The Empire Strikes Back
Justinian’s Plans and Gelimer’s Troubles
‘In the seventh year of Justinian’s reign [AD 533], at about the spring equinox, the Emperor commanded the general’s [Belisarius’] ship to anchor off the point which is before the royal palace. Thither came also Epiphanus, the patriarch of Constantinople…. And after this the general Belisarius, and Antonia, his wife, set sail. And there was also with them Procopius, who wrote this history…. And the whole fleet followed the general’s ship and they put in at Perinthus [Eregli on the Sea of Marmora] where five days were spent by the army, since at that place the general received as a present from the Emperor an exceedingly great number of horses from the royal pastures, which are kept for him in Thrace.’ (Procopius)
So it was that, for the fourth time, a great Roman invasion fleet set sail to wrest control of Africa from the Vandals. We have only scant details of the previous Roman attempts at amphibious invasion in 441, 460 and 468, but we are fortunate that Procopius actually accompanied Belisarius in 533 and that his histories have survived intact. He gives us full details of the fleet and army which set sail from Constantinople in the spring of 533, which included:
500 transport ships with 30,000 sailors;
92 Dromons with 2,000 rowers who doubled as marines;
10,000 Roman infantry;
5,000 Roman cavalry;
400 Herul cavalry; and
600 Hun cavalry.
If the previous accounts are correct, which give 1,100 ships for the failed invasions of 441 and 468, then Justinian must have been feeling quite optimistic to attempt it with half that number. Also 16,000 soldiers seems like a rather small army to attack a well-established kingdom which could probably muster at least 20,000 warriors. The numbers that Procopius gives are, however, probably far more believable than most estimates we get of ancient armies. First of all he was actually there and, as Belisarius’ secretary, he would have had access to the loading manifests and logistical arrangements – maybe even having a hand in drawing them up. Keeping an army supplied in the field is often what decides the success or failure of a campaign. This would have been the prime consideration in maintaining an army in Africa, thousands of miles away from home and with little chance of resupply. Once the Roman force landed they would have to live off the land, and therefore had a greater chance of success if it was composed of a relatively small number of picked troops rather than being padded out with more men and horses of lesser quality.
Needless to say, given the previous disastrous attempts against the Vandals, there were many in the court at Constantinople who tried to dissuade Justinian from his dream of reconquest. The cost would be enormous and the outcome doubtful. Just as today when a government is elected and fresh-faced ministers enthuse about their grand plans for the future, the senior civil servants suck in their breath and do their best to tell the minister that it has been tried before, did not work then and is unlikely to work now. It is not difficult to imagine the scene as Justinian gathered his advisors and told them that he wanted them to finance a fleet and army to retake Africa. One can only sympathize with John the Cappadocian who, as Praetorian Prefect, had to work out where the money would come from. Procopius tells us that while most other advisors kept their doubts to themselves, John, ‘A man of great daring and the cleverest of all men of his time’, dared to speak out.
After praising the Emperor’s wisdom and professing his great loyalty, Procopius reports that John said that if Justinian had confidence he could vanquish the Vandals, even if the struggle was prolonged, then no doubt he would prevail and the cost in blood and treasure would be worth it.’ For victory, coming at the end, covers up all the calamities of war.’ John then continued:
‘You are proposing to make an expedition against Carthage, to which, if he goes by land, the journey is of 140 days, and if one goes by water, he is forced to cross the whole open sea and go to its very end. So he who brings you news of what happens there will take a year after the event to reach you. And one might add that you could not take Libya while Sicily and Italy lie in the hands of others [the Ostrogoths]. If any reverse should befall you, Oh Emperor, the treaty having been broken by you will bring danger to our own lands. In a word, it will not be possible for you to reap the fruits of victory and at the same time any reversal of fortune will bring harm to what we have well established.’
Apparently Justinian saw the wisdom in John’s advice, which neatly summed up the strategic difficulties. To succeed, the Romans would need a secure base close to Carthage, and even then conducting an amphibious invasion so far from home was fraught with danger. In many ways the course of action Justinian was considering was not unlike that which Margaret Thatcher proposed in 1982 to retake the Falklands. It involved sending a fleet far from home, landing a small task force to take on superior numbers and counting on the support of the local population. The distance between Constantinople and Carthage was much less than that between London and Port Stanley, but the Romans did not have the benefit of modern communications or aircraft.
An unnamed bishop then told Justinian that he had a dream in which God had pointed out that the Emperor had a duty to protect the African Catholics against the Vandal persecutions. God himself would join him in the war to free Africa from the Vandals. Procopius tells us that this was what eventually persuaded Justinian to stay the course, but there were other events which probably helped.
The first of these was a revolt of local Romans against Vandal rule in Tripolitania (the modern Libyan coast). No doubt encouraged by the hostility between Constantinople and Carthage, the African-Roman Pudentius led a rebellion against the Vandal overlords and asked Justinian for support. According to Procopius, Justinian sent an officer by the name of Tattimuth, clearly of Germanic origin, and ‘an army of no great size’ to bolster the Roman rebels. They were successful in wresting Tripolitania from the Vandals because Gelimer was otherwise occupied.
Godas, the Vandal governor of Sardinia, had risen in revolt. Godas was a Goth, possibly one of those who had previously served Queen Amalafrida and who escaped Hilderic’s purge, but we do not know this for certain. Procopius says that he was ‘passionate and energetic… well-disposed to the cause of his [Vandal] master.’ However that may have been, Godas sniffed the changing winds and decided to take Sardinia for himself and approach Justinian for aid. He sent a message to Constantinople and asked for Roman support. Justinian saw this as an opportunity to get a secure base closer to Carthage and sent an envoy, Eulogius, to work out a deal with Godas to support him in return for his allegiance. Justinian also made ready 400 soldiers under Cyrus to aid the Goth-Vandal rebel. This was more than Godas was willing to accept. He had already started to style himself as a king and was no more inclined to accept Justinian as his master than he was to keep Gelimer. Even if Godas’ revolt did not give Sardinia to Justinian on a plate, it did distract Gelimer, as Procopius recounts:
‘Gelimer, being deprived of Tripolitania by Prudentius and of Sardinia by Godas, scarcely hoped to regain Tripolitania, since it was situated at a great distance and the rebels were already being assisted by the Romans, against whom just at that moment it seemed to him best not to take the field. But he was eager to take the island before an army sent by the Emperor to fight for his enemies should arrive there. He accordingly selected 5,000 of the Vandals and 120 ships of the fastest kind, and appointing as general his brother Tzazon, he sent them off.’
