Page:1909historyofdec04gibbuoft.djvu/349

chap, xli] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 301 sea. Their silken robes loosely flowing after the fashion of the Medes, were embroidered with gold ; love and hunting were the labours of their life ; and their vacant hours were amused by pantomimes, chariot-races, and the music and dances of the theatre. In a march of ten or twelve days, the vigilance of Belisarius Defeats the was constantly awake and active against his unseen enemies, by a erst s whom, in every place and at every hour, he might be suddenly attacked. An officer of confidence and merit, John the Ar- menian, led the vanguard of three hundred horse ; six hundred Massagetae covered at a certain distance the left flank ; and the whole fleet steering along the coast, seldom lost sight of the army, which moved each day about twelve miles, and lodged in the evening in strong camps or in friendly towns. The near approach of the Romans to Carthage filled the mind of Gelimer with anxiety and terror. He prudently wished to protract the war till his brother, with his veteran troops, should return from the conquest of Sardinia ; and he now lamented the rash policy of his ancestors, who, by destroying the fortifications of Africa, had left him only the dangerous resource of risking a battle in the neighbourhood of his capital. The Vandal conquerors, from their original number of fifty thousand, were multiplied, without including their women and children, to one hundred and sixty thousand 25 fighting men ; and such forces, animated with valour and union, might have crushed, at their first landing, the feeble and exhausted bands of the Eoman general. But the friends of the captive king were more inclined to accept the invitations, than to resist the progress, of Belisarius ; and many a proud Barbarian disguised his aversion to war under the more specious name of his hatred to the usurper. Yet the authority and promises of Gelimer collected a formidable army, and his plans were concerted with some degree of military skill. An order was dispatched to his brother Ammatas, to collect all the forces of Carthage and to encounter the van of the Roman army at the distance of ten miles from the city ; his nephew Gibamund, with two thousand horse, was destined to attack their left, when 25 [Rather 150,000, Proc. B. V. ii. 2 (vol. i. p. 418 ed. Bonn, p. 426 ed. Haury), fierpqi yap avTwv irepielvai oi>x 5cr<7ov ^ St-KairXacricp ol6fie9a (the Roman armament was 15,000 strong, see above p. 295). This occurs in the speech of Gelimer to his troops, and the number is of course much exaggerated. Cp. Pflugk-Harttung, Belisars Vandalenkrieg, Historische Zeitschrift, 61 (1889), p. 72.]