Roman realm from the ocean. Then Honorius makes terms with Godigisclus, on condition that they should settle there not to the harm of the country.

3.3. And there being a law among the Romans, that if any should hold their own property not by their own hands and a time should pass amounting to thirty years, these should no longer be empowered to proceed against those who had forced them, but a bar to entrance into the court should be set against them by prescription, the emperor wrote a law that the time of the Vandals, which they should spend in the Roman realm, should by no means count toward this thirty-year prescription.

3.4. Honorius, the dominion of the West having been brought to this for him, died of disease. Constantius had chanced before to hold the kingship together with Honorius, the husband of Placidia, the sister of Arcadius and Honorius, who, surviving in his rule a few days and falling grievously sick, then died, Honorius being alive, having been able neither to say nor do anything worth account; for the time he lived in the kingship did not suffice him.

3.5. The son of this Constantius, Valentinian, just weaned, was being reared in the palace of Theodosius, and those of the imperial court in Rome chose one of the soldiers there, John by name, as emperor.

3.6. This man was gentle and well endowed with intelligence and able to lay claim to virtue.

3.7. Holding the tyranny five years, then, he ruled moderately, and neither lent his ear to slanderers nor wrought any unjust murder of his own will nor set himself to the taking away of money; but against the barbarians he had been able to do nothing, since the things from Byzantium were hostile to him.

3.8. Against this John, Theodosius the son of Arcadius, sending a great army and the generals Aspar and Ardaburius, the son of Aspar, both took from him the tyranny and handed over the kingship to Valentinian, who was still a child.

3.9. And Valentinian, having taken John alive in the hippodrome of Aquileia, with one of his hands cut off, led him in and paraded him riding on an ass, and having suffered and heard many things from those on the stage there, killed him. Thus Valentinian received the dominion of the West.

3.10. And Placidia his mother reared and educated this emperor with an effeminate upbringing and instruction, and from this he became full of vice from boyhood.

3.11. For he consorted much with sorcerers and those curious about the stars, and being demonically eager for loves of others' wives he used much lawlessness in his way of life, although he dwelt with a wife exceedingly comely in appearance.

3.12. Therefore he recovered for the kingship nothing of what had been taken before, but lost Libya in addition and was himself destroyed.

3.13. And when he died, it befell his wife and children to become captives. And the disaster in Libya came about thus.

3.14. There were two generals of the Romans, Aetius and Boniface, very mighty men and experienced in many wars, second to none at least of those of that time.

3.15. These two men became at variance in their politics, but came to such a degree of magnanimity and other virtue that, if anyone should call each of them the last man of the Romans, he would not err; so the whole virtue of the Romans chanced to be distinguished into these two men.

3.16. Of these the one, Boniface, Placidia appointed general of all Libya. This was not to the liking of Aetius, but he by no means showed that it did not please him. For their enmity had not yet come to light, but was hidden beneath the face of each.

3.17. When Boniface had got out of his way, he slandered him to Placidia, saying that he was setting up a tyranny, depriving her and the emperor of all Libya, and he said it was easy for her to find out the truth; for if she should summon Boniface to Rome, he would never come.

3.18. When the woman heard this, Aetius seemed to her to speak well, and she did accordingly. But Aetius, anticipating, wrote secretly to Boniface that the emperor's mother was plotting against him and wished to make away with him.

3.19. And he foretold that there would be a great proof of the plot: for from no cause he would very soon be summoned. This the letter declared.

3.20. And Boniface, not disregarding what was written, when those came who summoned him as emperor wished, refused to obey the emperor and his mother, declaring to no one the suggestion of Aetius.

3.21. Placidia, then, when she heard this, thought Aetius exceedingly well-disposed toward the emperor's affairs, and took counsel about Boniface.

3.22. And Boniface (for it seemed to him neither possible to oppose the emperor, nor was any safety apparent for one departing to Rome) took counsel how, if he could, there might be an alliance for him with the Vandals, who, as said before, had settled in Spain not far from Libya.

3.23. There Godigisclus had died, and his sons succeeded to the rule, Gontharis, born to him of a wedded wife, and Gizeric, a bastard.

3.24. But the one was still a child and not very effective, while Gizeric was most excellently trained in war and was the cleverest of all men.

3.25. Boniface, then, sending to Spain his most intimate friends, won over each of the sons of Godigisclus on an equal and like footing, on condition that each of them, holding a third part of Libya, should rule those under him; and if anyone should go to make war on one of them,

3.26. they should jointly defend themselves against the assailants. On these terms the Vandals, crossing the strait at Gadeira, came to Libya, and the Visigoths at a later time settled in Spain.

3.27. In Rome the intimates of Boniface, considering the man's character and reckoning how great the unreasonableness was, marvelled greatly that Boniface should set up a tyranny, and some of them, at Placidia's bidding, went to Carthage.

3.28. There, being with Boniface, they saw the letters of Aetius, and hearing the whole matter, turned back to Rome as quickly as they could and reported to her how Boniface stood.

3.29. The woman, struck with consternation, did Aetius no harm and reproached him with nothing of what he had wrought against the imperial house, since he himself wielded great power and the affairs of the kingship were already in evil case; but to the friends of Boniface she told the suggestion of Aetius, and offering pledges and oaths begged of them that they should, if they could, persuade the man to return to his native land, not overlooking the Roman realm lying under barbarians.

3.30. When Boniface heard this, he repented of the deed and of the agreement with the barbarians, and besought them, undertaking all things without measure, to depart from Libya.

3.31. But they not accepting his words, but thinking themselves insulted, he was forced to come to blows with them, and worsted in battle withdrew to Hippo Regius, a strong city lying in Numidia by the sea.

3.32. There the Vandals, encamping with Gizeric leading them, besieged it; for Gontharis had already died. And they say he perished at the hands of his brother.

3.33. But the Vandals, not agreeing with this, say that Gontharis, seized in Spain by the Germans in battle, was impaled, and that Gizeric, being already sole ruler, led the Vandals to Libya.

3.34. These things, then, I have heard thus from the Vandals. And when much time had passed, since they were able to subdue Hippo Regius neither by force nor by agreement and were pressed by famine, they broke up the siege.

3.35. A little later Boniface and the Romans in Libya, since a great army had come to them from Rome and Byzantium and the general Aspar, thought fit to renew the battle, and a fierce battle taking place, being worsted by the enemy by far, they rushed to flight each as he could.

3.36. And Aspar was conveyed home, and Boniface, coming to Placidia, dissolved the suspicion, that it had arisen against him from no true cause.

4.1. Thus, then, the Vandals, having taken Libya from the Romans, held it. And the enemies whom they took alive, reckoning them in the rank of slaves, they kept in custody.

4.2. Among these it chanced that Marcian too was, who later, on the death of Theodosius, received the kingship.

4.3. At that time Gizeric bade the captives be present in the king's court, that, examining, he might be able to know to what master each of them might serve, not according to his worth.

4.4. And when they were gathered in the open, about midday in the summer season, distressed by the sun, they sat. And among them Marcian too somewhere was sleeping neglected.

4.5. And an eagle flew over him, spreading its wings, as they say, and ever remaining in the same place of the air overshadowed only Marcian.

4.6. Gizeric, seeing what was being done from the upper rooms, being a most quick-witted man, suspected the thing to be divine, and summoning the man inquired of him who he might be.

4.7. And he said that he was a sharer of the secrets of Aspar; the Romans call this man a domesticus in their own tongue.

4.8. When Gizeric heard this and inferred the work of the bird, and had in mind the power which Aspar wielded in Byzantium, it became plain to him that the man was being led to the kingship.

4.9. He by no means resolved to kill him, reckoning that, if he should make him vanish from among men, it would be clear that the work of the bird would be nothing (for it would not be paying court to a king with its shadow, one who was about presently to perish), and that he would kill him for no reason; but if it was destined that the man should reign at a later time, never could he be taken by death; for the things of God, coming to counsel, could not be hindered by a man's judgement.

4.10. So he bound him with oaths that, if it should be in his power, he should never come in arms against the Vandals. Thus Marcian, being released, came to Byzantium, and when Theodosius died at a later time, received the kingship.

4.11. And in all other respects he had become a good emperor, but the affairs of Libya he held of no account. But these things took place at a later time.

4.12. And Gizeric then, having conquered Aspar and Boniface in battle and displayed a forethought worthy of recounting, secured his good fortune most firmly.

4.13. For fearing lest, if again an army should go against him from Rome and Byzantium, the Vandals should not be able to use the same strength and fortune, since human affairs are wont to be tripped up by divine things and to be worsted in their bodies, not lifted up by what he had achieved, but moderate from what he had feared, he made a treaty with the Emperor Valentinian on condition that he should pay tribute to the emperor from Libya each year, and gave over one of his sons, Honoric, as a hostage on this agreement.

4.14. Gizeric, then, both proved a brave man in the battle and most securely preserved the victory, and got back his son Honoric when their friendship advanced greatly.

4.15. And in Rome Placidia died first, then Valentinian her son, childless of male offspring, though two daughters were born to him by Eudoxia the daughter of Theodosius. In what manner Valentinian died, I now go on to tell.

4.16. There was a certain Maximus, a man of senatorial rank, a Roman, of the house of that Maximus whom the elder Theodosius, having put down his tyranny, killed; over whom indeed the Romans keep a yearly festival named after the defeat of Maximus.

4.17. This younger Maximus dwelt with a wife prudent in character and exceedingly famous for beauty. Therefore a certain desire came to Valentinian to come to her bed.

4.18. And when, wishing to be with her, it was impossible, he plotted unholy deeds and carried them out.

4.19. For summoning Maximus to the palace he sat down with him to play dice, and a fixed sum of gold was appointed as the penalty for the loser;

4.20. and the emperor, having won in this game and got the ring of Maximus as a pledge for the agreement, sends it to his house, having charged the bearer to say to the woman that Maximus bade her come to the palace as quickly as possible to greet the empress Eudoxia.

4.21. And she, inferring from the ring that the word was from Maximus, getting into the litter was conveyed to the emperor's court.

4.22. And those to whom this service from the emperor was laid, taking her, lead her into a chamber of the women's quarters far off, where Valentinian, meeting her, forced her against her will.

4.23. And she, after the outrage, coming to her husband's house in tears and exceedingly grieved at the misfortune, laid many curses upon Maximus, as having furnished the cause of what was done.

4.24. Maximus, then, exceedingly grieved at what had befallen, at once set himself to a plot against the emperor; but seeing that Aetius wielded great power, who had just conquered Attila when he invaded the Roman realm with a great army of Massagetae and the other Scythians, the thought came to him that Aetius would be a hindrance to his designs.

4.25. And reckoning these things, it seemed better to him to make away with Aetius first, taking no account that on him rested the whole hope of the Romans.

4.26. And the eunuchs about the emperor's service being well-disposed toward him, he persuaded the emperor by their devices that Aetius was attempting revolutionary measures.

4.27. And Valentinian, judging the word sound by nothing other than the power and virtue of Aetius, killed the man.

4.28. On which occasion a certain Roman won repute by a saying. For when the emperor asked him whether the death of Aetius had been well wrought, he answered, saying that he could not know whether it was well or otherwise wrought by him, but that he knew this most excellently, that he had cut off his own right hand with his other hand.

4.29. So when Aetius had died, Attila, no one being his match, plundered all Europe with no trouble and held both kingdoms subject to the payment of tribute. For tribute was sent to him by the emperors every year.

4.30. At that time, while Attila was besieging the city of Aquileia, great and exceedingly populous, on the seacoast, but outside the Ionian Gulf,

4.31. they say a piece of good fortune of the following kind befell. For they say that he, since he was able neither by force nor in any other way to take the place, and despaired of the siege, now grown very long, bade his whole army at once prepare for withdrawal, so that on the morrow they should all rise up thence at sunrise.

4.32. And on the following day about sunrise, the barbarians, having broken up the siege, were already holding to the departure, when a single stork, which had a nest on one of the towers of the city wall and was rearing its young, suddenly rose up thence with its offspring.

4.33. And the father stork flew, but the young storks, as being not yet able to fly altogether, in part shared in his flight, in part were borne on the father's back, and thus flying off they got very far from the city.

4.34. Which Attila, seeing (for he was most clever both at understanding and inferring everything), bade his army remain again in the same place, adding that the bird would never have flown off thence in vain with its young, unless it had divined that something untoward would befall the place not long after.

4.35. Thus, they say, the army of the barbarians settled again to the siege, and a portion of the wall, that which held the nest of this bird, not long after, from no cause suddenly fell, and there was an entrance into the city for the enemy, and thus Aquileia was taken by storm. So the affairs about Aquileia stood thus.

4.36. Later Maximus killed the emperor with no trouble and held the tyranny, and was with Eudoxia by force. For his wife, with whom he had dwelt, had died not long before. And once he addressed a word to her in bed, that for love of her all that he had wrought had been done.

