History of the Wars, Books III and IV | Page 9

head and each of his
other members and divided them among themselves. But Gizeric took
Eudoxia captive, together with Eudocia and Placidia, the children of
herself and Valentinian, and placing an exceedingly great amount of
gold and other imperial treasure[25] in his ships sailed to Carthage,
having spared neither bronze nor anything else whatsoever in the
palace. He plundered also the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and tore
off half of the roof. Now this roof was of bronze of the finest quality,
and since gold was laid over it exceedingly thick, it shone as a
magnificent and wonderful spectacle.[26] But of the ships with Gizeric,
one, which was bearing the statues, was lost, they say, but with all the
others the Vandals reached port in the harbour of Carthage. Gizeric
then married Eudocia to Honoric, the elder of his sons; but the other of
the two women, being the wife of Olybrius, a most distinguished man
in the Roman senate, he sent to Byzantium together with her mother,
Eudoxia, at the request of the emperor. Now the power of the East had
by now fallen to Leon, who had been set in this position by Aspar,
since Marcian had already passed from the world. [457 A.D.]
Afterwards Gizeric devised the following scheme. He tore down the
walls of all the cities in Libya except Carthage, so that neither the
Libyans themselves, espousing the cause of the Romans, might have a
strong base from which to begin a rebellion, nor those sent by the
emperor have any ground for hoping to capture a city and by
establishing a garrison in it to make trouble for the Vandals. Now at
that time it seemed that he had counselled well and had ensured
prosperity for the Vandals in the safest possible manner; but in later
times when these cities, being without walls, 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