“The native Africans opened the gates to admit him,” said the spy, who trembled as he spoke, “and removed the chains across the entrance to the port to allow the Roman fleet to enter the harbour. Those of our people who were still inside abandoned the city or took refuge in churches. The Africans lit fires to mark the joy of their deliverance.”
The pathetic surrender of Carthage only sharpened Gelimer’s temper, though he should not have been surprised. Africa had been a Roman province once, and the people still had fond memories of living under the benevolent rule of the Caesars.
Gelimer entertained hopes that the Roman soldiers would alienate the populace by looting and pillaging as soon as they entered Carthage. Such was the usual behaviour of victorious armies. Belisarius, however, wisely kept his troops outside the walls until their hot blood had cooled. Mindful of how severe his discipline could be, they were mild as lambs to the citizens, and marched through the streets with a display of order and discipline unmatched since the days of the Republic.
Belisarius’s first act was to enter Gelimer’s palace, seat himself on Gellimer’s throne, and eat the victory feast that had been prepared for Gelimer and his officers.
Word of these humiliations soon reached the king, and drove him to ever more desperate stratagems. Hoping to stir up the African peasants against the enemy, he placed a price on the head of every Roman soldier, to no great effect since all the Romans were safely inside Carthage. He also wrote a pitiful letter to his brother Zano in Sardinia, a copy of which I later read in Constantinople:
“It would seem (he wrote) that your expedition has tended less to the conquest of Sardinia than to our overthrow in Africa. The Vandals have lost their courage, and with their courage their prosperity: our supplies, our arms, our horses, even our capital itself, all are in the possession of the Romans! Nothing is left to us but the field of Builla and the hope which your valour still inspires. Resign, then, all thoughts of Sardinia, and join me. Here, with united forces, we may either restore our empire, or at least not be separated in adversity.”
Zano obeyed, and made all speed with his army to come to his brother’s aid. Thousands of Vandals responded to Gelimer’s summons, along with a number of Moorish desert tribes that he employed as auxiliaries. Much of his treasure had been stored at Carthage and was now lost to the Romans, but the generosity of his people supplied him with sufficient funds to assemble and feed this new army.
As I have said, many of the Vandals had no love for Gelimer, but they knew as well as he that this had become a war of national survival. The Romans, so he preached, were bent on the conquest of their territory and the extermination of the Vandal race.
I was kept in his entourage as a sort of pet, and an example of what Gelimer would do to Belisarius when he took the general captive.
“He shall serve me thus,” Gelimer would declare, as I was forced to kneel so he could use me as a foot-stool to mount his horse, “and be tethered at all times. At night the great general shall sleep in a kennel with the other dogs.”
His troops would laugh at my ritual humiliation, and spit and kick at me as I grovelled in the dirt. My hands were kept tied, save to relieve myself or at meals, when I was obliged to serve Gelimer his wine. At other times he treated me with unnerving courtesy — his mind was cracked, no doubt of it — and more like the honoured captive he had promised I would be.
He only seriously threatened my life once. As part of his attempts to stir up rebellion, Gelimer had sent conspirators into the city to encourage the Arian and Vandal citizens to rebel, and bribe the Hunnish mercenaries into deserting the Romans. A Vandal scout came galloping into the camp to inform Gelimer that the Romans had discovered and arrested one of these agents.
So far Belisarius had behaved with the utmost mildness and conciliation, to the point where the Vandals jeered that he must be a woman in military dress. Now the gentle mask was ripped away. He had the captured agent, whose name was Laurus, taken onto a hill outside the gates of Carthage and slowly impaled on an iron stake.
Word of this atrocity, which was meant as a warning and an example, caused Gelimer to temporarily lose his reason. He raged and swore and babbled incoherently, tore at his clothes, clawed his face and struck out wildly at any that came near him. When he saw me, standing in my usual position just behind his chair, he drew Caledfwlch and pressed its edge against my cheek.
“I shall stab out your eyes,” he hissed, “and send you to Belisarius, strapped to the back of a pony. Or cut off your privy parts and make you carry them to him in a bag. That would be justice for the death of faithful Laurus, would it not?”
If I blinked, or avoided his gaze, I was lost.
“Wanton abuse of prisoners does not become the great,” I said with forced calm, “Belisarius’s treatment of Laurus has revealed himself to be a lesser man than you.”
The wild look flickered and died in Gelimer’s eyes. “Yes,” he said slowly, and took the blade away from my skin, “he is the lesser man. You are right. And he has the lesser army. His time shall come.”
He was correct in one regard. The Vandal army that mustered at Builla was huge, and over the course of several weeks swelled to over forty thousand fighting men.
Belisarius wisely made no attempt to sally out and attack this multitude, but devoted all his efforts to repairing the defences of Carthage. The ditches that surrounded the city were deepened, the gaps in the ancient walls filled, and the crumbling ramparts shored up and strengthened. His fleet patrolled the seas, but was unable to prevent Zano’s army from landing on the African coast, at a point between Mauritania and Numidia.
Zano’s arrival at the camp instilled a sense of euphoria in the Vandals, and fuelled their belief that God meant them to defeat the Romans. The royal brothers embraced wordlessly and clung tightly to each other while the troops roared and chanted their war-songs.
I experienced a growing sense of dread as I gazed out over that sea of flushed, hairy faces and waving banners, and pitied the Romans holed up inside Carthage. If the Huns accepted Gelimer’s bribes and deserted, Belisarius would be left with less than thirteen thousand men. Of these, ten thousand were infantry, a good number of which were unfit for anything but standing in a line.
Gelimer and Zano were fully aware of the plight of the Romans, and determined to make the most of it. When their combined army was fully rested, they decided to march on Carthage and retake their capital by storm.
Chapter 19
The Vandals advanced to within twenty miles of the city, and encamped near a village called Tricamarum. Stamped forever on my memory is the sight of that vast host, squadron after squadron of horse and foot, an entire warrior nation on the march. Thousands of Vandal women and children followed in the wake of the men, and stubbornly refused to obey when Gelimer ordered them to turn back.
His Moorish auxiliaries fascinated me. The fierce desert tribesmen made for ideal light cavalry. They wore little armour over their head-scarves and long, flowing robes, and were armed with long knives and a single javelin apiece. Most were mounted on tough desert ponies, but a few rode camels — stinking, obnoxious beasts, which their riders boasted would induce panic in the Roman cavalry, for horses hate the smell of camel. They certainly alarmed the Vandal horses, and were obliged to keep a distance from the main army.
At Tricamarum Gelimer ordered the destruction of an aqueduct that supplied Carthage with water, as part of his plan to force the Romans to give battle.
“They cannot hide behind their walls for long without water,” he gloated, “Belisarius has the option of taking to his ships and fleeing back to Constantinople, or of marching out to face his destruction.”