4.37. And Eudoxia, being vexed at Maximus before and desiring to punish him for his injustice to Valentinian, the word made her swell against him still more, and led her into the plot, when she heard Maximus saying that the misfortune to her husband befell for her sake.

4.38. And as soon as day came, she sends to Carthage, begging Gizeric to avenge Valentinian, who had been destroyed by an unholy man, unworthily of himself and of the kingship, and to rescue her, who was suffering unholy things from the tyrant.

4.39. And she charged that, since Gizeric was a friend and ally, with so great a suffering having befallen the imperial house, it was not holy for him not to become an avenger. For she thought no vengeance would come from Byzantium, Theodosius having already vanished from among men and Marcian having received the kingship.

5.1. Gizeric, for no other reason than that he suspected great wealth would be his, sailed to Italy with a great fleet. And going up to Rome, since no one stood in his way, he mastered the palace.

5.2. Maximus, then, fleeing, the Romans destroyed by stoning, and cutting off his head and each of his other limbs, divided them among themselves.

5.3. And Gizeric took Eudoxia captive, together with Eudocia and Placidia, the daughters of her and Valentinian, and putting a great quantity of gold and the other imperial possessions in his ships sailed to Carthage, sparing neither bronze nor anything else in the palace.

5.4. He also plundered the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and took off the half part of its roof. This roof chanced to be of the best bronze, and with thick gold overlaid upon it it shone, exceedingly magnificent and worthy of much wonder.

5.5. Of the ships with Gizeric, one, which bore the images, they say was lost, but with all the others the Vandals put in to the harbour of Carthage.

5.6. Eudocia, then, Gizeric married to Honoric the elder of his sons, but the other (for she dwelt with a husband, Olybrius, the most notable in the senate of the Romans), together with her mother Eudoxia, the emperor having requested it, he sent to Byzantium.

5.7. Already the dominion of the East had come round to Leo, Aspar having set him up to this, when Marcian had departed from among men.

5.8. Later Gizeric devised the following. The walls of the cities in Libya, except Carthage, he pulled down, so that neither the Libyans themselves, having chosen the Roman cause, should be able to set out from a strong place and revolt, nor should those sent by the emperor have hope that they would seize a city and, making a garrison in it, cause the Vandals trouble.

5.9. At that time, then, he seemed to have taken good counsel and to have preserved the Vandals' good fortune most securely, but at a later time, when, being without walls, these cities were taken by Belisarius more easily and with less toil, Gizeric incurred much laughter, and what seemed for the time to be his good counsel turned to folly for him.

5.10. For men are wont ever, according to their fortunes, to change their opinions about their former counsels.

5.11. And of the Libyans, whatever chanced to be notable and flourishing in wealth, together with the very lands and all their goods he handed over in the rank of slaves to his sons Honoric and Genzon. For Theodorus the youngest had already died, childless altogether of male and female offspring.

5.12. And of the other Libyans he took away the lands, which were most and best, and divided them among the nation of the Vandals, and from this these lands are called the lots of the Vandals to this time.

5.13. And to those who had owned these places of old it befell to be exceedingly poor, yet free; and it was in their power to depart wherever they wished.

5.14. And all the lands which Gizeric had handed over to his sons and the other Vandals he ordered to be subject to no payment of tribute.

5.15. But of the land which seemed to him not good, he left to those who had it before, having appointed so much to be paid thence to the treasury that nothing at all was left over to those who held their own places.

5.16. And many fled and were killed. For many and grievous charges were brought against them;

5.17. and of all one seemed to be the greatest, that a man, having his own money, concealed it. Thus every kind of calamity encompassed the Libyans.

5.18. And the Vandals and Alani, having drawn them up into companies, he set over them company-commanders not fewer than eighty, whom he called chiliarchs, giving an impression that the host of his soldiers came to eight myriads.

5.19. And yet the multitude of the Vandals and Alani, at least in the former time, was said to be no more than five myriads.

5.20. Afterward, however, both by their own begetting and by making companions of other barbarians, they came to a great population.

5.21. And the names of the Alani and the other barbarians, except the Moors, were all merged into that of the Vandals.

5.22. At that time Gizeric, having won over the Moors, since Valentinian had died, made inroads each year at the beginning of spring into Sicily and Italy, and enslaving some of the cities, razing others to the ground, and plundering everything, since the country had become empty of men and money, invaded the dominion of the eastern emperor.

5.23. He plundered the Illyrians and most of the Peloponnese and the rest of Greece and as many islands as lie near it. And again he landed in Sicily and Italy, and led and carried off everything in turn.

5.24. And once, when he had got into his ship in the harbour of Carthage, the sails already being raised, they say the steersman asked him against what men in the world he bade them go.

5.25. And he, answering, said, "Plainly against those with whom God is angry." So from no cause he made inroads against whomever it chanced.

6.1. For these reasons the Emperor Leo, wishing to punish the Vandals, gathered an army against them; and the multitude of this army is said to have been about ten myriads. And having collected a fleet of ships from all the eastern sea, he displayed great magnanimity toward the soldiers and sailors, fearing lest from pettiness something should hinder him as he was eager to accomplish the chastisement upon the barbarians.

6.2. They say, indeed, that thirteen hundred centenaria were spent by him for no result. But since the Vandals were not destined to perish by this fleet, he makes Basiliscus, the brother of his wife Verina and one extraordinarily in love with the kingship, supreme commander of the war—the kingship which he hoped would be his without a battle, if he should win the friendship of Aspar.

6.3. For Aspar himself, laying claim to the Arian faith, and not purposing to change it, was not able to come to the kingship himself, but was easily able to set up another in it, and was already reckoned likely to plot, having quarrelled with the Emperor Leo.

6.4. They say, then, that Aspar, fearing lest, the Vandals being worsted, Leo should most securely secure the kingship, much charged Basiliscus to spare the Vandals and Gizeric.

6.5. And Leo had already before set up Anthemius, a man of senatorial rank, great in wealth and family, as emperor of the West, and sent him, that he might help him in the Vandalic war.

6.6. And yet Gizeric begged and much entreated that the kingship be handed over to Olybrius, who dwelt with Placidia the daughter of Valentinian and was well-disposed toward him through the kinship; and when he failed of this, he was still more angry and plundered all the emperor's land.

6.7. There was in Dalmatia a certain Marcellianus, one of the acquaintances of Aetius, a man of repute, who, when Aetius had died in the way described, no longer thought fit to yield to the emperor, but, revolting and making all the rest revolt, himself held the dominion of Dalmatia, no one daring to come to blows with him.

6.8. This Marcellianus the Emperor Leo, taming him well, won over, and bade him go to the island of Sardo, which was subject to the Vandals. And he, driving out the Vandals, held it without difficulty.

6.9. And Heraclius, sent from Byzantium to Tripolis in Libya, having conquered in battle the Vandals there, easily took the cities, and leaving the ships there, led the army on foot to Carthage. So the preludes of the war were carried on thus.

6.10. And Basiliscus with the whole fleet sailed to a town distant from Carthage not less than two hundred and eighty stades (a temple of Hermes had chanced to be there from of old, from which the place was called Mercurium; for so the Romans call Hermes), and had he not, playing the coward, delayed, but at once attempted to go to Carthage, he would have taken it at the first shout and enslaved the Vandals, who turned to no defence;

6.11. so greatly did Gizeric dread Leo as an invincible emperor, since Sardo and Tripolis were reported to him to be taken, and he saw the fleet of Basiliscus such as no one was ever said to have belonged to the Romans before. But now the delay of the general prevented this, occurring either through cowardice or through treachery.

6.12. And Gizeric, profiting by the negligence of Basiliscus, did as follows. Having armed all his subjects as best he could, he filled his ships, and held in readiness others empty of men and sailing as quickly as possible.

6.13. And sending envoys to Basiliscus he begged that the war be deferred for a space of five days, in order that in the meanwhile, having deliberated, he might do those things which would be most pleasing to the emperor.

6.14. They say, too, that he, secretly sending a great quantity of gold to the army of Basiliscus, bought this armistice.

6.15. And he did this thinking, which happened, that a favourable wind would arise for him in this time.

6.16. And Basiliscus, either gratifying Aspar as he had undertaken, or selling the opportunity for money, or even thinking it better, did what was asked and remained quiet in the camp, awaiting a good opportunity against the enemy.

6.17. And the Vandals, as soon as the wind had come to them, awaiting which they had been sitting, raising their sails and dragging the vessels empty of men, which, as I said before, had been prepared, sailed against the enemy.

6.18. And when they came near, putting fire in the vessels which they themselves were dragging and towing, their sails being filled, they let them go against the camp of the Romans.

6.19. And, there being a multitude of ships there, wherever these vessels fell, they burned easily, and those they met were readily destroyed together with them.

6.20. And as the fire was thus borne on, tumult, as is likely, held the Roman fleet, and a great shout, the wind and the roar of the flame crashing against it; and the soldiers together with the sailors urging one another on and thrusting away with their poles both the fire-bearing vessels and their own ships, which were being destroyed by one another in no order.

6.21. And already the Vandals too were present, ramming and sinking, and plundering the soldiers who escaped, arms and all.

6.22. There were, however, some brave men of the Romans in this toil, and most of all John, who was sub-general of Basiliscus and had shared in no way at all in his treachery.

6.23. For a great throng having surrounded his ship, he killed all about him from the deck a great multitude of the enemy, but when he perceived that the ship was being taken, he leaped with all his panoply of arms from the deck into the sea.

6.24. And Genzon the son of Gizeric much entreated him, offering pledges and holding out safety, but he none the less let his body down into the sea, uttering only this, that John would never come under the hands of dogs.

6.25. This war, then, came to this end, and Heraclius was conveyed home; for Marcellianus had perished by treachery at the hands of one of his fellow-commanders.

6.26. And Basiliscus, coming to Byzantium, sat as a suppliant in the temple of Christ the great God (the Byzantines call the temple Sophia, thinking this name most befits God), and Verina the empress having begged him off, he escaped this danger, but was not able then to come to the kingship, for which all had been wrought by him.

6.27. For the Emperor Leo not long after destroyed Aspar and Ardaburius in the palace, since he suspected them of plotting his death. So these things were done thus.

7.1. And Anthemius, the emperor of the West, perished, destroyed by his son-in-law Recimer, and Olybrius, receiving the kingship, a little later fulfilled the same destiny.

7.2. And Leo too having died in Byzantium, the kingship was received by Leo, son of Zeno and of Ariadne the daughter of Leo, being still of an age of a few days.

7.3. And when his father had been chosen co-emperor with him, very soon the child vanished from among men.

7.4. And it is worth mentioning Majorinus too, who before held the dominion of the West. For this Majorinus, surpassing in all virtue all who had ever reigned over the Romans, did not bear the suffering of Libya gently, but, having gathered a most considerable army against the Vandals, came to Liguria, purposing himself to lead the army against the enemy.

7.5. For Majorinus was quite without hesitation toward toils and not least toward dangers.

7.6. And thinking it not inexpedient for him first to investigate the power of the Vandals and the character of Gizeric, and where in the world the Moors and the Libyans stood in goodwill or hatred toward them, he resolved to trust such matters to no other than his own eyes.

7.7. So as an envoy, ostensibly from the emperor, he was sent to Gizeric, bringing another name fabricated for himself. And fearing lest, having become recognized, he should both suffer some harm himself and hinder his designs, he devised the following.

7.8. The hairs of his head (for they were famous among all men, since they were so fair as to be likened to pure gold), anointing them with a certain dye invented for this very purpose, he was able for the occasion to change altogether to dark.

7.9. And when he came into the presence of Gizeric, Gizeric set about frightening him in various ways, and as though leading him on as a friend went to the building where all the arms were stored, being many and exceedingly worthy of account.

7.10. There, they say, the arms, moving of their own accord, gave off a clatter neither moderate nor ordinary, and then it seemed to Gizeric that there had been an earthquake; but when he had gone out and inquired about the earthquake, since none of the rest agreed, a great wonder fell upon him, yet he was not able to infer what had happened.

7.11. Majorinus, then, having accomplished what he wished, was conveyed back to Liguria, and leading the army on foot went to the Pillars of Heracles, purposing to cross the strait there and to go for the rest by the road to Carthage.

7.12. When Gizeric perceived this, and that he had been deceived by Majorinus in the embassy, he fell into dread and prepared the matters of war.

7.13. And the Romans, inferring from the virtue of Majorinus, were already of good hope to recover Libya for the realm.

7.14. But in the meanwhile Majorinus, seized by a disease of dysentery, was destroyed, a man moderate toward his subjects but terrible toward his enemies.

7.15. And Nepos, having received the kingship and surviving a few days, died of disease, and Glycerius after him, advancing to this rule, fulfilled the same fortune. After whom Augustus received the supreme rule.

