slowest ship, since Belisarius was anxious that no unit should become detached and arrive at Carthage before the rest of the fleet, thus preventing a surprise. He painted the mainsails of the three leading vessels, ours and two others, with broad vermilion stripes as a guide by day; at night he used stern-lanterns. No ship was allowed to steer more than a cable's length away from its neighbour. At times there was a good deal of bumping and cursing and use of boat-hooks, but no ship lost touch or was stove in.
Then the wind failed completely, and Belisarius ordered a general disembarkation at Mcthonc, a town on the south-western promontory of Greece. This was done as a drill practised in full armour, and the inhabitants were most alarmed. The men were in a listless enough condition by now, ami the horses too, so marches and sham- fights were the order until the wind rose again. It was extremely hot at Methone. The soldiers' biscuit-bread which had been brought in sacks from Constantinople began to turn mouldy and stink. Belisarius immediately used his Imperial warrant to requisition fresh bread from the neighbourhood, but did not obtain it before 500 men had died from colic.
He investigated the matter of the biscuits and reported to Justinian. His findings were that the biscuits had been supplied by Cappadocian John in his capacity as Quartermaster-General to the Forces; that, on account of the loss that fresh bread suffers in weight on being hardened to biscuit, the Quartermaster-General had been paid the customary one-fourth more for his contract than for an equal weight of fresh bread, in addition to a fuel allowance for the baking; that he had only slightly baked the bread, and thus not reduced its weight by the necessary one- quarter, while accepting payment as if for proper biscuit; and that he had also pocketed the fuel allowance, though his partial baking had been done for nothing at the furnaces that warm the Public Baths. Justinian later complimented Belisarius on his report, while exonerating Cappadocian John (who had found a scapegoat among his subordinates) from the suspicion of deliberate fraud.
But nobody, not even Cappadocian John, could be blamed for the tainting effect of the heat on the casks of fresh water that we shipped from our next port of call, the island of Zante. Our voyage from Zante across the Adriatic Sea to Sicily was lengthened by sudden calms to sixteen days; and a miserable time it was, because this was now mid-June and cruelly hot weather. My mistress had taken the precaution at Methone of sending me to buy in the open market a number of glass jars of the sort used for pickling olives, to be filled with fresh water and stored in the bottom of the ship up to their necks in sand; it was my task to keep them moist with sea-water. The result was that ours was the only ship's company that had untainted water to drink; and this greatly embarrassed Belisarius, who made a pride of eating the same food as the men under his command, and drinking the same water. What made matters worse was that the supply of sour wine had given out, because of the unexpected length of the voyage.
Belisarius explained the position to his Household officers and asked their advice. He pointed out that there was not enough clean water to be worth the sharing with all the other ships' companies in the fleet; nor could he share with two or three only, for fear of jealousy. Perhaps the noblest course would be to follow the example of the great Cato, who once, on a sultry march in Africa, reproved a soldier for bringing him a helmetful of water when the rest of the army was thirsty, and dashed it to the ground; and of King David of the Jews, who had once done much the same thing with water brought to him from the well at Bethlehem. Now, these lieutenants of Belisarius were all cast in the same mould: they were heroes to a man and honourable to what seemed to me at times an extravagant degree. They were all convinced that they ought not to benefit by my mistress's prudence, but empty the water- bottles overboard! Naturally she grew very angry. At first nobody supported her in her view that it would be not only foolish but an insult to her to drink tainted water when she had been to the trouble of providing fresh — as anybody else with sense had been at liberty to do. Then Theodosius came forward smiling and said to her: 'Godmother Antonina, if nobody else wishes to be the first to forfeit empty honour by drinking your excellent water, I ofler myself as a glad victim. Here is my cup. May I help myself? I shall not venture to accuse my godfather of disloyalty to his Emperor in risking the infection of dysentery when the safety of the expedition depends so largely upon his keeping in good health. But I shall at least remind the company that the five wise virgins in the Gospel parable would not have been praised if, on learning that the five foolish virgins had forgotten to fill their lamps, they had poured their own oil away and disabled themselves from attendance on the midnight Bridegroom.'