So it was that just as Justinian was preparing his invasion fleet, Gelimer sent off the better part of his, along with 5,000 troops, to retake Sardinia. If Gelimer had known Justinian’s intentions, he surely would not have done this. He could not have been unaware that the Romans were amassing a fleet at Constantinople, but probably thought that their intention was to take Sardinia rather than attack Carthage. There are some hints that Justinian carried out a deception plan. Belisarius was recalled from the eastern frontier after the conclusion of the Persian war in 532 without any announcement, even to Belisarius himself. A story was given out that the general had been removed from office and recalled in disgrace in order to hide the real reason. Justinian had sent troops to aid Prudentius in Tripolitania and was openly negotiating with Godas. Gelimer probably assumed that the Roman fleet’s destination was Sardinia, so he sent his ships there.
Sicily was a vital base for the success of an expedition against Carthage. Only a day’s sail away, it was the perfect safe harbour and supply base. All of the previous Roman expeditions against the Vandals had used Sicily as their jumping-off point, but then Sicily had been under Roman control. Now it was part of the Ostrogoth Kingdom of Italy. The Ostrogoths, however, were not best pleased with the Vandals in the aftermath of Amalafrida’s execution. The Ostrogoths were at this time being ruled by Amalasuntha, Theodoric’s daughter and Amalafrida’s niece. She ran the Kingdom of Italy as regent for her infant son, Athalaric. When Justinian’s envoys approached her, she was more than happy to provide a supply base in Sicily for a Roman force which would avenge Amalafrida’s death.
So it was that the political and strategic situation favoured the Romans rather that the Vandals for the first time in over 100 years.
Belisarius’ Army
The Roman Army had changed and evolved from that which Godegisel and Geiseric had fought in the fifth century. Just as it had been with the Vandals, cavalry had become the most important part of the Roman Army. Although infantry still formed the largest contingent in Belisarius’ force they were no longer the decisive arm. The role of the infantry was to hold ground and garrison towns while the cavalry delivered the decisive blow.
The Roman cavalry had also evolved. In the fifth century, most Roman cavalrymen were armed with spears and javelins. Under the influence of the Huns and Persians, horse archery had been increasingly adopted by the Romans. Most of Belisarius’ cavalry were bow-armed but they were not lightly-equipped skirmishers. Wearing body armour of mail or scale and equipped with good swords, they were perfectly happy closing into hand-to-hand combat as well as shooting arrows from a distance. Some also carried spears in addition to their bows and swords, but probably not all of them.
Procopius describes the Roman cavalry of his day:
‘The bowmen of the present time go into battle wearing corselets and fitted out with greaves [leg protectors] which extend up to the knee. From the right hand side hang their arrows, from the other a sword. And there are those who have a spear also attached to them, and at the shoulders a sort of small shield without a grip, such as to cover the region of the face and neck. They are expert horsemen and are able without difficulty to direct their bows to either side while riding at full speed, and to shoot at an opponent whether in pursuit or flight. They draw the bowstring along by the forehead about opposite the right ear, thereby discharging the arrow with such an impetus as to kill whoever stands in the way shield and corselet alike having no power to check its force.’
The later sixth century military manual, the Strategikon, describes the training exercises carried out by the Roman cavalryman of the time to enable him to use both missile and shock tactics:
‘On horseback at a run, he should fire one or two arrows rapidly and put the strung bow in its case. Then he should grab the spear which he has been carrying on his back. With the strung bow in its case, he should hold the spear in his hand, then quickly replace it on his back and grab the bow.’
This made the Roman cavalryman of 533 someone who could either fight from a distance or close into combat. He could ride up to his opponents, shower them with arrows, retreat out of harm’s way and then suddenly turn back to attack with spear or sword. He was supplemented in Belisarius’ army by 400 Heruls, unarmoured Germans who fought hand-to-hand only, and 600 Hun light horse archers, whom Procopius calls Massagetae. Also amongst those classified by Procopius as regular Roman cavalry were the foederati. Initially this term was applied to barbarians in Roman service, but by 533 the terminology remained even if the reality had changed.
‘Now at an earlier time the only barbarians had been enlisted amongst the foederati… but at the present time there is nothing to prevent anyone from assuming the name, since time will by no means consent to keep names attached to the things to which they were formerly applied.’ (Procopius)
Just as a man serving in a regiment of light cavalry in today’s British Army is neither light nor a horseman, a trooper in a regiment of foederati in the sixth century Roman Army was not necessarily a barbarian in the way that a fourth or fifth century Roman would have understood the term. It may be that the foederati were spear and shield-armed cavalry of the same type as the majority of the Vandals, in contrast to the bowarmed regular cavalry and Huns.
Belisarius also had with him 1,100 of his own bucellarii, men who were his personal troops. These men are referred to variously as doruphoroi (spear bearers) and hypapsistai (shield bearers). The former appear to have been a sort of inner guard who also acted as staff officers, while the latter were elite cavalrymen. All were probably very well-equipped mounted warriors with body armour, bows, spears, swords and shields. They owed their loyalty to the general personally and were maintained by him rather than by the state.
Roman infantry were the largest part of Belisarius’ army, but they took little part in his set piece battles against the Vandals. Their role was to hold ground, provide a secure rallying point for the cavalry, guard the baggage and garrison any towns captured along the way. They were typically a mix of spearmen and archers, with the former deployed in the front ranks forming a phalanx and protected by large oval shields, the latter shooting overhead from behind. Typically, the archers accounted for about a quarter of the infantry.
Gelimer’s Army
In contrast to the Romans, Gelimer did not have a combined arms force. Any problems the Vandals may have had with securing good cavalry mounts in the migration years would have long been overcome. Like the knights of medieval Europe, each Vandal warrior was in effect an aristocrat, maintained on a large estate worked by subject Romans. Apart from enjoying life as a conquerer, the only real occupation for a Vandal man was to be a warrior. He probably had a string of good horses and was very well equipped with helmet, body armour, shield, sword and spear.
With the riches of North Africa at their disposal, not to mention the loot gathered from the sack of Rome and their pirate raids, none of Gelimer’s followers would have gone lacking. Herein lay a problem. The Romans were excluded from the army and there was no mass of Vandal peasant farmers to provide foot soldiers or archers to support the well-equipped mounted warriors. Gelimer could call on small numbers of lightly-equipped Moors to provide some balance to his force but, as we have seen, relations with the Moors had deteriorated to the point that most were now hostile. Those who were not chose to sit on the fence to see how things worked out rather than throwing their undivided support behind Gelimer.