7.16. There were, however, other emperors before in the West, whose names, though I know them, I shall by no means mention.

7.17. For it chanced that they survived in their rule but a short time and from this did nothing worthy of account. These things took place in the West.

7.18. And in Byzantium, Basiliscus (for he was no longer able to force the love of the kingship) set himself to a tyranny and mastered it with no trouble, Zeno together with his wife having fled to Isauria, from which he had come.

7.19. And while he held the tyranny a year and eight months, all the rest, so to speak, and the soldiers of the court were vexed by the magnitude of his love of money.

7.20. When Zeno perceived this, having gathered an army he went against him. And Basiliscus sent an army and the general Harmatus to oppose Zeno.

7.21. But when they encamped near one another, Harmatus handed over his army to Zeno, on condition that he should appoint Basiliscus his son, who was quite a young child, Caesar and leave him at his death as successor to the kingship.

7.22. And Basiliscus, having become bereft of all, fled to the temple where he had before. And Acacius, the priest of the city, gave him into the hands of Zeno, charging him with impiety and that he had much confounded and innovated upon the doctrine of the Christians, inclining to the heresy of Eutyches. And so it was.

7.23. And Zeno, having again received the kingship and disavowing his faith toward Harmatus, having appointed Basiliscus his son Caesar, not long after took away the honour from him and killed Harmatus.

7.24. And Basiliscus, together with his sons and his wife, he sent to Cappadocia in the winter season, and bade them be without food and clothing and other care.

7.25. There, pressed by cold and hunger, they took refuge with one another, and embracing their dearest persons perished. This requital overtook Basiliscus for his deeds. But these things took place at a later time.

7.26. And Gizeric then, having got round by deceit and driven out by force, as said before, the enemy, none the less, if not more, led and carried off all the Romans' goods, until the Emperor Zeno came to an agreement with him, and an endless treaty was concluded between them, that neither should the Vandals do anything hostile to the Romans for all time, nor should anything befall them from these. This treaty Zeno himself preserved, and he who received the kingship after him, Anastasius.

7.27. And they remained even to the Emperor Justin. And Justinian, being nephew of this Justin, succeeded to the kingship.

7.28. In the reign of this Justinian this war arose, in the manner that shall be told in the books to follow.

7.29. And Gizeric, surviving a short time, died, having come already far on in age, having made a will in which he charged the Vandals with many things, and that the kingship of the Vandals should ever come to him who, being related by descent to Gizeric himself by male offspring, should chance to be first of all his kinsmen in age.

7.30. Gizeric, then, having ruled the Vandals from the time he mastered Carthage thirty-nine years, died, as has been said.

8.1. And Honoric, the eldest of his sons, succeeded to the rule, Genzon having already vanished from among men. In the reign of this Honoric over the Vandals, no war befell them with any men, except against the Moors.

8.2. For the Moors, quiet before through fear of Gizeric, as soon as he was out of their way, both wrought many evils upon the Vandals and themselves suffered.

8.3. And Honoric became toward the Christians in Libya the most savage and most unjust of all men.

8.4. For forcing them to change to the Arian faith, as many as he caught not readily yielding to him, he burned and destroyed by other forms of death, and of many he cut off the tongues from the very throat, who, surviving even to my time in Byzantium, used pure speech, in no way perceiving this punishment; of whom two, when they resolved to consort with prostitute women,

8.5. were no longer able for the rest to speak. And having ruled the Vandals eight years, he died of disease, the Moors dwelling in the Aurasium mountain having already revolted from the Vandals and being independent (the Aurasium is in Numidia, distant about thirteen days' journey from Carthage and turned toward the south), who were no longer under the Vandals, the Vandals being unable in a mountain difficult of access and very steep to carry on war against the Moors.

8.6. When Honoric died, the dominion of the Vandals came to Gundamundus, son of Genzon, son of Gizeric. For to him the time brought the first place of Gizeric's family.

8.7. This Gundamundus fought against the Moors in more engagements, and subjecting the Christians to greater sufferings, died of disease, already about the middle of the twelfth year of his rule.

8.8. And his brother Trasamundus received the kingship, being exceedingly well endowed with appearance and intelligence and magnanimity.

8.9. The Christians, however, he forced to change their ancestral faith, not torturing their bodies like the former ones, but pursuing them with honours and offices and gifting them with great wealth, and taking least account of those who disobeyed, of whatever sort they were.

8.10. And if he caught any guilty of great offences or held by birth, to these, changing their faith, he set forth as a reward not to pay the penalty of what they had done wrong.

8.11. And when his wife died, having become mother of neither male nor female offspring, wishing to secure his kingship most excellently, he sent to Theoderic the king of the Goths and asked him to give him as wife his sister Amalafrida, whose husband had just died.

8.12. And he both sent his sister and a thousand notable Goths in the rank of bodyguards, whom a throng of attendants followed, amounting to about five thousand warlike men.

8.13. And Theoderic gifted his sister with one of the three promontories of Sicily, which they call Lilybaeum, and from this Trasamundus seemed both to be mightier and the most powerful of all who had led the Vandals.

8.14. And he became a very great friend of the Emperor Anastasius too. In his reign it befell the Vandals to suffer a thing from the Moors such as had never before come to pass.

8.15. There was a certain Cabaon, ruler of the Moors about Tripolis, experienced in many wars and exceedingly quick-witted. This Cabaon, when he learned that the Vandals were marching against him, did as follows.

8.16. First he charged his subjects to abstain from all injustice and from food leading to luxury and most of all from intercourse with women; and pitching two stockades, in the one he himself encamped with all the men, and in the other he shut up the women, and threatened that death would be the penalty if anyone should go to the stockade of the women.

8.17. After this, sending scouts to Carthage, he charged them as follows: whenever the Vandals, marching to the campaign, should outrage any temple which the Christians worship, they should look on at what was being done; but when the Vandals should leave the place, they should do everything the opposite to the sanctuary of what those men had done before they departed.

8.18. And they say he added this too, that he did not know the God whom the Christians worship, but it was likely that He, if He is strong, as is said, would both punish those who outrage and defend those who serve Him.

8.19. The scouts, then, coming to Carthage, remained quiet, watching the preparation of the Vandals; but when the army went toward Tripolis, clad in lowly garb they followed.

8.20. And the Vandals, when on the first day they bivouacked, leading their horses and other animals into the temples of the Christians, refrained from no outrage and used their own licentiousness, and the priests they caught they beat and, scourging them many times over the back, bade them serve them in whatever the most dishonoured of servants were wont to attend to.

8.21. And as soon as they departed thence, the scouts of Cabaon did what had been enjoined upon them; for they at once cleansed the sanctuaries, taking away with much care the dung and whatever else lay there unholily, and lit all the lamps, and did obeisance to the priests with much reverence and greeted them with all other friendliness;

8.22. and giving silver to the poor who sat about these sanctuaries, thus they followed the army of the Vandals.

8.23. And from this, along the whole road, the Vandals did the same wrong and the scouts performed the same service.

8.24. And when they were about to be near, the scouts, going ahead, announced to Cabaon all that had been wrought by the Vandals and by themselves toward the sanctuaries of the Christians, and that the enemy were somewhere near.

8.25. And he, hearing this, set himself to the engagement as follows. Marking off a circle in the plain where he was about to make his stockade, he set the camels crosswise as a defence to the camp in a circle, making the front about twelve camels deep.

8.26. The children and women, then, and whatever was unfit for fighting among them, together with the goods, he placed in the middle, and bade the warlike host be in the middle of the feet of those animals, fenced with their shields.

8.27. The phalanx of the Moors being thus, the Vandals were at a loss how to deal with the present. For they were neither good javelin-throwers nor archers, nor knew how to go into battle on foot, but were all horsemen and used for the most part spears and swords, and from this were able to do the enemy no harm at a distance, and their horses, distressed at the sight of the camels, were by no means led against the enemy.

8.28. And since the enemy, throwing javelins thickly at them from safety, killed both the horses and the men, being a multitude, without difficulty, they fled, and when the Moors came out against them, the most were destroyed, and there are some who came under the enemy, and only quite a few from this army were conveyed home.

8.29. These things it befell Trasamundus to suffer from the Moors. And he died at a later time, having ruled the Vandals twenty-seven years.

9.1. And Ilderic, son of Honoric, son of Gizeric, received the kingship, who toward his subjects was both approachable and altogether gentle, and had become harsh neither to the Christians nor to anyone else, but in matters of war was exceedingly soft and would not even let the thing come as far as his ears.

9.2. Hoamer, then, being his nephew and a man good in war, was general against whomever the Vandals made war; and indeed they called him the Achilles of the Vandals.

9.3. In the reign of this Ilderic the Vandals were worsted in battle by the Moors in Byzacium, whom Antalas ruled, and it befell them to become enemies of Theoderic and the Goths in Italy, from allies and friends.

9.4. For they held Amalafrida in custody and destroyed all the Goths, bringing against them the charge of attempting a revolution against the Vandals and Ilderic.

9.5. No vengeance, however, came from Theoderic, since he thought himself unable to make an expedition with a great fleet to Libya; and Ilderic became an exceeding friend and guest-friend of Justinian, who had not yet come to the kingship but was administering it at his pleasure, since his uncle Justin reigned, being very old and not altogether experienced in the affairs of the state. And they gifted one another with great wealth.

9.6. There was in the family of Gizeric a certain Gelimer, son of Geilaris, son of Genzon, son of Gizeric, far on in age, after Ilderic, and on this account reckoned likely to come very soon to the kingship;

9.7. who in war seemed to be the best of his time, but otherwise was clever and ill-disposed and knew how to set himself to revolution and to others' money.

9.8. This Gelimer, when he saw the rule about to be his, was not able to live in the established manner, but, appropriating the deeds of king, laid claim to the honour, though it was not yet due to him; and Ilderic through fairness yielding, he was no longer able to restrain his mind, but winning over whatever was best among the Vandals, persuaded them to take the kingship from Ilderic, as unwarlike and worsted by the Moors and betraying the dominion of the Vandals to the Emperor Justin, that the kingship might not come to him, who was of the other house; for this, he slanderously said, was the purpose of the embassy to Byzantium, and that Ilderic was handing over the Vandals' dominion to him. And they, persuaded, did accordingly.

9.9. Thus, then, Gelimer, seizing the leadership, held Ilderic, who had ruled the Vandals seven years, and Hoamer and his brother Euages, in custody.

9.10. When Justinian heard this, having already received the kingship, sending envoys to Libya to Gelimer, he wrote as follows: "You do unholy things, and unworthy of the will of Gizeric, holding in custody an old man and a kinsman and king of the Vandals, if there is any profit in what Gizeric counselled, and taking the rule from him by force, when it was in your power to receive it a little later by law.

9.11. Do no further harm, then, nor exchange the name of king for the appellation of tyrant, which precedes by a short time.

9.12. But let this man, who is all but dead, carry off in word the image of the kingship, while you do all that a king is likely to do; and await receiving only the name of the thing from time and from Gizeric's law.

9.13. For doing these things both the favour of the Higher Power will be kindly to you, and ours friendly."

9.14. So much the writing declared. But Gelimer sent the envoys away unsuccessful, and blinded Hoamer and put Ilderic and Euages in stricter custody, charging them with planning flight to Byzantium.

9.15. When the Emperor Justinian heard this too, sending other envoys he wrote as follows: "We, thinking that you would never come against our counsel, wrote you the former letter.

9.16. But since it pleases you to hold the kingship as you have now received it, take what the fate from it may give.

9.17. But send to us Ilderic and Hoamer the blind man and his brother, that they may have what consolation those can have who have been deprived of the kingship or the sight;

9.18. for we shall not allow it, if you do not do these things. For the hope which I had in your friendship urges us.

9.19. And the treaty with Gizeric will be set aside for us. For against him who has received his kingship we are coming, not to make war, but to take such vengeance as we can."

9.20. Gelimer, having read this, replied as follows: "King Gelimer to King Justinian. Neither did I take the rule by force, nor has anything unholy been wrought by me against my kinsmen.

9.21. For the nation of the Vandals deposed Ilderic for attempting a revolution against the house of Gizeric; and time called me to the kingship, giving the first place by law.

9.22. And it is good for one to administer the leadership that is his own and not to make others' cares his own.

9.23. So that for you too, holding a kingship, to be a busybody is not just; and if you break the treaty and come against us, we will meet you with all our power, calling to witness the oaths sworn to Zeno, whose kingship you have received and hold."

9.24. When the Emperor Justinian got this letter, holding Gelimer in anger before too,

9.25. he was still more roused to vengeance. And it seemed best to him, having put an end to the Median war as quickly as possible, to make an expedition to Libya; and (for he was quick to devise and without hesitation to accomplish what he had resolved) the general of the East, Belisarius, was present to him, summoned, not because it had been declared to him or anyone else that he was about to be general to Libya, but in word he had been deprived of the rule he held.

