[539-540 A.D.] And the emperor summoned Germanus together with Symmachus and Domnicus and again entrusted all Libya to Solomon, in the thirteenth year of his reign; and he provided him with an army and officers, among whom were Rufinus and Leontius, the sons of Zaunas the son of Pharesmanas, and John, the son of Sisiniolus.  For Martinus and Valerianus had already before this gone under summons to Byzantium.  And Solomon sailed to Carthage, and having rid himself of the sedition of Stotzas, he ruled with moderation and guarded Libya securely, setting the army in order, and sending to Byzantium and to Belisarius whatever suspicious elements he found in it, and enrolling new soldiers to equal their number, and removing those of the Vandals who were left and especially all their women from the whole of Libya.  And he surrounded each city with a wall, and guarding the laws with great strictness, he restored the government completely.  And Libya became under his rule powerful as to its revenues and prosperous in other respects.

And when everything had been arranged by him in the best way possible, he again made an expedition against Iaudas and the Moors on Aurasium.  And first he sent forward Gontharis, one of his own body-guards and an able warrior, with an army.  Now Gontharis came to the Abigas River and made camp near Bagais, a deserted city.  And there he engaged with the enemy, but was defeated in battle, and retiring to his stockade was already being hard pressed by the siege of the Moors.  But afterwards Solomon himself arrived with his whole army, and when he was sixty stades away from the camp which Gontharis was commanding, he made a stockade and remained there; and hearing all that had befallen the force of Gontharis, he sent them a part of his army and bade them keep up the fight against the enemy with courage.  But the Moors, having gained the upper hand in the engagement, as I have said, did as follows.  The Abigas River flows from Aurasium, and descending into a plain, waters the land just as the men there desire.  For the natives conduct this stream to whatever place they think it will best serve them at the moment, for in this plain there are many channels, into which the Abigas is divided, and entering all of them, it passes underground, and reappears again above the ground and gathers its stream together.  This takes place over the greatest part of the plain and makes it possible for the inhabitants of the region, by stopping up the waterways with earth, or by again opening them, to make use of the waters of this river as they wish.  So at that time the Moors shut off all the channels there and thus allowed the whole stream to flow about the camp of the Romans.  As a result of this, a deep, muddy marsh formed there through which it was impossible to go; this terrified them exceedingly and reduced them to a state of helplessness.  When this was heard by Solomon, he came quickly.  But the barbarians, becoming afraid, withdrew to the