of these chiefs by presenting them with staffs, caps, capes, brooches, tunics, and top-boots, all straight from Constantinople; and, though they did not fight with him in the two battles which destroyed the Vandals' power, neither did they fight against him.
If Belisarius had been left to govern Africa peaceably in Justinian's name he would certainly have done wonders and made of it a permanent stronghold and store-house for the Empire. He would have retained the friendship of the Moors and improved their manner of living. He intended to recruit from them a permanent cavalry defence-force to be trained in modem fighting methods and attached in loyalty to him by grants of land and money. The Roman Africans would have supplied him with garrison infantry, and he was already training levies of these. But all such projects came to nothing, because Belisarius, by the jealousy of his subordinates and the suspicion of Justinian, was prevented from consolidating his task. Two of his officers, secret agents of Cappadocian John's, had sent a confidential report to Justinian: that Belisarius was openly seating himself upon the throne of Geilimer, and seemed to have every intention of holding it for himself and his heirs; that after the capture of the Vandal camp he had publicly reviled his officers and men in a most brutal and tyrannical manner; that he was in secret treaty with the savage Moors, whom he had persuaded to maintain him in his tyranny; and that he was behaving with suspicious leniency towards the Vandal captives. These officers expected the credulous Justinian to send an order for the arrest and execution of Belisarius. They hoped to be suitably rewarded for their zeal — perhaps with the governorships of Carthage and Hippo. Their names were John, the nephew of Vitalian, commonly known as 'Bloody John', and Constantine. In case the report should go astray, they had sent Justinian two copies of the same letter by different packets, one of which reached its destination. But the other my mistress, who had a suspicion of these officers, managed to intercept shortly before the packet sailed.
The letter disturbed Belisarius greatly. He could not deny that he was in treaty with the Moors for supplying him with cavalry, or that he had set many of the cider Vandals at liberty, or that he had been dispensing justice from King Geilimer's throne, or that he had reviled his officers and men, in the interests of discipline, standing on the mound that early morning in the camp at Tricamaron. It was only the conclusion as to his loyalty that was falsely drawn. He decided to take no action against Bloody John or Constantine or even to let them know that he had seen the letter. A few months later a flattering message came from Justinian, not mentioning the slander and telling him to do just as he wished — cither to return to Constantinople with the spoils and Vandal prisoners or to send them back under a subordinate and remain in Africa. Then my mistress Antonina insisted that he should return promptly in order to clear himself of suspicion. She was particularly anxious lest her friend Theodora should think her disloyal or ungrateful. With this message from Justinian came cavalry reinforcements, to the number of 4,000, under good officers, including one Hildiger, who was already betrothed to my mistress's daughter, Martha; so that Belisarius now felt at liberty to withdraw most of his own Household cuirassiers, and the Massagetic Huns, to escort the Vandal prisoners.
He chose as Governor in his place the eunuch Solomon, in whom he had the greatest confidence, and by the spring, after handing over to Solomon the detailed instructions for the proper government of Africa that had come from Justinian, he could sail away, my mistress Antonina with him.
We who were returning to Constantinople did not envy Solomon his task at Carthage, for Justinian's instructions made it clear that the Governor of the newly won kingdom must not depend on Constantinople for further forces, but must raise local levies, and economize in garrison troops by repairing defence works and building blockhouses along the frontiers. Eighty thousand Vandal cavalrymen had failed to check the Moorish raids — yet their task must be successfully taken over by a tenth of that number of our men, and the lands stolen by the Moors won back. Africa must be also reassessed for taxation, and the Arian heresy and the Donatist schism sternly put down. The reason why not all Belisarius's cuirassiers had come with us was that at the last moment a report arrived at Carthage of a slight Moorish rebellion in the interior. Belisarius, at Solomon's request, left behind Rufinus and Aigan with 500 chosen men to act as a punitive force. That number seemed sufficient.