9.26. And the treaty with the Persians was at once made, as has been said in the foregoing.

10.1. And the Emperor Justinian, since his affairs at home and with the Persians stood most excellently, took counsel about the affairs in Libya.

10.2. But when he brought out to the magistrates that he would gather an army against the Vandals and Gelimer, the most were already vexed and in distress, renewing and repeating from memory the fleet of the Emperor Leo and the disaster of Basiliscus, how many soldiers had died, how much money the treasury had owed.

10.3. And most grieved and exceedingly distressed in their anxiety were the prefect of the court, whom the Romans call praetor, and the head of the treasury and whoever else was charged with the collection of public or imperial tribute, reckoning that it would be necessary for them to provide immeasurable sums for the need of the war, worthy of neither forgiveness nor delay.

10.4. And of the generals each, thinking he would be general, dreaded and shrank from the magnitude of the danger, if it should be necessary for him, saved from the evils on the sea, to encamp in the enemy's land, and setting out from the ships to fight against a kingdom great and worthy of account.

10.5. And the soldiers, just returned from a long and grievous war and not yet having tasted with full tongue the good things of home, were in helplessness, being led to a sea-battle, which they had not even learned of before by hearsay, and sent from the eastern borders to the setting of the sun, to risk themselves against the Vandals and Moors.

10.6. And the rest, as is wont to happen in a crowd, wished to be spectators of revolution through others' dangers.

10.7. To the emperor, however, no one dared to say anything in hindrance of the expedition, except John the Cappadocian, the prefect of the court, who was the boldest and cleverest of all his time.

10.8. For this John, the others lamenting their present fortunes in silence, coming forward to the emperor spoke as follows: "The faith, O King, of your converse with your subjects opens to us frankness about whatever may profit your state, even if what is said and done is not to your pleasure.

10.9. For so does your intelligence mingle your power with justice, that you do not think the one who has served you altogether well-disposed to your affairs, nor are you harsh toward the one who has opposed you, but weighing all by the purity of mind alone you have often shown us that to oppose your counsels is without danger.

10.10. Led by these things, O King, I have entered into this counsel, perhaps offending for the moment, should it so chance, but for the future showing my goodwill manifest, and providing you as witness of it.

10.11. For if, disobeying what is said, you carry the war out against the Vandals, when the contest is prolonged for you it will come about that my advice wins repute.

10.12. For if you have confidence that you will master the enemy, it is not unlikely that you should both give up bodies and spend a multitude of money and undergo the toils for the contests; for victory, coming on, covers all the sufferings of war.

10.13. But if these things lie on the knees of God, and using the examples of the past we must fear the end of the war, how is it not better to love quiet than the dangers in the contests?

10.14. You purpose to march against Carthage, to which, going by land, the journey is a hundred and forty days, and sailing, it is necessary, having traversed the whole sea, to come to the extremities of the sea. So that it will need a year for the messenger of what shall befall in the camp to come to you.

10.15. And one might add that, if you master the enemy, you would not be able to lay claim to Libya, Sicily and Italy lying under others;

10.16. but if you suffer any reverse, O King, the treaty being already broken by you, you will bring the danger into our land; and to sum up, neither will it be in your power to enjoy the victory, and the adversity of fortune will harm what is well established.

10.17. Before the deeds is the profit of good counsel. For to those who have stumbled repentance is unprofitable, but before the dangers to learn otherwise is without danger. It will profit, then, most of all to use the occasions in due season."

10.18. So much John said. And the emperor, having received it, checked his eagerness for the war. But one of the priests whom they call bishops, coming from the East, said he wished to come to a parley with the emperor.

10.19. And when he met with him, he said that God had charged him in a dream to come to the emperor and to charge him that, having undertaken to rescue the Christians in Libya from tyrants, he had then for no reason cowered;

10.20. "And yet I myself," he said, "will help him

10.21. as he wages war and will make him master of Libya." When the emperor heard this, he was no longer able to restrain his mind, but gathered the army and the ships, and prepared arms and provisions, and charged Belisarius to be in readiness as one about very soon to be general to Libya.

10.22. And Tripolis in Libya one of the natives, Pudentius, made to revolt from the Vandals, and sending to the emperor begged him to send an army;

10.23. for he would win the country for him with no trouble. And he sent a commander, Tattimuth, and an army not large.

10.24. This Pudentius, making companion of, the Vandals not being present, both held the country and won it for the emperor. And to Gelimer, wishing to punish Pudentius, the following hindrance befell.

10.25. There was a certain Godas among the slaves of Gelimer, a Goth by race, spirited and effective and well endowed for strength, and seeming well-disposed to his master's affairs.

10.26. To this Godas Gelimer entrusted the island of Sardo, both for guard and to bring the yearly tribute.

10.27. But he, being able neither to digest nor to bear in his soul the good fortune from chance, set himself to a tyranny, and no longer thought fit to bring the payment of tribute, but himself, having made the island revolt from the Vandals, held it.

10.28. And when he perceived that the Emperor Justinian desired war against Libya and Gelimer, he wrote to him as follows:

10.29. "Neither yielding to ill-will nor having suffered any unkindness from my master have I looked to revolt, but seeing the man's cruelty, how strong it is toward both his kindred and his subjects, I would not seem to share in his inhumanity of my own will.

10.30. For it is better to serve a just king than a tyrant who enjoins what is not lawful.

10.31. But let it be your concern both to help me as I am eager for these things, and to send soldiers so that I may be able to defend myself against the assailants."

10.32. The emperor, gladly receiving this letter, sent Eulogius as envoy and wrote a letter, praising Godas for his intelligence and his eagerness for justice, and promising alliance and soldiers and a commander who would be able both to guard the island together with him and to help in other things, so that nothing untoward should befall him from the Vandals.

10.33. And Eulogius, coming to Sardo, found Godas wearing the name and appearance of king and having appropriated bodyguards.

10.34. He, when he had read the emperor's letter, said that he wished soldiers to come to alliance, but had no need at all of a commander. And writing to this effect to the emperor, he dismissed Eulogius.

11.1. The emperor, not yet having learned this, was preparing four hundred soldiers and a commander Cyril to guard the island together with Godas.

11.2. And together with these he had in readiness the expedition to Carthage too, ten thousand foot soldiers and five thousand horse, collected both from regular soldiers and federates.

11.3. Now among the federates before, only barbarians were enrolled, as many as came into the state not to be slaves, since they had not been worsted by the Romans, but on an equal and like footing;

11.4. for foedera the Romans call treaties with the enemy; but now it is no hindrance for all to lay claim to this name, time not thinking fit to keep the appellations to those on whom they were set, but affairs being ever carried about as men wish to lead them, holding of small account what was named before.

11.5. And the commanders of the federates were Dorotheus, the general of the troops in Armenia, and Solomon, who acted as deputy for the generalship of Belisarius;

11.6. (the Romans call this man a domesticus. This Solomon was a eunuch, but he had not chanced to have his genitals cut off by any man's design, but some chance, when he was in swaddling clothes, awarded him this); and Cyprian and Valerian and Martin and Althias and John and Marcellus and Cyril, of whom I made mention before;

11.7. and of the regular soldiers, of the horse Rufinus and Aïgan, of the household of Belisarius, and Barbatus and Pappus, of the foot Theodorus, surnamed Cteanus, and Terentius and Zaïdus and Marcian and Sarapis.

11.8. And a certain John, coming from Epidamnus, which is now called Dyrrhachium, was set over all the leaders of the foot.

11.9. Of all these Solomon chanced to be from the East, from the very extremity of the Romans, where now the city of Daras is inhabited, and Aïgan was a Massagete by race, whom they now call Huns;

11.10. and the rest nearly all dwelt in the regions of Thrace.

11.11. And there followed them four hundred Heruls, whom Pharas commanded, and about six hundred allied barbarians from the nation of the Massagetae, all horse-archers;

11.12. of whom Sinnion and Balas were leaders, men of the highest manliness and endurance.

11.13. And the whole army led five hundred ships, and none of them was able to bear more than fifty thousand medimni, nor indeed less than three thousand.

11.14. And thirty thousand sailors sailed in all of them, Egyptians and Ionians for the most part and Cilicians, and one commander over all the ships, Calonymus of Alexandria, was appointed.

11.15. And they had warships too, prepared as for a sea-battle, ninety-two, single-banked, however, and having decks above, so that those rowing them might be least shot at by the enemy.

11.16. The men of today call these vessels dromons; for they are able to sail with the greatest speed. In these two thousand Byzantines sailed, all rowing themselves; for there was among them no supernumerary.

11.17. And there was sent too Archelaus, a man of patrician rank, who had already been prefect of the court both in Byzantium and among the Illyrians, but was then appointed prefect of the camp; for so the paymaster of the expense is called.

11.18. And as supreme commander over all the emperor sent Belisarius, who again commanded the troops of the East.

11.19. And many bodyguards and many shield-bearers followed him, men good in war and simply experienced in the dangers about these things.

11.20. And the emperor wrote him a letter, to do everything as might seem to him best, and that these things should be valid as though the emperor himself had wrought them. For the letter gave him the weight of the emperor.

11.21. And Belisarius came from Germania, which lies between the Thracians and the Illyrians. These things, then, were being done thus.

11.22. And Gelimer, deprived of Tripolis by Pudentius and of Sardo by Godas, hardly hoped to recover Tripolis, lying farther off and the Romans already helping the revolters, against whom it seemed best to him not at once to march; but he hastened to anticipate to the island, before alliance should come even to it from the emperor.

11.23. Choosing out, then, five thousand of the Vandals and a hundred and twenty ships of the best sailing, and appointing as general Tzazon his brother, he sent them.

11.24. And they, with much spirit and haste, sailed against Godas and Sardo, while the Emperor Justinian sent Valerian and Martin ahead, that they should await the rest of the army at the places in the Peloponnese.

11.25. And when both were in the ships, it came into the emperor's mind to enjoin something upon them; which, though he wished to say before too, some occupation of other words, seizing his mind, had struck out.

11.26. Summoning them, then, he was about to say what he wished, but inferring, he found that it would not be auspicious for them to cut short their journey.

11.27. He sent, then, some to forbid them either to turn back to him again or to disembark from the ships.

11.28. And they, when they were near the ships, bade them with shouting and much tumult by no means turn back, and it seemed to those present both an evil omen and that none of those in those ships would ever return from Libya to Byzantium.

11.29. For besides the omen, they suspected that a curse had come upon them from the emperor against his will, so that they should not turn back. And if one should refer this to these two commanders, Valerian and Martin, he will not find true what was thought from the first.

11.30. For there was in the bodyguards of Martin a certain Stotzas, who was to be an enemy to the emperor too and to set himself to a tyranny and by no means to return to Byzantium, on whom one might suspect that the divine power brought that curse.

11.31. But whether this is so or otherwise, I leave each to reckon as he wishes. And in what manner the general Belisarius and the army set out, I now go on to tell.

12.1. Already in the seventh year of his supreme rule the Emperor Justinian, about the summer solstice, bade the flagship moor at the beach which chances to be before the emperor's court.

12.2. There Epiphanius, the high-priest of the city, having prayed what was likely, put into the ship one of the soldiers just baptized and made partaker of the Christian name. Thus, then, the general Belisarius and Antonina his wife sailed.

12.3. And with them was Procopius too, who wrote this history, having before greatly dreaded the danger, but having later seen a vision of a dream which made him take courage and urged him to the campaign.

12.4. For it seemed to him in the dream that he was in the house of Belisarius, and that one of the servants, coming in, announced that some men had come bringing gifts; and Belisarius bade him examine what sort of gifts they might be, and he, getting into the inner court, saw men who carried on their shoulders earth with its very flowers.

12.5. And these, leading them into the house, he bade lay down in the porch the earth they bore; where Belisarius, coming with his bodyguards, both reclined himself in that earth and ate the flowers, and bade the others do this same thing, and as they reclined and ate, as on a couch, the food seemed exceedingly sweet. So the vision of the dream stood thus.

12.6. And the whole fleet followed the flagship, and they put in to Perinthus, which is now called Heraclea, where five days' time was spent by the army, since the emperor there gifted the general with as many horses as possible from the imperial herds, which graze for him in the regions of Thrace.

12.7. From there, setting out, they moored at Abydos, and it befell them there, while they delayed four days through the calm, that the following thing happened.

12.8. Two Massagetae killed one of their comrades who jested at them in their drinking, as they were drunk. For of all men the Massagetae are most given to drinking unmixed wine.

12.9. Belisarius, then, at once impaled these two men on the hill which is near Abydos.

12.10. And when both the rest and the kinsmen of the two men were vexed and said that they had come to alliance not to be punished nor to be liable to the laws of the Romans (for their own customs do not make such requitals for murders), and the cause against the general was murmured to them by Roman soldiers too, who were concerned that there should be no penalties for offences, Belisarius, calling together the Massagetae and the rest of the army, spoke as follows:

12.11. "If the words were made now to men first entering into war, I should need much time to persuade you by saying how great a help justice is toward the winning of a trophy.

