were captured by Belisarius all the more easily and with less exertion, Gizeric was then condemned to suffer much ridicule, and that which for the time he considered wise counsel turned out for him to be folly.  For as fortunes change, men are always accustomed to change with them their judgments regarding what has been planned in the past.  And among the Libyans all who happened to be men of note and conspicuous for their wealth he handed over as slaves, together with their estates and all their money, to his sons Honoric and Genzon.  For Theodorus, the youngest son, had died already, being altogether without offspring, either male or female.  And he robbed the rest of the Libyans of their estates, which were both very numerous and excellent, and distributed them among the nation of the Vandals, and as a result of this these lands have been called “Vandals’ estates” up to the present time.  And it fell to the lot of those who had formerly possessed these lands to be in extreme poverty and to be at the same time free men; and they had the privilege of going away wheresoever they wished.  And Gizeric commanded that all the lands which he had given over to his sons and to the other Vandals should not be subject to any kind of taxation.  But as much of the land as did not seem to him good he allowed to remain in the hands of the former owners, but assessed so large a sum to be paid on this land for taxes to the government that nothing whatever remained to those who retained their farms.  And many of them were constantly being sent into exile or killed.  For charges were brought against them of many sorts, and heavy ones too; but one charge seemed to be the greatest of all, that a man, having money of his own, was hiding it.  Thus the Libyans were visited with every form of misfortune.

The Vandals and the Alani he arranged in companies, appointing over them no less than eighty captains, whom he called “chiliarchs,"[27] making it appear that his host of fighting men in active service amounted to eighty thousand.  And yet the number of the Vandals and Alani was said in former times, at least, to amount to no more than fifty thousand men.  However, after that time by their natural increase among themselves and by associating other barbarians with them they came to be an exceedingly numerous people.  But the names of the Alani and all the other barbarians, except the Moors, were united in the name of Vandals.  At that time, after the death of Valentinian, Gizeric gained the support of the Moors, and every year at the beginning of spring he made invasions into Sicily and Italy, enslaving some of the cities, razing others to the ground, and plundering everything; and when the land had become destitute of men and of money, he invaded the domain of the emperor of the East.  And so he plundered Illyricum and the most of the Peloponnesus and of the rest of Greece and all the islands which lie near it.  And again he went off to Sicily and Italy, and kept plundering and pillaging all places in turn.  And one day when he had embarked on his ship in the harbour of Carthage, and the sails were already being spread, the pilot asked him, they say, against what men in the world he bade them go.  And he in reply said:  “Plainly against those with whom God is angry.”  Thus without any cause he kept making invasions wherever chance might lead him.