We sailed home by way of Tripoli and Crete — an uneventful voyageand in midsummer of the year of our Lord 534 we entered the Bosphorus again. We were given a tumultuous welcome at the docks, and a royal welcome at the Palace. My mistress Antonina and the Empress Theodora embraced with tears; and Justinian was so elated by the extraordinary value of the treasure unloaded from our ships and so impressed by the sight of our 15,000 stalwart prisoners that, forgetting his suspicions of Belisarius, he called him 'our faithful benefactor' and took him by the hand. As Commander-in-Chief of the armies, however, he assumed all the official credit for the defeat of the Vandals; and in the preamble to his new Digest of Laws (published on the day of the Tricamaron battle) he had already styled himself'Conqueror of the Vandals and Africans' — Pious, Victorious, Happy, and Glorious — and, without mentioning that anybody else had shared in the victory, referred to ' the sweats of war and the night- watches and fasts' on his own part that had secured it. The triumph to be celebrated was his own, not Belisarius's: for no private citizen has been awarded a full triumph since the Empire was founded, lest he should be puffed up by victory and become a rival to the throne. As I say, the Emperor, even if his warlike exertions are confined to sending off an expedition from the docks with his blessing and congratulating it on its safe return a year or more later, is always the victorious Commander-in-Chief.
None the less, Theodora insisted that he play the same sedentary part in this triumph as he had played in the victory and leave the procession to the conduct of Belisarius. He agreed. On the anniversary day of the capture of Carthage, Belisarius came out from his private residence close to the Golden Gate in the Wall of Theodosius, and passed in procession down the whole two-mile length of the High Street. He went on foot, preceded by priests and bishops singing a solemn Te Deum and swinging censers; not, as the ancient custom was, riding in a chariot preceded by trumpeters. The street was decorated with flowers and coloured silk hangings and wreaths and congratulatory greetings, and thronged with wildly cheering crowds. At each of the great squares through which we passed- the Square of Arcadius, the Ox Market, the Amastrian Square, the Square of Brotherly Love, the Bull Square (where the University professors and students were assembled), and finally the Square of Constantine (where the City militia were drawn up on parade) — the City ward-masters came with gifts and words of welcome and a fanfare of trumpets was sounded. Behind Belisarius, who was accompanied by Cappadocian John and other distinguished generals, rode his cuirassiers and the marines and the Massagetic Huns (who were to return home by way of the Black Sea on the following day), and behind these the Vandal prisoners, in chains, headed by Geilimer in a purple cloak, with his cousins and brothers-in-law and nephews. Then followed all the spoils of Africa heaped on wagons.
These were extraordinary spoils, the richest ever carried in any triumph in the world before; for though the soldiers at Tricamaron had plundered the camp, that treasure was only a tithe of what was collected at Carthage and Hippo and Bulla and Grasse and elsewhere from the city treasuries and royal palaces and seats of the nobility. It consisted of the Vandals' accumulated trading profits from overseas and their revenues from Africa — the surplus of a hundred years — and the spoils of Geiserich's extensive piracy. The Vandals had been a small and oppressive aristocracy in a fertile, teeming land, and what they were too lazy to spend on public works they had hoarded. So, heaped on these carts were millions of pounds of bar-silver, and sacks of silver and gold coin, and quantities of bar-gold, and golden cups and dishes and salt-cellars encrusted with gems, and golden thrones and golden carriages of state and statues of gold, and copies of the Gospel bound in gold and studded with pearls, and heaps of golden collars and girdles, and gold-inlaid armour- in short, every luxurious and beautiful object that can be imagined, including priceless antiquities from King Geiserich's sack of the Imperial Palace at Rome and of the Temple of Jove on the Capitolinc Hill. There were also a great number of sacred relics: bones of martyrs, miraculous images, authentic garments of Apostles, the nails from St Peter's cross on which he was crucified upside down.
But the most wonderful and venerable spoils of all were none other than the sacred instruments of Jewish religious worship that were made by Moses in the Wilderness at God's express command and later installed at the Temple in Jerusalem. They are described in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Book of Exodus: the sacred shevv-bread table of shittim wood overlaid with pure gold, and its accompanying golden spoons and bowls and dishes; and the seven-branched candlestick of beaten gold with its tongs and snuff-dishes; and the golden Mercy Seat, and its two attendant gold cherubim with outspread wings. These things Geiserich had stolen from Rome, where they had been brought by the Emperor Titus after Ids capture of Jerusalem. The Ark of the Covenant itself had disappeared. Some say that it is in France somewhere, with certain other Temple spoils, in the hands of the Prankish King, and others that it is at Axum in Ethiopia, and others that it is sunk at the bottom of the River Tiber at Rome, and others that it was long ago caught up to Heaven out of the reach of sacrilegious hands.
The Senate met the procession and joined it at the Amastrian Square, and so did droves of monks, and other
