immovable and realizing that they had lost all courage, he charged in earnest, unfurling the Imperial standard. Geilimer had, for some superstitious reason, ordered his men to discard lance and spear and fight only with their swords: which put them at a great disadvantage.
Soon Uliaris had the good fortune to kill Zazo with a lance-thrust; when his death was known the Vandal centre broke and (led back to their camp. The wings followed, as soon as the attack became general, without striking a blow. For a battle that was to settle the fate of a huge kingdom it was remarkably bloodless and one- sided, and lasted scarcely a full hour from start to finish. We lost fifty men, and they 800. Our infantry had again not come into action at all, for they were half a day's march behind. They arrived late that afternoon and prepared to attack the Vandal camp, which was a vast ring of covered country-wagons protected by a flimsy palisade.
When King Geilimer saw our main body approaching, he caught up his favourite little nephew, Ammatas's six-year-old son, set him on the crupper of his saddle, told him to hold tight, and galloped away with him, followed by a retinue of brothers-in-law and cousins and such-like; without so much as a word of explanation or apology to his generals. Being given so commanding an example of cowardice by their sovereign, these generals did not think to organize the defence of the camp. Squadron by squadron, the army scattered in all directions: a shameful prelude to a shameful scene.
Without a blow we captured the camp and everything that it contained; the men broke ranks and the game of grab-all began at once. Never was such plunder offered to a deserving soldiery. Not only was there plunder of gold and jewels, both ecclesiastical and personal, and carved ivories and silks from chests on the wagons, but also human plunder — the Vandal women and children, whom their menfolk had basely left to their fate. Now, Belisarius had made it clear enough that, although old military custom gave the victors of a battle a right to despoil the enemy's camp, he would hang or impale any man found guilty of rape, which was an offence against the laws of God. Belisarius, as you know, was in the habit of enforcing orders of this sort, and needed only to make a law once — unlike Justinian, his master, who often issued the same edict again and again, because, lacking the resolution to enforce it, he could thus at least keep the penalties fresh in the memory of his subjects.
So no rape took place, in the sense of women being forced against their will. But there was a great deal of earnest love-making on the part of the women themselves, many of whom were extremely good-looking and nearly all delicately nurtured. For they had no reason to remain faithful to husbands who deserted them in this cowardly fashion. Moreover, they took the practical view that, faced with slavery, they had no chance now of ever resuming their comfortable life at Carthage, which had been interrupted by this disagreeable campaign, except as the wives of our men — the better men. Many of them had their children to consider, too. They assumed, as most of our men did themselves, that when the fighting was done the army of invasion would become the military aristocracy of Africa, dispossessing the Vandals, man for man, of all their personal properties. Our men had been encouraged in this view by a sermon preached at the Cathedral by the Bishop of Carthage, on the text from the Evangelist Luke: 'When a strong man, armed, keepeth his palace, his goods are at peace. But when a stronger shall come upon him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted and divideth his spoils.' This prospect of becoming noblemen in so prosperous and pleasant a land delighted them all, except only the Massagetes.
But it was hard for me to decide whether it was a comic or a tragic sight to sec these women hurriedly selecting suitable husbands and offering themselves to them with promises of land and cattle and fine furnished houses in Carthage as dowries. The men, except the Thracian Goths, did not understand a word of the Vandal language. Unless a woman was particularly attractive or offered herself to a man with a store of jewels and gold in the bosom of her robe he shook her off and went in search of better bargains. In point of numbers, there was at least one Vandal woman for every man of our army. Several of the more modest women crowded around me because I was a eunuch, hoping by marriage with me to preserve their chastity as well as their freedom. My mistress, too, had innumerable offers of ladies' maids. She had been among the first to enter the camp; and it was a fine haul of treasure that she made from the wagons, with the help of her domestics.