Therefore the Vandal Army of 533 consisted almost exclusively of heavy cavalry who had one tactic only. That was to charge the enemy and engage them in hand-to-hand combat. Such a charge could be devastating. The Strategikon describes it, advising spear-armed Roman cavalry to adopt their methods of fighting:
‘They [the front ranks] then lean forward, cover their heads with their shields, hold their lances high as their shoulders in the manner of the fair-haired races, and protected by their shields they ride in good order, not too fast but at a trot, to avoid having the impetus of the charge breaking up their ranks before coming to blows with the enemy, which is a real risk.’
In generic descriptions of Germanic tactics, the Strategikon notes that they were less likely than Romans to pay attention to keeping order in the ranks.
‘The light haired races place great value on freedom. They are bold and undaunted in battle. Daring and impetuous as they are, they consider any timidity and even a short retreat as a disgrace. They calmly despise death as they fight violently in hand to hand combat…. They are undisciplined in charging, as if they were the only people in the world who are not cowards.’
With such a limited tactical repertoire and without light troops or infantry, the Vandals were vulnerable to skirmish tactics, ambushes, feints and flank attacks. If they charged the Roman horse archers, the latter could withdraw towards their secure infantry base, shooting arrows as they went. Then, when the Vandal horses tired and their ranks had broken up, the Roman cavalry could turn around and defeat them in close combat.
We really have no idea how many warriors Gelimer could call on. A century after the 80,000 Vandals crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, it is reasonable to assume that they had grown in number, especially as they had experienced many years of relative peace and prosperity. Procopius says as much: ‘By their natural increase and by associating with other barbarians they came to be an exceedingly numerous people.’ Maybe Gelimer had something like 30,000 warriors under his command, but it would not have been possible for him to bring them all together in a single army. Garrisons would have to be left behind, some would be needed to guard the frontiers against the Moors and, as we have seen, 5,000 had been sent to Sardinia to deal with Godas’ revolt.
In many ways the situation of 406 had been reversed. Then, the more numerous Romans were unable to marshal enough troops to prevent the Rhine crossing. Now a relatively small Roman Army was on its way to Africa with one single objective. Meanwhile, Gelimer had to spread his forces to deal with a several simultaneous threats.
The Opening Moves
It was not all plain sailing for the Romans. Almost immediately Belisarius had to deal with disciplinary problems. When the fleet was laid up for four days because of lack of wind, two Huns killed one of their fellows in a drunken brawl. Belisarius impaled the miscreants, almost inciting a mutiny in the process. Then there were also serious supply problems. First of all the bread, that was supposed to be hard baked to last the voyage, had not been properly double baked. It dissolved into mouldy flour, resulting in the deaths of 500 men from food poisoning. According to Procopius this was down to cost-cutting measures implemented by John the Cappadocian to save on firewood. Plagued by gentle winds, the fleet took longer to reach Sicily than anticipated and as a result the water also spoiled.
Keeping a large fleet together was no easy matter. Procopius says that Belisarius was worried that if high winds came up the fleet might be scattered. His solution was to paint part of the three lead ships red and hang lights on them, so if any ships should lose their way they could easily see where they needed to sail to rejoin the fleet. As a result no ships were lost in the long voyage to Sicily.
The next problem was fear of the Vandal fleet itself. This became a major factor once the Romans reached Sicily. Belisarius had little intelligence of the Vandal dispositions and was apparently unaware that their fleet had gone to Sardinia to deal with Godas. The Romans had no experience of fighting at sea and were well aware that the Vandals had destroyed the previous invasion fleet in 468.
‘[Belisarius was] disturbed by the soldiers who were in mortal dread of sea fighting and had no shame in saying beforehand that if they should be disembarked on land they would try to show themselves brave men, but if hostile ships assailed them, they would turn to flight. They said that they were not able to contend against two enemies at once, both men and water.’ (Procopius)
Procopius himself was sent to Syracuse to seek news of the Vandal fleet before Belisarius attempted to cross over to Africa. Here Procopius met a man ‘who had been a fellow citizen and friend of his from childhood, who had been living in Syracuse for a long time engaged in the shipping business. Here he learned what he wanted.’ The news was that the Vandals had no idea of the Roman movements, that their fleet was at Sardinia and that Gelimer himself was staying at Hermione, four days inland from Carthage. With this news Belisarius set sail. Procopius says: ‘A strong east wind arose for them and on the following day it carried the ships to the point off Libya at the place the Romans call “Caput Vada” or “Shoal’s Head”.’ This place, Chebba in modern Tunisia, is 130 miles to the east of Carthage. The Romans made landfall there three months after their departure from Constantinople.
On landing, Belisarius called his commanders together to discuss the best course of action. There were two viable options. One was to strike immediately for Carthage. This was proposed by Archelaus, one of Belisarius’ senior commanders, who felt that a long overland land march over arid land in midsummer, with all the attendant supply problems, might well end in disaster. Furthermore, with no walled towns along the way, thanks to Geiseric’s dismantling of such defences, there would be no secure bases. Belisarius, on the other hand, judged that as they had already safely landed without a sea battle he did not want to risk the fate that befell the 468 expedition and suddenly find himself engaged by Vandal ships. The army could march along the coast, with the ships following within sight so as to help with resupply.
Needless to say, the general’s opinion held the day. Procopius records his orders:
‘We must disembark with all possible speed, landing horses and arms and whatever else we consider necessary for our use. We must dig a trench quickly and throw up a stockade around us of a kind which can contribute to our safety no less that a walled town one might mention. With that as our base we must carry on the war from there if anyone should attack us.’
Like Cabon the Moor before him, Belisarius was careful to treat the local population well, so that the Roman Army would be seen as liberators rather than conquerors. Even to the Vandals he presented himself as someone who had come to rid them of a usurper in support of Hilderic, ‘their rightful king’. When some of the Roman soldiers ‘went out into the fields and laid hands on the fruit there, the general inflicted corporal punishment of no casual sort on them,’ according to Procopius. In a speech to his men, Belisarius pressed on them the need to keep the native Roman-Africans on side, to treat them as allies and pay for all provisions.
The Romans marched towards Carthage with an advance guard of 300 bucellarii led by John the Armenian about 4km in front of the main body. Their right flank was guarded by the sea and the ships that followed the army’s progress. The open country to the left was the most dangerous, and to protect that flank Belisarius sent out the 600 light mobile Hun horse archers with orders to patrol at a distance of more than 4km from the main column. The Romans took Syllectus, a day’s march from their landing place, where the local inhabitants supplied them with food and supplies. Then after passing Hadrumentum (Sousse in modern Tunisia), the Romans made camp at Grasse (Sidi Khalifa), where they availed themselves of the riches of one of Gelimer’s royal estates.