12.12. For those who do not know the fortunes of such contests think that the end of war is in the hands alone.

12.13. But you, who have often conquered enemies neither inferior in body and well endowed for manliness, and have often had experience of your adversaries, are not ignorant, I think, that men ever fight from each army, but God awards as it seems to Him and gives the mastery of war.

12.14. Since, then, these things are so, it befits one to hold the good condition of body and care in arms and other preparation for war of less account than justice and the things pertaining to God.

12.15. For that which is most able to profit the needy would more justly be honoured by them.

12.16. And the first sign of justice would be the punishment of those who have killed unjustly. For if it is necessary to judge and name the just and the unjust ever from what is done toward one's neighbours, nothing would be more honoured by a man than the soul.

12.17. But if a barbarian, because he killed his kinsman while drunk, thinks fit that the penalty have forgiveness, by the things by which he says he is acquitted of the charges he reasonably makes the accusations worse.

12.18. For it is not fitting so to be drunk, especially for one marching in a camp, as to kill one's dearest readily, but the very drunkenness, even if the murder least follow, is worthy of penalty, and the kindred being wronged would seem to those of sense worthy of more vengeance than those who do not belong.

12.19. The example, then, and the outcome of what was done, of what sort it is, you may see.

12.20. And it befits you neither to begin unjust hands nor to carry off anything of others'; for I shall not overlook it, nor shall I reckon any of you my fellow-soldier, even if he seem very terrible to the enemy, who is not able to use clean hands against his adversaries.

12.21. For manliness would not conquer if not arrayed with justice." So much Belisarius said.

12.22. And the whole army, when they heard what was said and looked up at the two impaled men, came into a certain helpless fear and took to mind to live prudently, as being not outside great danger, if they should be caught doing anything unlawful.

13.1. After this Belisarius took thought how the whole fleet might ever sail the same course and put in to the same place.

13.2. For he knew that in a great fleet, especially if rough winds should fall upon them, it is necessary that many of the ships be left behind and scattered over the sea, and that their steersmen do not know which of those advancing it is better to follow.

13.3. Reckoning, then, he did as follows. Of three ships, in which he himself and his attendants sailed, he anointed the sails from the upper corner to about a third part with red, and setting up upright poles in each stern, hung from them lamps, that both by day and by night the general's ships might be conspicuous; whom he bade all the steersmen follow.

13.4. And thus, the three ships leading the whole fleet, it chanced that none of them was left behind. When, however, they were about to set out from a harbour, the trumpets signalled this to them.

13.5. Setting out from Abydos, hard winds, falling upon them, brought them to Sigeum. And again, using a calm, they came more slowly to Malea, where the calm profited them most of all.

13.6. For being in a great fleet and exceedingly large ships, when night came on, the narrowness threw all into confusion and brought them to the utmost danger.

13.7. There the steersmen and the other sailors displayed valour, using much shouting and clatter and thrusting with their poles, and skilfully making the spacings from one another, so that, even if a favourable wind or one against them had come on, hardly, I think, would the sailors have saved themselves and the ships.

13.8. But as it was, escaping in the way described, they touched at Taenarum, which is now called Caenopolis.

13.9. Then setting out thence they put in at Methone, and found that those under Valerian and Martin had come there a little before.

13.10. And since no winds blew for them, Belisarius moored the ships there, and disembarked the whole army, and having disembarked them arranged the commanders and ordered the soldiers.

13.11. And while he was managing these things and winds least came on, it befell that many of the soldiers were destroyed by disease, for the following cause.

13.12. The prefect of the court, John, was base in character and so able to devise the bringing of money into the treasury to the harm of men, as I could never adequately tell.

13.13. But these things have been told in the foregoing, when I was led by the history to this point of the narrative.

13.14. But how he then made away with these soldiers I now go on to tell.

13.15. The bread on which the soldiers are to feed in the camp must twice be put into the oven, and so carefully baked that it lasts a long time and is not destroyed in a short time; and bread thus baked must weigh less; and on this account in such distributions of bread the soldiers are wont to have the fourth part of the accustomed weight cut off.

13.16. John, then, reckoning how he might give less wood and a smaller wage to the bakers, and how the weight might not be deficient for him, brought the bread, still raw, into the public bath—the Achilles, beneath which the fire is burned—and bade it be laid down there.

13.17. And when it seemed somewhat baked, putting it into sacks and stowing it in the ships, he sent it.

13.18. And when the fleet came to Methone, the loaves, falling apart, turned again to flour, not sound, however, but rotten and mouldy and already bearing a heavy smell.

13.19. And those on whom this honour lay distributed it to the soldiers by measure, making the bread-distribution now by choenixes and medimni.

13.20. And the soldiers, feeding on this in the summer season in a place having parchedness, sickened, and of them died not fewer than five hundred; which was about to befall the greater number too, but Belisarius prevented it, bidding native bread be distributed to them. And declaring the matter to the emperor, he himself won repute, but brought no penalty then to John.

13.21. These things, then, were so. Setting out from Methone, they came to the harbour of the Zacynthians, where, having put aboard as much water as was to last them across the Adriatic sea, and prepared the other things, they sailed.

13.22. And a soft and exceedingly sluggish wind blowing for them, on the sixteenth day they put in to a desert place of Sicily, where the mountain Etna rises near.

13.23. And in this crossing, having delayed as I have said, it befell all of them that their water was spoiled, except that which Belisarius himself and his fellow-banqueters drank.

13.24. For this alone the wife of Belisarius preserved, in the following manner. Filling amphorae made of glass with water and making a little house of boards in the hold of the ship, where the sun could not enter, there she buried the amphorae in sand, and thus the water remained unharmed. So this was so.

14.1. And Belisarius, as soon as he disembarked on the island, was at a loss and distressed, and his mind was turned by not knowing against what men the Vandals were, or of what sort in war, nor in what manner or from where, setting out, he should make war on them.

14.2. And most of all the soldiers troubled him, having dreaded the sea-battle and not at all ashamed to declare beforehand that, if anyone should disembark them onto the land, they would try to be brave men in the battle, but if hostile vessels should come against them, they would turn to flight; for they were not able to fight against both hostile men and waters.

14.3. At a loss, then, in all these things, he sent Procopius his assessor to Syracuse, to learn whether there were any ambushes of the enemy lying in wait for the crossing, either in an island or on the mainland, and where of Libya it would be better for them to put in, and from where, setting out, it would profit to carry the war against the Vandals.

14.4. And when he had done what was enjoined, he bade him return and meet him at the place Caucana, distant about two hundred stades from Syracuse, where he himself and the whole fleet were to moor.

14.5. And in word he sent him to buy provisions, since the Goths were willing to give them a market, this having seemed good both to the Emperor Justinian and to Amalasountha the mother of Atalaric, who then, being a child and reared by his mother Amalasountha, held the dominion of the Goths and Italians.

14.6. For when Theoderic had died and the kingship came to his grandson Atalaric, who had already before been orphaned of his father, Amalasountha, fearing for her son and the kingship, made Justinian an exceeding friend, and obeyed him in his commands, and then promised to give a market to the army and did this.

14.7. And Procopius, being in Syracuse and beyond expectation chancing upon a man who was his fellow-citizen and friend from boyhood, and had dwelt from of old in Syracuse for business by sea, learned what he needed;

14.8. for this man showed him a servant, come that day on the third day from Carthage, who said that it was not worth suspecting any ambush of the Vandals against the fleet.

14.9. For by no men had those people learned that an army was going against them at this time, but they had even sent an expedition a little before against Godas, whatever was effective among the Vandals.

14.10. And on this account Gelimer, having nothing hostile in mind, and holding Carthage and all the other places by the sea in neglect, was passing his time in Hermione, which is in Byzacium, distant four days' journey from the shore; so that it was in their power to sail, fearing nothing untoward, and to put in wherever the wind should call them.

14.11. When Procopius heard this, taking the servant by the hand, he walked to the harbour Arethusa, where his vessel was moored, and inquiring of the man much and searching out everything. And getting into the ship with him, he bade the sails be raised and to sail quickly to Caucana.

14.12. And when the servant's master stood on the shore wondering that he did not give the man back to him, Procopius cried out, the ship being already under sail, and begged him not to be vexed with him;

14.13. for the servant must meet with the general, and after leading the way to Libya for the army, would not long after return to Syracuse, having got great wealth.

14.14. Coming to Caucana, they found all in great mourning. For Dorotheus, the general of the troops in Armenia, had died there, leaving great longing for him to the whole army.

14.15. And Belisarius, when the servant came into his sight and told the whole story, being overjoyed and praising Procopius much, bade the departure be signalled by the trumpets.

14.16. And raising the sails quickly, they touched at the islands Gaulus and Melita, which divide the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian sea.

14.17. There a great wind of the East, falling upon them on the morrow, bore the ships to the shore of Libya, to a place which the Romans call Caput Vada in their own tongue. For the place is called Caputvada, distant five days' journey for an unencumbered man from Carthage.

15.1. When they came near the shore, the general bade them lower the sails and, casting anchors from the ships, ride at anchor, and calling all the commanders to his ship he set forth counsel about the disembarkation.

15.2. There many other arguments were spoken tending to either side, and Archelaus, coming forward, spoke as follows: "I admire the virtue of the general, who, surpassing all of us by far in judgement and being most highly come in experience, and himself holding the power, has set the counsel in common and bids each of us speak, so that we may be able to choose what seems best, when it was in his power both to know alone what is needful and at his pleasure to lead as he wished.

15.3. But of you, O commanders (I know not how I should say it gently), one might marvel that each has not himself been first eager to vote against the disembarkation.

15.4. And yet I know that to propose anything to those set in danger brings no private profit to the one who advises, but for the most part turns to blame.

15.5. For men, when they fare well, refer what is done to their own judgement or fortune, but when they stumble, blame only the one who advised.

15.6. Yet it shall be said; for it is not holy for those deliberating about safety to shrink from blame.

15.7. You purpose to disembark into the enemy's land, O commanders; in what harbour are you thinking to deposit the ships? Or with the wall of what city will you have safety for yourselves?

15.8. Or have you not heard that this shore, I mean from Carthage to Iouce, they say reaches a journey of nine days, being altogether harbourless and exposed to the winds from whatever quarter they may blow?

15.9. And there is no wall left in all Libya except that of Carthage,

15.10. Gizeric having counselled this. And one might add that this place too, they say, altogether lacks water. Come, then, if it please, let us make the decision having supposed even some of the contrary things.

15.11. For those entering into contests must expect nothing untoward beyond what is human or worthy of the nature of things.

15.12. If, then, when we have disembarked onto the mainland, a storm should fall upon us, is it not necessary that one of two things befall the ships, either to flee very far off, or to perish on this shore?

15.13. Then what provision of necessaries will there be for us? Let no one look to me, the prefect, the paymaster of the expense; for an office deprived of all its service must be reduced to the name and person of a private man.

15.14. And where, having deposited the superfluous arms or any other of the necessaries, shall we have to receive the barbarian as he comes on? But these things it is not even good to say how they will turn out.

15.15. I hold that we ought to go straight to Carthage. For they say there is a harbour distant not more than forty stades from it, which they call Stagnum, altogether unguarded and well able to hold the whole fleet. Setting out from there it will not be hard for us to carry the war.

15.16. And I think it likely that we shall master Carthage by a sudden raid, especially as the enemy are left far from it, and having mastered it nothing for the rest will be troublesome.

15.17. For all human things, the chief points being seized, are wont not long after to fall away. Considering all of which it befits us to choose the best." So much Archelaus said.

15.18. And Belisarius spoke as follows: "Let none of you, fellow-commanders, think the words to be those of a judge, nor on this account spoken last, so that to follow them, of whatever sort they may be, becomes necessary for all.

15.19. For whatever seems best to each of you I have heard; and it befits me too, having brought out into the midst what I know, thus with you to choose the better.

15.20. And it is worth reminding you of this, that a little before the soldiers openly said they feared the dangers on the sea and would turn to flight, should a hostile ship come against them, while we begged God to show us the land of Libya and a peaceful disembarkation onto it.

15.21. And these things being so, I think it the part of unintelligent men to pray to God to receive the better, but, when they are given, to shake them off and to go against them.

15.22. And if, as we sail straight to Carthage, a hostile fleet should meet us, for the soldiers fleeing at full force there will be left the not being blamed; for a fault foretold carries its own defence; but for us, even if saved, there is no forgiveness.

15.23. And there being many difficulties if we remain in the ships, this alone, I think, will be sufficiently said, by which most of all they think fit to frighten us, brandishing the storm.

15.24. For if a storm should fall upon us, it is necessary, as they say, that one of two things befall the ships, either to flee far off from Libya, or to perish on this shore.

