to the ears of the Emperor, he became afraid and quickly sent everything to the sanctuaries of the Christians in Jerusalem.  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 as were very tall and fair of body.  And when Gelimer reached the hippodrome and saw the emperor sitting upon a lofty seat and the people standing on either side and realized as he looked about in what an evil plight he was, he neither wept nor cried out, but ceased not saying over in the words of the Hebrew scripture:[29] “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”  And when he came before the emperor’s seat, they stripped off the purple garment, and compelled him to fall prone on the ground and do obeisance to the Emperor Justinian.  This also Belisarius did, as being a suppliant of the emperor along with him.  And the Emperor Justinian and the Empress Theodora presented the children of Ilderic and his offspring and all those of the family of the Emperor Valentinian with sufficient sums of money, and to Gelimer they gave lands not to be despised in Galatia and permitted him to live there together with his family.  However, Gelimer was by no means enrolled among the patricians, since he was unwilling to change from the faith of Arius.

[Jan. 1, 535 A.D.] A little later the triumph[30] was celebrated by, Belisarius in the ancient manner also.  For he had the fortune to be advanced to the office of consul, and therefore was borne aloft by the captives, and as he was thus carried in his curule chair, he threw to the populace those very spoils of the Vandalic war.  For the people carried off the silver plate and golden girdles and a vast amount of the Vandals’ wealth of other sorts as a result of Belisarius’ consulship, and it seemed that after a long interval of disuse an old custom was being revived.[31] These things, then, took place in Byzantium in the manner described.

X

And Solomon took over the army in Libya; but in view of the fact that the Moors had risen against him, as has been told previously, and that everything was in suspense, he was at a loss how to treat the situation.  For it was reported that the barbarians had destroyed the soldiers in Byzacium and Numidia and that they were pillaging and plundering everything there.  But what disturbed most of all both him and all Carthage was the fate which befell Aigan, the Massagete, and Rufinus, the Thracian, in Byzacium.  For both were men of great repute both in the household of Belisarius and in the Roman army, one of them, Aigan, being among the spearmen of Belisarius, while the other, as the most courageous of all, was accustomed to carry the standard of the general in battle; such an officer the Romans call “bandifer."[32] Now at the time referred to these two men were commanding detatchments of cavalry in Byzacium, and when they