Procopius’ description of Grasse gives us some further insight into the life of wealth and luxury enjoyed by the Vandal nobles, which is also attested in surviving mosaics from that time:
‘In that place was a palace of the ruler of the Vandals and a park, the most beautiful of all we know. For it is excellently watered by springs and has a great wealth of woods. And all the trees are full of fruit; so that each one of the soldiers pitched his tent among the fruit-trees, and though all of them ate their fill of the fruit, which was then ripe, there was practically no diminution of it.’
Gelimer’s Response
Unfortunately we have no Vandal historian to give us the similar sort of detail for Gelimer’s actions as Procopius does for Belisarius’. It seems rather unlikely that the Vandal king had no idea at all of the approaching Roman fleet. Carthage was the western Mediterranean’s pre-eminent port, and with all the shipping going back and forth, word of Belisarius’ arrival in Sicily must have reached Gelimer’s ears. Possibly he still thought they were heading for Sardinia to support Godas, and even if he had suspected an attack on Africa, he could not have recalled his fleet from Sardinia in time to do anything about it.
What Gelimer was doing in Hermione, four days’ march inland, is unclear. Zacharias of Mytilene’s contemporary chronicle says that he was campaigning against the Moors, but Procopius seems to imply that he was relaxing at one of his royal estates. As Gelimer had an army with him, it is not unreasonable to assume that he was indeed campaigning against the Moors on his southern frontier – especially as going so far inland would have been an odd choice for relaxation in midsummer. Why he went there with a Roman fleet so close is even more puzzling. Maybe it is true that he was unaware of their approach until the last moment. He had left a sizeable force behind at Carthage under the command of his youngest brother, Ammatas, and maybe he assumed that this would have been enough to prevent an attack on his capital.
Whatever his thinking had been before Belisarius’ landing at Caput Vada, as soon as he learned the truth, Gelimer sprang into action. The first thing he did was to have luckless Hilderic killed. As Gelimer was next in line, the removal of the previous monarch made it impossible for the Romans to claim that they were supporting the ‘rightful king’. Then he devised a plan to trap the Roman Army in a pincer movement. He ordered Ammatas to move with his troops from Carthage to block the Roman advance at Decimum Miliarium, the tenth milestone to the south east of the city. He would lead his army up from Hermione to shadow the Roman advance and attack them from the south while the enemy were engaged with Ammatas’ men to the west.
‘Arming the Vandals, he [Ammatas] made them ready, intending to make his attack at the opportune moment. But Gelimer was following behind, without letting it be known to us, except that on the night when we bivouacked in Grasse, scouts coming from both armies [Roman and Vandal] met each other and, after an exchange of blows, they each retired to their own camp. And in this way it became evident to us that the enemy were not far away.’ (Procopius)
The Battle of Ad Decimum
The tenth milestone from Carthage was not chosen by Gelimer at random. Here a projecting headland (Cap Bon) forced the Roman fleet out to sea, where they had to break contact with the army. Furthermore the road from the south east, along which the Romans had to travel, cut through hills which would mask the Vandal movements.
Gelimer’s plan was a good one. The Romans would bump up against Ammatas’ army, coming from Carthage, and as they deployed Gelimer would hit them in the rear. To complete the encirclement, Gelimer detached 2,000 men, under his nephew, Gibamund, to attack the Roman left flank. All of this would be done under cover of the hills and at a point where the fleet and army would be separated.
If we assume that the total Vandal manpower was something like 30,000 men, it is probably not unreasonable to assume that around 10,000 of them would have been dispersed in garrisons, fighting the Moors, on other duties, unfit for service or otherwise not physically present at the time. Tzazon had 5,000 men with him in Sardinia, leaving around 15,000 Vandals on the field at Ad Decimum, which was the same number of men Belisarius had under his command, taking into account casualties from sickness and desertion along the way. Gibamund led 2,000 men leaving 13,000 split between Gelimer and Ammatas. Assuming Gelimer commanded the most troops, a 7,000-5,000 split is not an unreasonable guess, although it may be that Ammatas had less men that that.
Knowing that the enemy was close, but not knowing exactly where he was nor what his intentions were, Belisarius advanced cautiously, with John well out in front with 300 bucellarii and the 600 Huns ranging along the left (southern) flank. The main column had the bulk of the remaining cavalry in front, followed by the infantry and baggage, and probably a small mounted rearguard at the end.
In order for Gelimer’s well thought-out plan to succeed, the three separate commands, operating several kilometres apart, had to hit the Romans at more or less the same time. If this happened, then the Romans would have been easily destroyed. However, there were no radio communications back then and messengers riding back and forth between the separate contingents would arrive too late with news that could be acted on in a timely fashion. Furthermore, as noted in the Strategikon (previously quoted), the Vandal warriors had a tendency to charge into the fray rather than wait for others to catch up. Although Belisarius did not know Gelimer’s plan, he had arrayed his troops in such a way that he was ready to deal with threats from all directions.
Had Ammatas moved to the tenth milestone, formed his troops up in a good blocking position, forced the Romans to deploy, then waited for Gelimer and Gibamund’s attacks, the plan probably would have succeeded. Instead, leading the head of the column with his men spread out in bands of twenty to thirty warriors strung out behind, Ammatus encountered John’s 300-man advance guard. Rather than waiting for the rest of his contingent to join him, Procopius says Ammatus immediately launched a charge ‘with a few men and not even the pick of the army’. John’s armoured horse archers presumably showered Ammatas’ men with arrows and then pulled back, shooting as they retired. Then, as the Vandals tired, they would have turned back to engage them in hand-to-hand combat. Procopius praises Ammatas’ bravery, saying that he killed twelve of John’s best men before being killed himself. With their leader down, the Vandals routed, sweeping up the strung-out bands who were coming up behind them. ‘Thinking that their pursuers were a great multitude, they [the other Vandals] turned and joined in the flight. John and his men, killing all they came upon, advanced as far as the gates of Carthage.’