15.25. Which, then, as from the present, will profit us more in our choice? That the ships alone be destroyed, or that all our affairs perish, men and all? And apart from this, now, falling upon the enemy unprepared, we shall come off according to our wish, as is likely; for the things of war are wont to be enslaved by the unexpected;

15.26. but a little later, the enemy being now in readiness, the contest will be for us on equal terms of power.

15.27. And one might add that perhaps we shall have to fight even for the disembarkation itself, and to seek those things which, now present to us, come into counsel as not necessary.

15.28. And if a storm should then come upon us as we fight, as for the most part is wont to happen on the sea, fighting against both the waves and the Vandals, we shall know we have learned good counsel too late.

15.29. I say, then, that we ought to disembark onto the mainland very soon, disembarking horses and arms and whatever else we think necessary for our need, and quickly to dig a trench and throw up a stockade, no less able to accomplish safety for us than whatever wall one might name, and from there, setting out, to carry the war,

15.30. should anyone come on. And nothing of provisions will fail us if we are brave men. For to those who master the enemy it befalls to be masters of what belongs to those, and victory, encompassing all goods, wherever it inclines, is wont to deposit them. So that for you both safety and the abundance of goods lie in the hands."

15.31. When Belisarius had said this, the whole assembly agreed and accepted it, and breaking up they made the disembarkation as quickly as possible, about three months after their departure from Byzantium.

15.32. And the general, pointing out a place on the shore, bade the soldiers and sailors both dig the trench and throw up the stockade.

15.33. And they did accordingly. And a great throng working, fear rousing their eagerness and the general urging them on, on that very day the trench was dug and the stockade completed and the palisade fixed in a circle on every side.

15.34. There a marvellous thing befell those digging the trench. A great quantity of water the earth sent up, this not having happened in Byzacium before, especially as the place was waterless.

15.35. This water sufficed the men and the other animals for every need. And Procopius, rejoicing with the general, said that he was glad not because of the need from the abundance of water, but because it seemed to him to be a token of an effortless victory and that the divine power foretold this to them.

15.36. Which indeed came to pass. That night, then, all the soldiers bivouacked in the camp, making guards and the rest as was wont, except that Belisarius bade five archers remain in each ship for guard, and the dromons to moor in a circle about them, guarding lest anyone should come to do them mischief.

16.1. On the next day, when some of the soldiers, going up into the fields, laid hands on the produce, the general both chastised their bodies not lightly and, calling all together, spoke as follows:

16.2. "To use violence and feed on others' goods seems in other times to be base only in this, that it carries injustice in itself; but now there is so great a difficulty in it that, not to speak bitterly, holding the account of justice of less account, we must reckon how great the danger from it is.

16.3. For I disembarked you onto this land having confidence in that alone, that the Libyans, being Romans from of old, are faithless to the Vandals and hard toward them, and on this account I thought that neither would anything of necessaries fail us nor would the enemy work us any harm by a raid.

16.4. But now this lack of self-control of yours has changed these things to the opposite for us. For you have reconciled the Libyans, no doubt, to the Vandals, having now turned their ill-will against yourselves.

16.5. For by nature there belongs to those who are wronged hatred toward those who use violence, and it has come about for you to exchange your own safety and the abundance of good things for a few pieces of silver, when it was in your power, buying provisions from willing owners, both not to seem unjust and to use them as exceeding friends.

16.6. Now, then, your war will be against both the Vandals and the Libyans, and I say even against God himself, whom no one doing wrong calls to his aid.

16.7. But cease leaping upon others' goods, and shake off gain full of dangers.

16.8. For this is that occasion in which prudence is most able to save, but disorder carries to death. For if you take care of these things, God will be propitious, the people of the Libyans well-disposed, and the nation of the Vandals easy to attack."

16.9. Having said so much, Belisarius broke up the assembly, and when he heard that the city of Syllectum, distant a day's journey from the camp, was on the sea, on the road leading to Carthage, whose wall chanced to have been pulled down of old, but the inhabitants, blocking up the walls of the houses on all sides because of the inroads of the Moors, kept the form of a wall, he sent one of the bodyguards, Boriades, together with some of the shield-bearers, charging them to make trial of the city, and, if they should take it, to do no harm in it, but to promise countless good things, and that they had come for their freedom, so that the army might have entrance into it.

16.10. And they, coming near the city about lamp-lighting and hiding in a glen, passed the night. And at dawn, chancing upon country folk with wagons going into it, they entered in silence with them and held the city with no trouble.

16.11. And when day came, no tumult having preceded, calling together the priest and whatever was notable, they reported the commands of the general, and receiving from willing hands the keys of the entrances, sent them to the general.

16.12. On the same day the overseer of the public post too deserted, handing over all the public horses. And one of those ever sent for the imperial responses, whom they call veredarii, being seized, the general did him no harm, but gifting him with much gold and receiving pledges, put into his hands the letters which the Emperor Justinian had written to the Vandals, that he should give them to the commanders of the Vandals.

16.13. And the writing declared as follows: "We have neither resolved to make war on the Vandals nor do we break the treaty of Gizeric, but we are attempting to put down your tyrant, who, holding the will of Gizeric of small account, holds your king shut up in custody, and of his kinsmen those whom he greatly hated at the beginning he killed, and the rest, having taken away their eyes, he holds in custody, not allowing them to end their misfortunes by death.

16.14. Help us, then, and free yourselves together from so base a tyranny, that you may be able to enjoy peace and freedom. For these things, we give you pledges before God that they shall be yours from us."

16.15. So much the emperor's letter declared. But he who received this from Belisarius did not dare to bring it into the open, and showing it secretly to his friends accomplished nothing worth account.

17.1. And Belisarius, having arrayed the army thus as for battle, marched toward Carthage. Choosing out three hundred of the shield-bearers, men good in war, he handed them to John, who managed for him the expense of his household; the Romans call this man an optio.

17.2. He was a man Armenian by race, but come to the highest pitch of intelligence and manliness. This John he bade lead the army, distant not less than twenty stades, and if he should see anything hostile, to signal it quickly, so that they should not be forced to enter battle unprepared.

17.3. And the allied Massagetae he bade ever make their journey distant by so many or even more stades on the left side; and he himself marched behind with the best men.

17.4. For he suspected that Gelimer, following them from Hermione, would not long after attack them. For on the right side there was no fear, as they journeyed not far from the shore.

17.5. And to the sailors he charged ever to keep pace and not to be far separated from the army, but, when the wind was favourable, lowering the great sails to follow with the small ones, which they call dolones, and, when the wind altogether ceased, to force their way as best they could by rowing.

17.6. And coming to Syllectum, Belisarius kept the soldiers prudent, neither beginning unjust hands nor doing anything out of place, and himself displaying gentleness and much humanity, so won over the Libyans that for the rest he made the journey as in his own land, the inhabitants neither withdrawing nor wishing to hide anything, but both providing a market and serving the soldiers in the rest as they wished.

17.7. Accomplishing eighty stades each day, we proceeded all the way to Carthage, either in a city, should it so chance, or in a camp, bivouacking as safely as we could from the present.

17.8. Thus, then, through the city of Leptis and Adrumetum we came to the place Grasse, distant from Carthage three hundred and fifty stades.

17.9. There was a palace of the leader of the Vandals and a park the fairest of all we know.

17.10. For it is exceedingly watered by springs and has a great abundance of grove. And the trees are all full of fruit; so that each of the soldiers pitched his hut among the fruit-bearing trees, and, the fruits being then in season, all came to satiety of them, yet no perception of the fruit being diminished was made.

17.11. And Gelimer, when he first heard at Hermione that the enemy were present, wrote to his brother Ammatas in Carthage to kill Ilderic and the others whom, whether by birth or otherwise belonging to him, he held in custody, and himself to put the Vandals and whatever else was warlike in the city in readiness, so that, the enemy being in narrows about the suburb of the city, which they call Decimum, coming together from both sides they might encircle and, netting, destroy them.

17.12. And Ammatas did accordingly, and killed Ilderic, who was a kinsman, and Euages, and as many of the Libyans as were friendly to them.

17.13. For Hoamer had already vanished from among men. And having armed the Vandals, as though to attack at the right moment,

17.14. he held them in readiness. And Gelimer followed behind, giving us no perception, except that in the very night when we bivouacked at Grasse, scouts going from both sides met, and striking one another both withdrew to their own camp, and by this it became plain to us that the enemy were not far off.

17.15. As we journeyed thence it was impossible to see the ships. For high rocks, reaching far from the sea, make a great circuit for those sailing, and a promontory rises, within which is the town of Hermes.

17.16. Belisarius, then, charged Archelaus the prefect and Calonymus the admiral not to put in to Carthage, but, keeping about two hundred stades off, to remain until he himself should call.

17.17. And rising up from Grasse, on the fourth day we came to Decimum, distant seventy stades from Carthage.

18.1. On this day Gelimer bade his nephew Gibamundus, with two thousand of the Vandals, anticipating the rest of the army, go by the left side, so that, Ammatas from Carthage, Gelimer himself behind, and Gibamundus from the places on the left coming together to the same point, they might more easily and with less toil make the encircling of the enemy.

18.2. And in this toil it came to me to marvel at the things both divine and human, how God, seeing from afar what was to be, sketches how matters seem to Him to turn out, while men, whether erring or counselling rightly, do not know that they have stumbled, should it so chance, or done rightly, in order that there may be a path for fortune, bearing altogether toward what was before resolved.

18.3. For had Belisarius not so disposed the battle-line, bidding those under John go ahead, and the Massagetae go on the left of the army, we could never have escaped the Vandals.

18.4. And these things being so counselled by Belisarius, if Ammatas had kept the time and not anticipated it by about a quarter of the day, never would the affairs of the Vandals have been so destroyed.

18.5. But as it was, Ammatas, anticipating, came about midday to Decimum, when we and the army of the Vandals were left far off, erring not only in this, that he came at an unfitting time, but also in leaving the multitude of the Vandals in Carthage, having reported that they should come as quickly as possible to Decimum, while he himself, with a few and those not even chosen for valour, came to blows with those under John.

18.6. And he killed twelve of the best fighting in the front ranks, but he himself also fell, a brave man in this deed.

18.7. And the rout, when Ammatas fell, became brilliant, and the Vandals, fleeing at full force, drove back in confusion all who were coming from Carthage to Decimum.

18.8. For they journeyed in no order and not arrayed as for battle, but in companies, and these small; for they went in thirties or twenties.

18.9. And seeing the Vandals under Ammatas fleeing, and thinking the pursuers to be a multitude, they turned their backs and fled together with them.

18.10. And John and those with him, killing whomever they met, came as far as the gates of Carthage.

18.11. And there was such a slaughter of the Vandals in the seventy stades that those who saw it likened the deed to that of twenty thousand enemies.

18.12. At the same time Gibamundus and the two thousand came to the Plain of Salt, which is distant forty stades from Decimum on the left as one goes to Carthage, and is empty of men and trees and anything else, the brininess of the water there letting nothing grow except salt; where, falling among the Huns, they all perished.

18.13. There was among the Massagetae a man well endowed with manliness and strength, but leading few men; this man had a prerogative from his fathers and ancestors of being first in all the Hunnic armies to charge into the enemy.

18.14. For it was not lawful for a Massagete man, charging in battle, to take any of the enemy, before someone of this house had begun the hands against the enemy.

18.15. This man, when the armies were not far from one another, driving out his horse, stood alone very near the camp of the Vandals.

18.16. And the Vandals, either struck with consternation at the man's courage or suspecting that the enemy were devising something against them, resolved neither to move nor to shoot the man.

18.17. And I think that, never having had experience of a battle of the Massagetae, but hearing that the nation was very warlike, they thus dreaded the danger.

18.18. And the man, turning back to his own people, said that God had sent these strangers as ready food for them.

18.19. Thus, then, as they charged, the Vandals did not withstand them, but breaking their order and looking least to defence, all perished shamefully.

19.1. And we, having learned nothing at all of what had happened, went on toward Decimum. And Belisarius, seeing a place well fitted for a camp, distant thirty-five stades from Decimum, threw a very well-made stockade about it, and stationing all the foot there and calling together the whole army, spoke as follows:

19.2. "The time of the contest, fellow-soldiers, is now at hand; for I perceive the enemy approaching us; and the nature of the place has borne the ships very far from us; and the hope of our safety has come to be in our hands.

19.3. For there is no friendly city, no other stronghold, trusting in which we shall have confidence for ourselves.

19.4. But if we are brave men, it is likely that we shall prevail over the enemy in war; but if we play the weakling, it will remain for us, having become subject to the Vandals, to perish shamefully.

19.5. And yet we have many helps toward victory: justice, with which we have come against the enemy (for we are here to recover our own), and the hatred of the Vandals toward their own tyrant.