What with plundering, and the gross enjoyment of sexual pleasure freely offered, the army became utterly disorganized. If a single troop of Vandals had attempted to recapture that camp two hours later they would have won an easy triumph. Our soldiers had been filling their helmets from the barrels of sweet wine on the wagons, and now wandered about, quarrelling, plundering, singing discordantly; selling one another unwieldy or unwanted objects for small quantities of ready cash; accepting the caresses of the women; and finally roaming outside the camp in search of more plunder that had perhaps been concealed by fugitives in neighbouring caves or under stones. This wild sort of business continued all night. Belisarius went about from one point to another with six faithful men and put down violence, wherever he came across it, with a heavy hand. The troops were so drenched by their sudden good fortune, having become quite rich men, most of them, at a single stroke, that they were all convinced that they could now retire on their earnings without any further military obligation. When early dawn came, Belisarius climbed up on a mound in the centre of the camp, with my mistress at his side, appealing loudly for discipline, and enlarging on the dangers of a counter-attack. At first he received no answer at all. Then with his own lips he blew 'Assemble the Whites!' on a trumpet, and his Household cuirassiers gradually remembered that the penalty for absence off parade was a severe flogging. So one by one they unwillingly came together, lugging their plunder along with the help of their newly acquired families. At my mistress's suggestion Belisarius sent a convoy of plunder back to Carthage, the goods tied in bundles and piled in the captured wagons: a wagon for each half- section, and the captives of that half-section walking beside it, with a responsible senior soldier in charge.
Then he sent Armenian John with 200 men in pursuit of King Geilimer, with orders to bring him back, alive or dead, wherever he might be; and Uliaris, who was justly proud of his success in killing Zazo, volunteered to go too. Belisarius now ordered a general parade and threatened to charge the drunken mob of soldiers with the lance unless they returned to duty; which they soon did. He sent the cavalry to scour the neighbouring country for Vandals; of whom thousands were found to have taken sanctuary in village churches. Their lives were spared, and they were marched back, disarmed, under infantry guard to Carthage.
Armenian John and Uliaris pursued Geilimer for five days and nights towards Hippo Regius, a prosperous port about 200 miles to the west of Carthage, and would have overtaken him on the next day but for a most unhappy accident. At dawn Uliaris, feeling cold, drank a great deal of wine to warm himself. His stomach being empty, he became intoxicated and began to talk and joke in a foolish, genial manner. An old sergeant reproved him and said: 'If your master Belisarius were to sec you now, Noble Uliaris, you would be in danger of impalement.'
'Pish!' replied Uliaris. 'No man is drunk who can shoot straight.' So saying, he took aim at the first target that presented itself — a, hoopoe bird, with speckled plumage and yellow crest, sitting in a thorn-tree on a mound near by. Off whizzed the arrow, and Uliaris cried out: 'Is this the shooting of a drunken man? As I told our master myself, at Abydos, no drunken man should ever handle a weapon.'
All laughed, for he shot very wide. But their laughter was soon cut short, for a cry went up from the other side of the mound that a man was wounded. It proved to be Armenian John himself, and the arrow had sunk in at his neck, beyond the barbs.
Thus the pursuit of King Geilimer ended for a while. Armenian John died a few minutes later in Uliaris's arms, and Uliaris, overcome with shame and horror, fled for sanctuary to a village shrine close by; so that the soldiers were left leaderless. John's death was the first great grief that Belisarius experienced, but he bore it without any loud outcry in the Vandal style. When the soldiers reported Uliaris's remorse and Armenian John's dying words — 'By your love for me, dearest master, I implore you not to take vengeance on our old comrade' — he forgave Uliaris. Armenian John was buried in that place, and Belisarius endowed the tomb with a perpetual income. Uliaris never again touched wine for the rest of his life, except at the Eucharist ceremony. Years later, when his campaigning days were over, he became a monk, and served God in the monastery of St Bartimaeus at Blachernae by the Golden Morn.
Belisarius himself resumed the pursuit of King Geilimer, who had almost escaped from Africa in a boat filled with treasure. He was trying to sail to his ally, the King of the Visigoths, in Spain. But a contrary wind blew him back to Hippo Regius, and he took refuge with a tribe of friendly Moors on a precipitous mountain named Pappua, not far from Hippo and overlooking the sea. The treasure ship fell into the hands of Belisarius, who could not, however, afford to wait in the neighbourhood until the spoils were completed with the crown and person of Geilimer. He was needed elsewhere. So, after receiving the submission of the local authorities at Hippo, he cast about for a responsible soldier to undertake the siege of Pappua; and hit upon his blood-brother Pharas, who undertook the charge. While Pharas and his Herulians camped at the foot of the mountain and prevented Geilimer from escaping, Belisarius continued his task of capturing and disarming fugitive Vandals throughout the Diocese. He assembled his prisoners at Carthage and used them as labourers on the fortifications.