With the essential blocking position blown away by only 300 men, Gelimer’s plan was already beginning to unravel. But worse was to come. At this point Gibamund’s 2,000 warriors had reached the salt flats of Pedion Halon, about 8km to the south west in an area, according to Procopius, ‘destitute of human habitation or trees or anything else.’ In this desolate place they encountered Belisarius’ Huns. It was perfect terrain for the fast-moving Hun horse archers, who could shoot at their enemy and keep out of harm’s way without ever giving the Vandals the opportunity to come into close contact. Procopius says that the Vandals never had any experience of battle with the Huns and did not know what to do. They broke ranks in an attempt to catch the highly mobile Huns, who continually shot at them and then turned back to pick off the stragglers. As a result, the whole of Gibamund’s contingent was destroyed by less than half their number.
From Belisarius’ point of view these were mere skirmishes, involving less than 1,000 of his men, while nearly half of Gelimer’s army had been routed or destroyed and the plan to trap the Romans between three contingents had already failed. Neither of the principals knew this at the time, as these engagements occurred at some distance from the main columns.
Unaware of the success of his advance and flank guards, Belisarius left his infantry to establish a camp with the baggage (and his wife Antonia who, amazingly, had accompanied him), 35 stades (8km) from Decimum. Then he advanced with all the remaining cavalry. Procopius records: ‘For it did not seem to him advantageous for the present to risk an engagement with the whole army, but it seemed wise to skirmish first with the horsemen and make trial of the enemy’s strength and later to fight a decisive battle with the whole army.’
Belisarius’ main body was led by the foederati, followed up by the remaining 800 bucellarii under Uliaris, and then the rest of the regular Roman cavalry. When they reached the tenth milestone they saw the bodies of the dead from the previous skirmish, but did not know what had happened nor what to do. Then, suddenly, a cloud of dust announced the arrival of a large force of Vandal cavalry coming up from the south. This was the advance guard of Gelimer’s main column which ‘was following a road between the one Belisarius was traveling and the one by which the Massagetae [Huns] who encountered Gibamund had come. Since the land was hilly on both sides it did not allow him [Gelimer] to see either the disaster of Gibamund nor Belisarius’ stockade, nor even the road along which Belisarius’ men were advancing.’
The lead Vandals attacked the Roman column, vieing with them for possession of the highest of the hills that dominated the area. Arriving first, the Vandals took the high ground and routed the Romans cavalry who had contested it with them. When the routing Romans galloped back to meet up with the bucellarii, despite their elite status, the bucellarii also fled rather than hold the line. Victory now seemed in Gelimer’s grasp. All he had to do was follow up the breakthrough with all his forces in typical Germanic fashion. Instead, something very strange happened.
‘From then on I am unable to say what happened to Gelimer. Having victory in his hands, he willingly gave it over to the enemy,’ Procopius recounts. ‘If he had made the pursuit immediately, I do not think that even Belisarius would have withstood him, but our cause would have been utterly and completely lost, so numerous appeared the force of the Vandals and so great the fear they inspired in the Romans. Or if on the other hand they had even ridden straight for Carthage, he [Gelimer] would easily have killed all of John’s men, who, heedless of everything else, were wandering about the plain one by one or by twos and stripping the dead.’ (Procopius)
The story is so strange as to seem unbelievable. If it wasn’t for the fact that Procopius also expresses his incredulity, we should probably dismiss it as propaganda aimed at ruining the reputation of an enemy. What happened was that, on discovering the body of his younger brother Ammatas on the field at Decimum, Gelimer halted. He insisted on personally taking care of the burial arrangements rather than continuing the attack. This gave Belisarius time to rally his troops, form them back up, admonish them for their cowardice and launch a counterattack. He caught Gelimer’s men in disarray, killed many of them and routed the rest.
The encounter at the tenth milestone was probably more a series of skirmishes over a wide area rather than a set piece battle. It was fought exclusively between small bands of mounted warriors, where advantage could be seized, lost and then won back again. It showed that the Vandals had no answer to Roman and Hun horse archery and that a very small number of determined Vandal warriors could rout even the best Roman troops by fear alone. It also showed the limitations of command and control in an ancient battle, particularly when the troops involved would decide to do as they pleased rather than stick to a plan. The armies had been probably about equal in numbers, but Belisarius’ dispositions and his more flexible troops won the day, while Gelimer’s sound plan was too complicated for the command and control limitations of his day.
The Romans Take Carthage
Rather than falling back on Carthage, the Vandals fled 200km west to the plains of Bulla in Numidia. One would have thought that Gelimer would have chosen to retire to Carthage and make a second stand there. However, John was already at the outskirts and according to Procopius the walls of the city had been so neglected that in many places they had fallen down, leaving gaps through which attackers could easily pass. He gives this as the reason that Gelimer did not make any attempt to hold the city. Presumably Gelimer felt that Carthage was not defensible, with a largely hostile Roman population and crumbling walls. By falling back onto the countryside he could regroup and then strike again.
The following evening, the victorious Romans marched into Carthage. The citizens threw open the gates and lit torches. ‘The city was brilliant with the illumination that whole night, and those of the Vandals who had been left behind were sitting as supplicants in the sanctuaries,’ writes Procopius.
Belisarius took great care to ensure that his troops behaved well and did not plunder the city. This was no mean feat as ‘Roman soldiers were not accustomed to enter a subject city without confusion, even if they only numbered five hundred and especially if they made the entry unexpectedly,’ Procopius recounts.
‘Yet all the soldiers under the command of the general [Belisarius] showed themselves so orderly that there was not a single act of insolence nor a threat, and indeed nothing happened to hinder the business of the city…. On the contrary, the clerks drew up lists of the men and conducted the soldiers to their lodgings as usual [billeted amongst the population] and the soldiers themselves getting their lunch by purchase from the market, rested as each one wished.’
The Battle of Ad Decimum. Opening Moves. Gelimer intended to pin the advancing Roman Army with a blocking force from Carthage led by Ammatas, while Gimbamund would attack the flank with 2,000 warriors. He would follow up behind with the main body of Vandals to hit the Romans in the rear. Belisarius deployed an advance guard of 300 bucellarii and a flank guard of 600 Huns. His main body was led by the cavalry, with infantry following up behind.
The Battle of Ad Decimum. Initial Contact. Once the advance forces came into contact all plans fell apart. Ammatas, was killed when he charged with only a few troops, while the Huns destroyed Gibamund’s contingent. When Gelimer arrived on the scene he seized the high ground, driving off the Roman foederati, who then swept up the bucellarii in their retreat.
Battle of Ad Decimum. Roman Victory. On discovering the body of his brother, Ammatas, Gelimer snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by stopping to honour his brother’s remains rather than continuing his pursuit of the fleeing Romans. Belisarius rallied his troops and swept the disordered Vandals from the field.