19.6. For both the alliance of God is wont to attend those who hold out justice, and a soldier ill-disposed toward the ruler does not know how to play the man.

19.7. And apart from these things, we have consorted with Persians and Scythians all our time, but the Vandals, from the time they mastered Libya, have seen no enemy except the naked Moors.

19.8. And who does not know that the practice of every work leads to experience, but idleness to ignorance? The stockade, then, from which it will be necessary for us to carry the war, it chances has been most excellently made for us.

19.9. And it is in our power, depositing the arms and all the other things which we are not able to carry, to go, and turning back hither nothing of provisions will fail us.

19.10. And I pray each of you, remembering his own valour and his household, thus with contempt to go against the enemy."

19.11. Having said this and prayed, Belisarius, leaving his wife and the stockade to the foot, himself with all the horse rode out.

19.12. For it did not seem to him expedient at present to risk all with the whole army, but, having first skirmished with the horse and made trial of the enemy's power, so to fight with the whole army.

19.13. Sending ahead, then, the commanders of the federates, with the rest of the army and his own bodyguards and shield-bearers he himself followed.

19.14. And when the federates with their leaders came to Decimum, they see the bodies of the fallen, twelve comrades of those with John, and near them Ammatas and some of the Vandals.

19.15. And hearing the whole story from the inhabitants, they were distressed, at a loss where they should go. And while they were still at a loss and scanning all the places there from the hills, a dust appeared from the south, and a little later a very great quantity of Vandal horsemen.

19.16. And they sent to Belisarius, asking him to come as quickly as possible, since the enemy were pressing them. And the opinions of the commanders were divided.

19.17. For some thought fit to go to close quarters with the assailants, while others said their force was not adequate for this.

19.18. And while they were disputing among themselves about these things, the barbarians came near, Gelimer leading them and using a road between that which Belisarius had and that by which the Massagetae had come, who joined with Gibamundus.

19.19. And hilly places being on either side did not allow him to see either the disaster of Gibamundus or the stockade of Belisarius, nor indeed the road by which those under Belisarius journeyed.

19.20. And when they were near one another, strife fell upon each army, which should master the highest of the hills there.

19.21. For it seemed suitable for encamping, and both alike chose to come to blows with the enemy from there.

19.22. And the Vandals, anticipating, seize the hill, using a push, and rout the enemy, having now become terrible to them.

19.23. And the Romans, fleeing, come to a place distant seven stades from Decimum, where it chanced Uliaris, the bodyguard of Belisarius, was with eight hundred shield-bearers.

19.24. And all thought that those under Uliaris, receiving them, would stand and together with them go to close quarters with the Vandals; but when they came together, beyond expectation now all fled at full force and went at a run toward Belisarius.

19.25. From here I cannot say what befell Gelimer, that, holding the mastery of the war in his hands, he of his own will gave it up to the enemy, unless one must refer the things of his folly to God too, who, when He purposes that something untoward befall a man, first lays hold of his reckonings and does not allow what would profit to come into counsel.

19.26. For had he made the pursuit straightway, I think Belisarius himself would not have withstood him, but all our affairs would have been utterly destroyed;

19.27. so great did the multitude of the Vandals appear, and their fear of the Romans; and had he driven straight to Carthage, he would easily have killed all those with John, who, in ones and twos, careless and making walks in the plain, were stripping the fallen.

19.28. And having saved the city with the money, and the ships of ours having come not far off, he would have mastered them, and would have removed all hope from us of return and of victory. But he did neither of these.

19.29. Coming down at a walk from the hill, when he was on the level ground and saw the body of his brother, he turned to lamentations, and being concerned about the burial, thus blunted the edge of the moment, which he was no longer able to recover.

19.30. And Belisarius, meeting the fugitives, bids them halt, and arranging them all in order and reproaching them much, when he had heard of the death of Ammatas and the pursuit of John, and had learned about the place and the enemy what he wished, went at a run against Gelimer and the Vandals.

19.31. And the barbarians, having now become disordered and unprepared, did not withstand them as they came on, but fled at full force, losing many there,

19.32. and the battle ended at night. And the Vandals fled, not to Carthage nor to Byzacium, whence they had come, but to the Plain of Boulla and the road leading to the Numidians.

19.33. And those under John and the Massagetae, turning back to us about lamp-lighting and learning and reporting all that had befallen, passed the night with us at Decimum.

20.1. On the next day, the foot together with the wife of Belisarius having joined us, we all proceeded toward Carthage, where, coming about late afternoon, we bivouacked, although no one prevented us from at once riding into the city. For the Carthaginians, flinging open the gates, lit lamps all together, and the city was bright with fire all that night, and the Vandals who had been left behind sat as suppliants in the sanctuaries.

20.2. But Belisarius prevented it, that there might be no ambush against them from the enemy, and that the soldiers might have no license, in the dark unobserved, to turn to plunder.

20.3. On this day the ships, a wind of the East having fallen upon them, came to the promontory. And the Carthaginians, for they now saw them, taking away the iron chains of the harbour, which they call Mandracium, made entrance for the fleet.

20.4. And there is in the emperor's court a building full of darkness, which the Carthaginians call Ancon, where all were thrown with whom the tyrant was angry.

20.5. There were shut up many of the eastern merchants at that time.

20.6. For Gelimer was harsh with these, charging that they had led the emperor into the war, and they were all about to be destroyed, this having seemed best to Gelimer on that day when Ammatas died at Decimum; by so much of a danger they came.

20.7. The keeper of this prison, when he heard what had been done at Decimum and saw the fleet within the promontory, going into the building inquired of the men, who had not yet learned the good news, but sat in the dark awaiting death, what they would wish if, giving up their possessions, they should be saved.

20.8. And when they chose to give whatever he wished, he asked nothing of all their money, but begged them all to swear that, if they should escape, they would help him with all their power, should he come into dangers. And they did accordingly.

20.9. And he told the whole story and, taking off a board from the part toward the sea, showed the fleet approaching, and releasing all from the prison went out with them.

20.10. And those in the ships, not yet having heard what the army had done on land, were at a loss, and lowering the sails and sending to Mercurium learned what had been done at Decimum, and being overjoyed sailed.

20.11. And when, the wind being favourable for them, they were a hundred and fifty stades from Carthage, Archelaus and his soldiers bade them moor, fearing the general's instruction, but the sailors did not obey.

20.12. For they said that the shore there was harbourless and that a notable storm was very soon reckoned likely to come, which the natives call Cypriana.

20.13. And they foretold that, if it should come upon them there, they would not be able to save even one of the ships. And so it was.

20.14. In a short while, then, lowering the sails and deliberating, they thought they ought not to make trial of Mandracium

20.15. (for they shrank from the instructions of Belisarius and at the same time suspected that the entrance into Mandracium was shut off by the chains, especially as that harbour was not adequate for the whole fleet), but Stagnum seemed to them to lie well (for it is distant from Carthage a measure of forty stades) and to have no obstacle in it and to be well able to hold the whole fleet.

20.16. There, coming about lamp-lighting, they all moored, except that Calonymus with some of the sailors, taking no thought of the general and of all the rest, secretly disembarked at Mandracium, no one daring to prevent him, and plundered the goods of the merchants dwelling by the sea, both foreigners and Carthaginians.

20.17. On the following day Belisarius bade those in the ships make the disembarkation, and arranging the whole army and ordering it as for battle, rode into Carthage; for he feared lest some ambush of the enemy should meet him.

20.18. There he much reminded the soldiers how great strokes of good fortune had come to them since they displayed prudence toward the Libyans, and much exhorted them to preserve good order in Carthage most of all.

20.19. For all the Libyans, being Romans from of old, had become subject to the Vandals against their will and had suffered many unholy things from barbarian men.

20.20. And on this account the emperor had set himself to war against the Vandals, and it was not holy for anything untoward to befall from them men whose freedom they had made the pretext of their expedition against the Vandals.

20.21. Having exhorted so much, he entered Carthage, and since nothing hostile appeared to them, going up to the Palatium he sat on the throne of Gelimer.

20.22. There, meeting Belisarius with much shouting, a multitude of merchants and other Carthaginians whose houses chanced to be by the sea charged that plunder of their possessions had befallen them on the previous night at the hands of the sailors.

20.23. And he bound Calonymus with oaths surely to bring to light all the stolen goods.

20.24. And Calonymus, having sworn and holding what he had sworn of no account, for the moment plundered the money, but not long after paid the penalty in Byzantium.

20.25. For seized by the disease called apoplexy and going out of his mind and biting off his own tongue, he then died. But these things took place at a later time.

21.1. Then Belisarius, since the occasion led to it, bade a breakfast be made for them where Gelimer was wont to feast the leaders of the Vandals.

21.2. The Romans call the place Delphix, not in their own tongue, but hellenizing it according to the old fashion. For in the Palatium in Rome, where it chanced the king's couches were, a tripod stood from of old, on which the king's cup-bearers used to set the cups.

21.3. And the tripod the Romans call Delphix, since it first came to be in Delphi, and from this both in Byzantium and wherever the king's couch chances to be they call the building Delphix, since the Romans, hellenizing, call the king's house Palatium too.

21.4. For Pallas, a Greek man, having dwelt in this place before the capture of Ilium and built a house worthy of account there, they called this building Palatium, and since Augustus, having received the supreme rule, resolved first to lodge there, they call from him the place where the king lodges Palatium.

21.5. In the Delphix, then, Belisarius dined, and whatever was notable in the army.

21.6. And it chanced that the breakfast made on the previous day for Gelimer was in readiness. And we feasted on the very victuals, and the attendants of Gelimer set them before us and poured the wine and served us in the rest.

21.7. And it was possible to see Fortune adorning herself and making display that all things are hers and nothing becomes the property of man.

21.8. And it befell Belisarius on that day to win such repute as had never come to any of his time nor to any other of those of old.

21.9. For though the Roman soldiers were not wont, without tumult, to go into a city subject to them, not even by five hundreds and especially unexpectedly, this general so kept all his subjects orderly that there was neither outrage nor threat,

21.10. nor indeed any hindrance to the business of the city, but in a captured city which had changed its government and exchanged its kingship, not even of those in the market was the house of anyone shut, but the clerks, writing the billets, brought the soldiers into the houses, as was wont, and they, buying their breakfast from the market as each wished, remained quiet.

21.11. After this Belisarius both gave pledges to the Vandals who had fled into the sanctuaries and took care of the walls. For the wall of Carthage was so neglected that it had become accessible in many places and easy to attack for one wishing.

21.12. For a not small portion of it had fallen down, and on this account the Carthaginians said that Gelimer had not withstood in the city.

21.13. For he never thought it possible in a short time to recover the safety of this wall.

21.14. And they told a certain ancient saying that had been spoken in Carthage by the children in former times, that gamma should drive beta, and again beta itself should drive gamma.

21.15. And then it was said by the children at play and had been left in the rank of a perplexing riddle, but now it was plainly clear to all.

21.16. For before, Gizeric drove out Boniface, and now Belisarius Gelimer. This, then, whether it was a rumour or a saying, turned out thus.

21.17. Then too a dream, often seen by many before, but unclear how it would turn out, came to light. And the dream was of this kind. The Carthaginians reverence Cyprian, a holy man, most of all.

21.18. And having built for him a temple worthy of much account before the city by the shore of the sea, they perform all other rites and keep a festival which they call Cypriana, and from this the sailors are wont to name the storm, of which I just made mention, by the same name as the festival, since it loves to come at the time at which the Libyans have been accustomed ever to keep this festival.

21.19. This temple the Vandals, in the reign of Honoric, having forced the Christians, held.

21.20. And driving out the priests thence at once with much dishonour, they themselves for the rest took care of the rites, as belonging to the Arians.

21.21. The Libyans being vexed and at a loss about these things, they say Cyprian often appeared to them in a dream and said that the Christians ought not at all to be anxious about him; for he himself, in course of time, would be their avenger.

21.22. And when the word, carried about, came to all the Libyans, they awaited that some vengeance for these sanctuaries would come to the Vandals, but were not able to infer how the vision of the dream would turn out for them.

21.23. Now, then, since the emperor's fleet came to Libya (for the time, coming round, was about to keep the festival on the morrow), the Arian priests, although Ammatas had led the Vandals to Decimum, both cleansed the whole sanctuary and hung the fairest of the offerings there, and preparing the lamps and bringing out the treasures from the storerooms, made all things exactly ready, as each of them chanced to be fit for its use.

21.24. But the things at Decimum befell as I have shown.

21.25. And the Arian priests fled and were gone, while the Christians who had rightly practised the things of the faith, coming to the temple of Cyprian, lit all the lamps and took care of the rites as it was the law for them to perform them, and thus to all what the vision of the dream foretold became known. But these things turned out thus.

22.1. And the Vandals, remembering an ancient saying, marvelled, knowing for the rest that for a man, being mortal, neither any hope is incredible nor any possession secure.