In a dead silence he filled his cup and drank, throwing his head right back, then filled again and offered the cup to Belisarius. Belisarius held it for a moment in his hand, considering, and finally said: 'Theodosius, you are right: duty takes precedence of honour.' He sipped and handed the cup to Armenian John and Aigan, who sipped too, So here was another bond between Theodosius and my mistress, whose honour he had protected at the risk of losing his own.
We anchored in a desert place near the volcano Etna. There was water there, and grazing for the horses, and we still had enough sacks of biscuit from Methone to last us for some weeks. But Belisarius needed fresh supplies, especially of wine and oil and vegetables. He sent his secretary, Procopius of Caesarea, in a fast galley to procure these things at Syracuse, the capital city, and bring them to us at the port of Catania, where there was safer anchorage. Belisarius knew that a compact had lately been made between Justinian and the Gothic Regent of Italy, Queen Amalasontha (Theoderich's daughter, whose young son, Atlialrich, was now king), according to which she should grant him an open market in Sicily for his armies if they happened to pass that way. Amalasontha had been glad to sign this, because her political position was precarious, and Justinian's friendship counted for much.
The Governor of Syracuse accordingly sent a number of vessels along the coast to us filled with the required provisions, and also a few boat-loads of horses to take the place of those that had died on the voyage. That we had not lost more was due to Belisarius's ingenious way of exercising them on ship-board: he had them hoisted in their stalls with a rope under their forelegs until they were standing balanced on their hindlcgs. In this position they pawed and staggered about angrily in an attempt to regain their natural posture, and sweated out the bad humours. Procopius brought back extremely good news from Syracuse. A boyhood friend of his, a merchant from Caesarea in Palestine, had just received a cargo from Carthage; and his agent reported that not only did the Vandals not suspect that an expedition was approaching, but they had recently sent away their best forces under the command of Zazo, the brother of KingGcilimer, to put down a revolt in Sardinia, which was a Vandal possession. That, further, there had been a successful revolt against the Vandals by the natives of Tripoli, the coastal district which lies between Carthage and Egypt, and that a naval force had been sent there also.
Belisarius decided that no further time must be lost. We sailed out from Catania and touched at the small islands of Gozo and Malta — it was at Malta that the Apostle Paul was once shipwrecked. Then up sprang a strong easterly wind; and by the next morning we had sighted the nearest point of the African coast, a desert promontory called Capoudia, which lies ijo miles to the cast of Carthage. As soon as we were in shallow water we furled sail and anchored. Belisarius summoned a general conference of officers on the flag-ship: the question propounded being whether we should disembark here and march along the coast, protected by the fleet, or continue the voyage and make the landing at some point closer to Carthage.
The Egyptian Admiral spoke first, because he had a long experience of the coast-line. He pointed out that Carthage was nine days' march away along a harbour less coast. If the fleet kept pace with the army, standing close inshore, what would happen if a sudden storm sprang up? Two alternatives, equally dangerous, would have to be faced: of being driven ashore and wrecked or of being blown out of touch with the army. The coast was practically waterless, the sun grilling, and troops — in full equipment and carrying rations — would be exhausted by the march. He therefore proposed that we should sail up the coast to a point just short of Carthage, where there was a large lake, the Lake of Tunis, which would afford perfect anchorage.
Rufinus, speaking in support of the Admiral, reminded Belisarius that the Vandals could easily assemble an army five times our size; and that we should not have the protection of any walled towns on our nightly halts, because they had long ago dismantled the fortifications of every town in the Diocese but Carthage and Hippo Regius.
The general opinion of the conference was that the Admiral's plan was a sound one, and that to march slowly along the coast would be to risk losing the advantage of surprise. Belisarius withheld his opinion as yet. He asked the officers, each in turn, whether it was true that their troops had positively refused to fight a sea-battle if the Vandals came out against them.
They admitted that there had been talk of this sort, because the Syracusan sailors in the food-ships had told frightening and incredible yams about the Vandal fleet — how it consisted chiefly of fast vessels of 1,500 tons burden and five banks of oars that could carve their way through our fleet as a knife through cream cheese. But they swore that they themselves were not afraid, and undertook to induce their men to fight as bravely on sea as on land.