Gelimer regrouped in Numidia, where he tried to win over some of the Moors and encourage dissension amongst the population against Roman rule. He had some minor success, but it was too little and too late. In return for a bounty, some of the local peasants killed camp followers from the Roman Army and brought the heads to Gelimer for a reward, claiming that they had killed soldiers. Had the Vandals made efforts to integrate the Roman Africans and accommodate the Moors in the previous decades, then maybe they would have received greater support from them when the chips were down. A few Moors did join Gelimer, but most sent envoys to Belisarius to renew their old allegiance to the Roman Empire. In return for gifts, many Moors promised to fight for Belisarius; some even gave their children as hostages. However, until the final outcome of the war became clearer the majority stayed out of the fighting without actively supporting either side.
The Vandal King made overtures to the Visigoths in Spain seeking an alliance. However, alliances are best forged from a position of strength, and after years of enmity there was little the Vandals could now give to tempt the Visigoths to offer aid. Gelimer’s envoys had set out before the Battle of Ad Decimum, but by the time they reached Spain they had been overtaken by a fast boat which carried the news of the Vandal defeat. There was no chance that the Visigoths were going to support their old enemy when their fortunes now seemed in decline.
Gelimer was later reinforced by Tzazon, who returned from Sardinia after defeating Godas. Interestingly, Procopius says that, after landing back in Africa, Tzazon and his men proceeded on foot to join the main Vandal army. Probably this was because Tzazon had not taken any horses on the sea voyage to attack Sardinia. If so, this means that the Vandals had not entirely forgotten how to fight on foot, even if their preference was clearly to mount up. In all probability, Tzazon’s 5,000 men would have been able to resupply themselves with horses once back in Africa.
Over the autumn of 533, while Belisarius was improving the fortifications at Carthage and consolidating his position, Gelimer did his best to deny his enemy the surrounding countryside. Skirmishes were fought between small groups of Vandals and Romans, with the local peasants benefiting by informing on both sides. In one incident, excitingly and colourfully recounted by Procopius, Diogenes – Belisarius’s aide – led twenty-two bucellarii on a reconnaissance patrol. Informed by farmers of their presence, Gelimer sent 300 Vandal horsemen against them with orders to capture the Romans alive.
Before dawn, the Vandals surrounded a house where Diogenes and his men were sleeping upstairs, unaware that there were any enemy nearby. ‘It would have been possible for them [the Vandals] with no trouble, by carrying torches or even without these, to catch their enemies in their beds not only without weapons, but absolutely naked besides.’ However, the Vandals decided to wait until first light rather than attack in the dark, when things might go awry in the confusion of a night attack.
Fortunately for the Romans, one soldier woke and heard noises outside as the Vandals moved about with their weapons and talked quietly amongst themselves. He silently woke his comrades and, without alerting the Vandals, Diogenes and his men were able to dress and go down below where their horses were stabled.
‘There they put the bridles on their horses and leaped upon them unperceived by anyone. And after standing for a time by the courtyard entrance, they suddenly opened the door there, and straightway all came out. And then the Vandals immediately closed with them, but they accomplished nothing. For the Romans rode hard, covering themselves with their shields and warding off their assailants with their spears. And in this way Diogenes escaped the enemy, losing two of his followers, but saving the rest. He himself, however, received three blows in this encounter on the neck and the face, from which indeed he came within danger of dying. As a result of one blow on the left hand, he was thereafter unable to move his little finger.’ (Procopius)
Even if the strategic situation favoured a long war of attrition, Gelimer’s kingship would not survive it. A Germanic king’s position rested on his ability to win wars and reward his followers. Gelimer had the support of the Vandal nobles on just such a promise. Hilderic had been seen to be weak, while Gelimer had promise as an able warrior. Now having lost a battle and Carthage, Gelimer had to lead his men to a decisive victory over the Romans or he would likely be overthrown, just as he had overthrown his uncle. Therefore, Gelimer marshalled his forces and marched on Carthage in December 533. He cut the aqueduct, blocked the roads and made overtures to the Huns in Belisarius’ army, trying to tempt them to switch sides, but without success.
Belisarius could no more afford a war of attrition than Gelimer. He had won the first battle and captured the capital but his position was not sustainable in the long run while Gelimer still had control of much of the countryside. Although he had reinforced the defences of Carthage, Belisarius preferred open battle to being cooped up under siege. He sent out most of his cavalry in skirmish order to seek out the Vandal camp, following up behind with the infantry, 500 regular cavalry and his inner guard. They found Gelimer at a place called Tricamarum, about 28kms west of Carthage, and set up a camp on the other side of a small stream which separated the two armies.
Barbarian kings in this period typically travelled with their treasure and important members of their family. It was too dangerous to leave them behind where they could be captured without the army to protect them. Gelimer was no different. He had with him not only women and children, but also the bulk of the royal treasury. On Belisarius’ approach, Gelimer had the non-combatants seek refuge inside a stockade while both he and Tzazon gave speeches to encourage their men. The gist of these pre-battle speeches was to remind the Vandals that they were fighting not only to regain their territory, but also for the lives of their families and to remain as free men. If Procopius is to be believed, given that he was not actually present with the Vandal army, Tzazon took his Sardinian veterans off to one side and reminded them of their victory over Godas and that they would need to bolster the resolve of the other Vandals who had lost at Ad Decimum.
Then Gelimer led his army out and deployed for battle. Apparently, and surprisingly, he took the Romans off-guard while they were preparing a midday meal on the opposite side of the stream that separated the two armies. At this point only the Roman cavalry, who had been sent on ahead, were immediately opposite the Vandals, with Belisarius still on the way. The Romans hastily formed up, with the left wing consisting of six cavalry units, probably each around 500 men strong. Procopius names the commanders. They were Martinus, Valerian, John, Cyprianus, Althias and Marcellus. The right was held by three units under Pappas, Barbatus and Aigan the Hun; however, the majority of the Huns were held back in reserve as their loyalty was doubtful. While the Romans were forming up, Belisarius arrived with his cavalry and deployed in the centre, leaving the infantry behind to catch up when they could. This gave the Romans a strength of about 5,000 cavalry, with no infantry.