22.2. What this saying was and in what manner it was spoken, I shall show.

22.3. When the Vandals at the beginning, pressed by famine, were about to rise up from their ancestral homes, a portion of them was left behind, who, held by hesitation, found it not to their pleasure to follow Godigisclus.

22.4. And as time went on, to those who remained the abundance of provisions seemed to be well, and Gizeric with those about him held Libya.

22.5. Hearing this, those who had not followed Godigisclus rejoiced, the country for the rest sufficing them most strongly for living.

22.6. But fearing lest at some much later time either they themselves who held Libya, or their descendants, being driven out of Libya in some way, should return to their ancestral homes (for they suspected that the Romans would not overlook it for ever), they sent envoys to them.

22.7. They, when they came into the sight of Gizeric, said that they rejoiced with their kinsmen who had thus prospered, but were not able to guard further the land which they themselves, holding of small account, had settled in Libya.

22.8. They begged, then, that, if they did not lay claim to the ancestral land, they should gift them with a useless possession, so that, having become most securely masters of the country, if anyone should go to do it mischief, they might by no means decline to die for it.

22.9. To Gizeric and the other Vandals, then, they seemed to speak well and justly, and they were ready to concede all that their envoys needed.

22.10. But a certain old man among them, notable and having a great repute for intelligence, said that he would by no means allow such a thing. For none of human things stands on safety, but for them for all time nothing of what is is secure, but nothing of what is not is impossible.

22.11. Gizeric, hearing this, praised it and resolved to send the envoys away unsuccessful. Then, indeed, both he and the one who advised, as foreseeing the impossible, incurred the laughter of all the Vandals.

22.12. But when these things which were told happened, the Vandals both learned anew the nature of human affairs and knew the word to be that of a wise man.

22.13. Of those Vandals, then, who remained in the ancestral land, neither any memory nor name is preserved to my time. For, I think, being few, it befell them either to be forced by the barbarians their neighbours or to be mingled with them not unwillingly, and their name to be merged into theirs.

22.14. Nor indeed did it come into the mind of the Vandals, then worsted by Belisarius, to go thence to their ancestral homes.

22.15. For they were not able from Libya, suddenly, especially as ships were not present to them, to be conveyed to Europe, but they paid there the penalty of all that they had wrought against the Romans and not least against the Zacynthians.

22.16. For Gizeric, once attacking the places in the Peloponnese, attempted to assault Taenarum. And being quickly repulsed thence and losing many of his followers, he withdrew in no order.

22.17. Therefore, still held by anger, he touched at Zacynthus, and killing many of those in his way and enslaving about five hundred of the notable, sailed off in a short time.

22.18. And when he was in the middle of the so-called Adriatic sea, there cutting up the bodies of the five hundred, he threw them everywhere over the sea, taking no account. But these things took place in former times.

23.1. And Gelimer then, giving much money to the husbandmen of the Libyans and using friendliness toward them, was able to win over many.

23.2. Whom he bade kill the Romans who went about the country places, proclaiming a fixed sum of gold for each murder to the one who should do the killing.

23.3. And they killed many of the Roman army, not soldiers, however, but slaves and servants, who, going up into the villages out of desire for money, were secretly caught.

23.4. And the husbandmen, bringing their heads to Gelimer, themselves departed having been paid, while he supposed they had killed hostile soldiers.

23.5. At this time Diogenes, the bodyguard of Belisarius, displayed deeds worthy of valour. For sent with twenty-two of the shield-bearers on a reconnaissance of the enemy, he was at a place distant two days' journey from Carthage.

23.6. These men (for the husbandmen of the place were not able to kill them) they reported to Gelimer to be there.

23.7. And he, choosing out three hundred Vandal horsemen, sent them against them, charging them to bring them all alive to him.

23.8. For it seemed to him worth much account to make captive a bodyguard of Belisarius with twenty-two shield-bearers.

23.9. Those under Diogenes, having entered a certain house, were sleeping in the upper room, having nothing hostile in mind, since they had learned the enemy to be far off.

23.10. And the Vandals, coming there at deep dawn, thought it inexpedient for them either to break the doors there or to enter the house by night, fearing lest, falling into a night-battle, they should destroy themselves, and give an exit, should it so chance, in the dark to most of the enemy.

23.11. And they did this, cowardice astounding their mind, when it was in their power with no trouble, both bringing fire and without it, to take the enemy not only unarmed but altogether naked on their bedding.

23.12. But now, making a phalanx all around the house in a circle and especially at the doors, they all stood.

23.13. Meanwhile it befell one of the Roman soldiers to rise from sleep, who, perceiving the tumult which the Vandals secretly made by speaking among themselves and moving with their arms, was able to infer what was being done, and waking each of his comrades in silence told what was being done.

23.14. And they, by the counsel of Diogenes, all quietly put on their garments and, taking up their arms, went down.

23.15. There, putting the bridles on their horses, they leaped onto them, giving no one perception. And standing some time by the courtyard, they suddenly fling open the doors there, and all go out at once.

23.16. The Vandals, then, were already at work against them, but accomplished nothing. For the Romans, fenced with their shields and defending themselves with their spears against the assailants, drove on with haste.

23.17. And thus Diogenes escaped the enemy, losing two of his followers and saving the rest.

23.18. Wounds, however, he himself too received in this toil, three in the neck and face, from which he came near to dying, and one on the left hand, from which he was no longer able to work the smallest of his fingers. So these things befell thus.

23.19. And Belisarius, offering great wealth to the craftsmen about the building and the other throng, dug a trench worthy of much account about the wall in a circle, and putting many palisades in it fenced it well all about.

23.20. And indeed he rebuilt the suffered parts of the wall in a short time, a thing of wonder not only to the Carthaginians, but to Gelimer himself afterward.

23.21. For when he came captive to Carthage, he marvelled at seeing the wall, and said that his own neglect had become the cause of all that had befallen him. These things, then, were accomplished by Belisarius while he was in Carthage.

24.1. And Tzazon, the brother of Gelimer, with the fleet which has been mentioned, coming to Sardo, disembarked at the harbour of Caranalis, and took the city at the first shout, and killed the tyrant Godas and whatever was warlike about him.

24.2. And when he heard that the emperor's fleet was in the land of Libya, not yet having learned what had been done there, he wrote to Gelimer as follows:

24.3. "Know that Godas the tyrant has perished, having come under our hands, and that the island is again under your kingship, O King of the Vandals and Alani, and keep the festival of victory.

24.4. And as for the enemy who dared to make an expedition against our land, hope that their attempt will come to that fortune to which it came also before for those who made an expedition against our ancestors."

24.5. Those who received this letter, having nothing hostile in mind, sailed in to the harbour of the Carthaginians.

24.6. And being led by the guards to the general, they put the letter into his hands and reported about what he inquired, struck with consternation at what they saw and astounded at the suddenness of the change; they suffered, however, no unkindness from Belisarius.

24.7. About the same time another thing of the following kind befell. Gelimer a little before the emperor's fleet came to Libya had sent envoys to Spain, both Gothaeus and Fuscias, that they should persuade Theudis, the ruler of the Visigoths, to make an alliance with the Vandals.

24.8. They, when they disembarked onto the mainland, having crossed the strait at Gadeira, found Theudis at a place lying far from the sea.

24.9. And the envoys going up to him, Theudis deemed them worthy of friendliness and feasted them eagerly, and at the banquet inquired, ostensibly, how the affairs of Gelimer and the Vandals stood.

24.10. And while these envoys were coming to him more slowly, he chanced to have heard all that had befallen the Vandals.

24.11. For a single merchant vessel, sailing for trade on that day on which the army rode into Carthage, setting out thence and chancing upon a favourable wind,

24.12. came to Spain. Whence Theudis, learning all that had come to pass in Libya, forbade the merchants to tell anyone, that these things might not become known to all.

24.13. And when those under Gothaeus answered that all their affairs stood most excellently, he asked for what reason they had come.

24.14. And when they held out the alliance, Theudis bade them go to the coast: "For from there," he said,

24.15. "you will safely learn your affairs at home." And the envoys, suspecting that the word was not sound, since the man was drunk, kept silence.

24.16. But when, being with him on the morrow, they made account of the alliance, and Theudis again used the same word, then, understanding that revolutionary things had befallen them in Libya, but having nothing in mind about Carthage, they sailed to it.

24.17. And putting in near it and falling among Roman soldiers, they handed themselves over to use as they wished.

24.18. Whence, being led to the general and reporting the whole story, they suffered no harm from him.

24.19. These things, then, it chanced befell thus. And Cyril, being near Sardo and hearing what had befallen Godas, sailed to Carthage, where, finding the Roman army and Belisarius victorious, he remained quiet; and Solomon was sent to the emperor, to report what had been done.

25.1. And Gelimer, when he was in the plain of Boulla, which is distant for an unencumbered man four days' journey from Carthage, not far from the borders of Numidia, gathered there all the Vandals and whatever was friendly to him among the Moors.

25.2. A few Moors, however, came to him for alliance,

25.3. and these altogether without a ruler. For as many as ruled the Moors in Mauritania and Numidia and Byzacium, sending envoys to Belisarius, said they were slaves of the emperor and promised to be allies.

25.4. And there are some who even gave their children in the rank of hostages, and begged that the tokens of rule be sent to them by him according to the ancient law.

25.5. For it was a law that no one should rule the Moors, even if he were an enemy of the Romans, until the Emperor of the Romans should give him the marks of rule.

25.6. Which, though they had already received from the Vandals, they did not think they held the rule securely.

25.7. And these tokens are a silver staff overlaid with gold and a silver cap not covering the whole head, but, like a band, held up on all sides by silver fillets, and a certain white cloak gathered to a golden brooch on the right shoulder in the form of a Thessalian chlamys, and a white tunic with embroidery, and a gilded boot.

25.8. And Belisarius sent these to them and gifted each of them with much money.

25.9. They did not, however, come to him for alliance, nor indeed did they dare to help the Vandals, but standing aloof from both awaited how the fortune of the war would turn out. So the affairs of the Romans stood.

25.10. And Gelimer sent one of the Vandals to Sardo, holding a letter to his brother Tzazon. He, coming quickly to the coast and chancing upon a merchant vessel setting out, sailed to the harbour of Caranalis and put the letter into the hands of Tzazon. And the writing declared as follows:

25.11. "It was not, I think, Godas who made our island revolt, but some doom from heaven falling upon the Vandals.

25.12. For taking away you and the notable of the Vandals from us, it has snatched all good things at once from the house of Gizeric.

25.13. For you set out thence not to recover the island for us, but that Justinian might be master of Libya. For what fortune resolved before it is now possible to know from the outcomes.

25.14. Belisarius, then, has come against us with a small army; but virtue, departing from the Vandals, at once went, taking good fortune with her.

25.15. For Ammatas and Gibamundus have fallen, the Vandals playing the weakling, and horses and dockyards and all Libya and not least Carthage itself are already held by the enemy.

25.16. And the Vandals sit, having exchanged the not playing the man in the toils for children and women and all their goods, and for us there is left only the plain of Boulla, where the hope in you, having seated us, keeps us.

25.17. But you, leaving the tyranny and Sardo and the cares about these things, come as quickly as possible to us with the whole fleet. For those whose danger is for the chief things, to be exact about the rest is inexpedient.

25.18. And jointly for the rest contending against the enemy, we shall either recover our former fortune, or we shall gain the not bearing, apart from one another, the untoward things from the divine power."

25.19. When Tzazon saw this brought to him and brought it out to the Vandals, they turned to wailing and lamentations, not, however, openly, but as much as possible hiding it and escaping the notice of the islanders, in silence to themselves bewailing their present circumstances.

25.20. And at once disposing of the things in hand, as it chanced, they filled the ships.

25.21. And setting out thence with the whole fleet, on the third day they sailed to the shore of Libya which divides the Numidians and the Mauritanians.

25.22. And going on foot they come to the plain of Boulla, where they mingled with the rest of the army. There many things worthy of much pity befell the Vandals, which I could no longer adequately tell.

25.23. For I think that even if a man of the very enemy had chanced to be a spectator, perhaps he too would then have pitied both the Vandals and human fortune.

25.24. For Gelimer and Tzazon, when they had thrown their arms about each other's neck, were no longer able to let go, and uttered nothing at all to one another, but, clasping hands, wept; and each of the Vandals with Gelimer, embracing one of those come from Sardo, did the same.

25.25. And for a long time, as though grown into one another, they enjoyed the pleasure thence, and neither did those about Gelimer ask about Godas (since their present fortune, having struck them, ranked what before had seemed to them most earnest among things now exceedingly neglected), nor did those come from Sardo think fit to ask anything about what had befallen in Libya. For the place sufficed them to infer what had come to pass.

25.26. Nor indeed did they make any account of their own women or children, knowing well that, if any of them were not there, plainly either they had died or had come under the hands of the enemy. So these things stood thus.