Gelimer, however, being deprived of Tripolis by Pudentius and of Sardinia by Godas, scarcely hoped to regain Tripolis, 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 get to the island before any army sent by the emperor to fight for his enemies should arrive there.  He accordingly selected five thousand of the Vandals and one hundred and twenty ships of the fastest kind, and appointing as general his brother Tzazon, he sent them off.  And so they were sailing with great enthusiasm and eagerness against Godas and Sardinia.  In the meantime the Emperor Justinian was sending off Valerian and Martinus in advance of the others in order to await the rest of the army in the Peloponnesus.  And when these two had embarked upon their ships, it came to the emperor’s mind that there was something which he wished to enjoin upon them,—­a thing which he had wished to say previously, but he had been so busied with the other matters of which he had to speak that his mind had been occupied with them and this subject had been driven out.  He summoned them, accordingly, intending to say what he wished, but upon considering the matter, he saw that it would not be propitious for them to interrupt their journey.  He therefore sent men to forbid them either to return to him or to disembark from their ships.  And these men, upon coming near the ships, commanded them with much shouting and loud cries by no means to turn back, and it seemed to those present that the thing which had happened was no good omen and that never would one of the men in those ships return from Libya to Byzantium.  For besides the omen they suspected that a curse also had come to the men from the emperor, not at all by his own will, so that they would not return.  Now if anyone should so interpret the incident with regard to these two commanders, Valerian and Martinus, he will find the original opinion untrue.  But there was a certain man among the body-guards of Martinus, Stotzas by name, who was destined to be an enemy of the emperor, to make an attempt to set up a tyranny, and by no means to return to Byzantium, and one might suppose that curse to have been turned upon him by Heaven.  But whether this matter stands thus or otherwise, I leave to each one to reason out as he wishes.  But I shall proceed to tell how the general Belisarius and the army departed.

XII

[533 A.D.] In the seventh year of Justinian’s reign, at about the spring equinox, the emperor commanded the general’s ship to anchor off the point which is before the royal palace.  Thither came also Epiphanius, the chief priest of the city, and after uttering an appropriate prayer, he put on the ships one of the soldiers who had lately been baptized and had taken the Christian name.  And after this the general Belisarius and Antonina, his wife, set sail.