The Vandal army must have been much larger. Tzazon’s contingent alone was close to 5,000 men. The Sardinian veterans formed the centre, with the survivors of Ad Decimum deployed on each flank. A contingent of allied Moors, whose allegiance was probably even more doubtful than that of Belisarius’ Huns, was kept in reserve behind the centre. Gelimer rode up and down the Vandal line urging them on to do great deeds and ordering them to fight hand-to-hand with swords only. Strangely, despite having caught the Romans off-guard he did not immediately lead them in a charge. Had he done so, particularly before Belisarius’ arrival, he may have well swept the Romans from the field. Perhaps he had been scarred by the experience of Ad Decimum, where the Romans melted away from the initial charges and then came back into the attack when the Vandals were in disorder. So Gelimer waited for the Romans to make the first move.
For a long time nothing happened. The two armies faced each other across the stream, which was not a major obstacle. It did not even merit a name and was easily fordable all along its length. Belisarius decided to probe the Vandal centre and try to entice them into an uncontrolled advance, so he could then cut them down once their ranks fell into disorder. This had worked against Ammatas previously and the armoured Roman horse archers excelled at such tactics.
Belisarius sent John the Armenian with a small number of picked men, probably only a few hundred, to cross the stream and loose their arrows against Tzazon’s men. So far still undefeated, Tzazon’s contingent was the heart of the Vandal army and Belisarius probably counted on low morale amongst the survivors of Ad Decimum on the wings. They would be less inclined to charge forward and could be held by the Roman flanking troops, while Tzazon’s men might be enticed forward.
The first Roman attack in the centre did indeed draw Tzazon forward, but as John’s horse archers fell back the Vandals drew up when they came to the stream and did not follow across in pursuit. Belisarius sent John forward again with more troops, including some of the bucellarii. The result was much the same. The Romans rode forward, discharged volleys of arrows and then retired, but still Tzazon’s men held their ranks. With the wings facing each other across the stream and Gelimer apparently making no attempt to seize the initiative, Belisarius sent even more men into the centre, including almost all of his bucellarii.
This time it came to hand-to-hand combat. Carrying Belisarius’ standard, John charged into the Vandal ranks, probably after another volley of arrows. In close combat the Vandals would normally have had the edge over their Roman opponents, but they had been weakened by successive feints and taken casualties in both men and horses from archery, to which they had no response. In the fierce close combat, Tzazon was fighting in the front rank of the Vandals and as the battle hung in the balance he fell. With their leader killed, the Vandals in the centre began to waver and at that moment Belisarius sent his whole army forward. Procopius recounts: ‘Crossing the river, they [the Romans] advanced upon the enemy and the rout, beginning in the centre, became complete. For each of the Roman divisions turned to flight those before them with no trouble.’
The Aftermath of Battle
The retreating Vandals made for the safety of their stockaded camp while the Roman, Hun and Herul cavalry stripped the dead of their armour and valuable possessions. At this stage the Romans had suffered only fifty casualties to 800 Vandal dead. The bulk of the Vandal army was, therefore, still relatively intact. They had probably only suffered a few casualties from Roman archery, with more coming from the hand-to-hand combat and the majority at the hands of their pursuers once they broke. Tzazon’s death had been the turning point which shattered their morale. Warfare in this period was very personal, with the kings and princes the personification of the army. While they fought in the front rank the men fought hard alongside them, but when the leader fell a battle was often as good as lost.
Inside their fortified camp the surviving Vandals still outnumbered Belisarius’ cavalry, and if they had held their nerve they could possibly have made a stand. However, when the 10,000 Roman infantry came onto the field in the late afternoon, Gelimer gave up the battle as lost and fled with some of his family. Leaderless, the Vandal army disintegrated, leaving the camp undefended.
‘And the Romans, coming up, captured the camp, money and all, with not a man in it; and they pursued the fugitives throughout the whole night, killing all the men upon whom they happened, and making slaves of the women and children. And they found in this camp a quantity of wealth such as has never before been found, at least in one place. For the Vandals had plundered the Roman domain for a long time and had transferred great amounts of money to Libya, and since their land was an especially good one, nourishing abundantly with the most useful crops, it came about that the revenue collected from the commodities produced there was not paid out to any other country in the purchase of a food supply, but those who possessed the land always kept for themselves the income from it for the ninety-five years during which the Vandals ruled Libya. And from this it resulted that their wealth, amounting to an extraordinary sum, returned once more on that day into the hands of the Romans.’ (Procopius)
All discipline in the Roman Army fell apart as the soldiers helped themselves to this huge wealth, not to mention the women whom Procopius describes as ‘young and extremely comely’. Had Gelimer been able to gather the fugitives and launch a counterattack he would have certainly destroyed the Romans. Belisarius was very worried that this might happen but it was not until the following morning that he was able to gather together 200 bucellarii and send them, under John’s command, to chase after Gelimer, while he did his best to restore order and then follow up behind John with a larger force.
John the Armenian pursued Gelimer for five days before he came close enough to make an attempt to capture him. Fortunately for Gelimer, John was mortally wounded by an arrow shot by Uliaris, the same man who had commanded the 800 bucellarii at Ad Decimum. This was not an assassination attempt. Apparently Uliaris was drunk and took a pot shot at a bird. The arrow missed, hitting John in the neck. Uliaris fled to seek sanctuary in a nearby village and John’s leaderless soldiers gave up the pursuit.
Gelimer took refuge in a fortress on Mount Papua, somewhere on the extreme frontiers of Numidia, south west of Hippo Regius. The place was too strong for Belisarius to assault so he left Pharas, the Herul, with his 400 countrymen and a small number of Romans to blockade Gelimer’s mountain refuge while he went back to Hippo Regius. There he took oaths from the Vandals in the city and sent them to Carthage under guard. He also got his hands on the remainder of Gelimer’s royal treasure.
Strengths and Weaknesses
It is difficult to understand why the Vandal wings at Tricamarum made no move against the Romans, why Gelimer apparently did nothing to support his brother in the centre and how, therefore, 5,000 Roman cavalry were able to defeat an army which probably outnumbered them by about 3:1. Even Procopius was apparently at a loss to explain it:
‘I am not able to say, wherein the fourth descendant of Geiseric and his kingdom at the height of its wealth and military strength, were so completely undone in so short a time by 5,000 men…. For such was the number of horsemen who followed Belisarius and carried the whole war against the Vandals.’
Gelimer was a respected leader, even if he lacked the mettle of the illustrious Geiseric. Indeed, he had been able to usurp the kingdom from Hilderic because he was judged to be one of the finest warriors of his generation. Neither was he stupid. His plan to entrap the Roman Army at Ad Decimum was well thought out, if too ambitious for his men to carry out given their temperament. Twice, however, Gelimer managed to snatch defeat from he jaws of victory. At Ad Decimum he stopped to bury his brother when he should have pressed home the attack. At Tricamarum he failed to attack the Romans when he had them at a disadvantage. He completely surrendered the initiative and allowed Tzazon to do all the fighting without apparently doing anything to support him.
The only possible explanation is that Gelimer had learned the lesson of Ad Decimum too well. There, his men were defeated when they charged impetuously and were cut down by the Romans when they fell into disorder. Clearly he ordered his men to hold the line and not go charging off on their own. The fact that Tzazon chased off the first few Roman attacks and then did not go beyond the stream in pursuit is testament to their control. The orders were probably something like: ‘Fight well men but do not pursue the Romans beyond the stream.’ The Vandal command and control limitations were such that it was apparently impossible for Gelimer to change orders mid-battle to exploit opportunities or to deal with the unexpected. This was what Belisarius excelled at. Man for man, the Vandals were probably more than a match for their Roman opponents, but they lacked tactical finesse and did not have a balanced army.
It is also worth noting the limitations of the sixth century Roman Army. At Ad Decimum, John did well in the initial encounter with Ammatas but then went riding off towards Carthage without bothering to send a messenger back to Belisarius to tell him what happened. Then, when Gelimer’s force took the high ground, 800 of Belisarius’ best men ran off without engaging. To be fair, they may have been ordered not to engage decisively and to fall back on the main body if large numbers of Vandals arrived. However, Procopius’ rather despairing account indicates that they should have done more. It is also hard to imagine Julius Caesar’s troops casually preparing a midday meal and then being caught off-guard when the enemy formed up for battle.
Once Belisarius arrived on the field of battle he took firm control and stayed out of the fighting so that he could oversee the feeding in of successive contingents to weaken the Vandal centre while keeping the enemy wings at bay. His troops then did what they were good at: riding up to the enemy, loosing their arrows and then falling back in an attempt to draw them out. When this did not succeed, they also showed that they were more than capable of engaging the best Vandal warriors in close combat and beating them at it. Had the hand-to-hand fighting taken place when Tzazon’s men were still fresh, no doubt the Vandals would have had the best of it. Belisarius, however, kept the Vandal centre constantly engaged, feeding in successive waves of fresh troops, while the Vandals had no relief. In many ways this was the classic Roman way of fighting, harking back to the days of the Republic when lines of legionaries relieved each other to keep up a constant pressure on the enemy line with fresh troops. Belisarius’ men may have been mounted archers but even if the soldiers were entirely different from the legionaries of old and lacked much of their discipline, the science of war had not completely died out amongst their descendants.
Mopping Up
Belisarius set about reclaiming the outlying Vandal possessions. He sent Cyril with a large force to Sardinia, along with Tzazon’s head as proof of the Roman victory to cow the Vandal garrison into surrender. Another John, not the Armenian, who had died from his arrow wound, went west to take over the Mauretanias, even occupying Septem on the Straits of Gibraltar. Minorca, Majorca and the Balearic Isles were taken over by Apollinarius, a Roman from Italy who had been in Hilderic’s service and was imprisoned by Gelimer after his coup. Other troops went east to support Pudentius and Tattimuth in Tripolitania.
Roman troops also went to Sicily to take over Lilybaeum, which had been given to the Vandals by the Ostrogoths as part of Amalafrida’s dowry. The Goths, however, would have none of it. Their troops garrisoned the town and they had no intention of handing it over to the Romans. After a flurry of diplomatic exchanges, Belisarius backed down and referred the matter to Constantinople for Justinian’s decision. The outcome of this decision, and the war that followed between the Romans and Ostrogoths, belongs to the next book in this series.
Meanwhile, Gelimer was spending a lonely, hungry winter on Mount Papua. At some point Pharas’ Heruls, weary of the tedious blockade, made an attempt to take it by force. The Vandals easily drove them back, inflicting 110 casualties. However, conditions for Gelimer and his family became increasingly unbearable. According to Procopius, when Gelimer saw two children fighting over a scrap of bread he agreed to terms. These were, as Procopius recounts:
‘It is the wish of the Emperor Justinian to have you enrolled in the senate, thus sharing in the highest honour and being a patrician, as we term that rank, and to present you with lands both spacious and good and with great sums of money, and that Belisarius is willing to make himself responsible for you having all these things, and to give you pledges.’
And so in early spring 534 Gelimer surrendered, bringing to an end the kingdom founded by Geiseric ninety-five years earlier. We are told that when Gelimer came before Belisarius he laughed inappropriately, leaving observers to conclude that he had lost his mind.
On 13 April 534, the Emperor Justinian issued orders for the administration of the once again Roman province of Africa. Archelaus was appointed praetorian prefect and Belisarius was given the choice of either returning to Constantinople or remaining in Africa. Belisarius chose to return, bringing with him Gelimer and several thousand Vandal prisoners. Procopius says that already people envious of Belisarius’ success were slandering him to the Emperor and so, in the brittle political climate of the age, it made sense for Belisarius to go home.
When he arrived at Constantinople, Belisarius was granted a triumph. This was the first time since Augustus that a Roman general, who was not also Emperor, had been granted such an honour. On foot, rather than in the traditional chariot, Belisarius made his way from his house to the Hippodrome, where he displayed the spoils of war in front of the Imperial box. Procopius describes the booty:
‘Thrones of gold and carriages in which it is customary for a king’s consort to ride, and much jewellery made of precious stones, and golden drinking cups, and all the other things which are useful for the royal table. And there was also silver weighing many thousands of talents and all the royal treasure amounting to an exceedingly great sum… and among these were the treasures of the Jews, which Titus, the son of Vespasian, together with certain others, had brought to Rome after the capture of Jerusalem [and in turn looted by Geiseric in 455]…. And there were slaves in the triumph, among whom was Gelimer himself, wearing some sort of a purple garment upon his shoulders, and all his family, and as many of the Vandals who were very tall and fair of body…. The Emperor Justinian and the Empress Theodora presented the children of Hilderic and his offspring and all those of the family of the Emperor Valentinian with sufficient sums of money.’
Gelimer was given a sumptuous estate in Galatia in which to live out his exile with his family. He was not, however, made a patrician as per the terms of his surrender since he refused to give up his Arian faith, which Justinian had set as a precondition. The other male Vandal prisoners met a less gruesome fate than that which befell prisoners of war in Roman triumphs of an earlier age. The new Christian Empire had long ago banned bloodthirsty spectacles in the arenas so, rather than fighting each other for the amusement of the crowd, the Vandals formed the basis of five new units sent off to defend the Empire’s eastern frontier against Persia.