rough country of Aurasium, came there, and one of them, with a laugh,
attempted to climb up to the tower; but the women began to taunt him,
ridiculing him as attempting the impossible; and the old man, peering
out from the tower, did the same thing. But when the Roman soldier,
climbing with both hands and feet, had come near them, he drew his sword
quietly and leaped forward as quickly as he could, and struck the old
man a fair blow on the neck, and succeeded in cutting it through. And
the head fell down to the ground, and the soldiers, now emboldened and
holding to one another, ascended to the tower, and took out from there
both the women and the money, of which there was an exceedingly great
quantity. And by means of it Solomon surrounded many of the cities in
Libya with walls.

And after the Moors had retired from Numidia, defeated in the manner
described, the land of Zabe, which is beyond Mt. Aurasium and is called
"First Mauretania," whose metropolis is Sitiphis,[57] was added to the
Roman empire by Solomon as a tributary province; for of the other
Mauretania Caesarea is the first city, where was settled Mastigas[58]
with his Moors, having the whole country there subject and tributary to
him, except, indeed, the city of Caesarea. For this city Belisarius had
previously recovered for the Romans, as has been set forth in the
previous narrative[59]; and the Romans always journey to this city in
ships, but they are not able to go by land, since Moors dwell in that
country. And as a result of this all the Libyans who were subjects of
the Romans, coming to enjoy secure peace and finding the rule of Solomon
wise and very moderate, and having no longer any thought of hostility in
their minds, seemed the most fortunate of all men.

XXI

But in the fourth year after this it came about that all their blessings
were turned to the opposite. [543-544 A.D.] For in the seventeenth year
of the reign of the Emperor Justinian, Cyrus and Sergius, the sons of
Bacchus, Solomon's brother, were assigned by the emperor to rule over
the cities in Libya, Cyrus, the elder, to have Pentapolis,[60] and
Sergius Tripolis. And the Moors who are called Leuathae came to Sergius
with a great army at the city of Leptimagna,[61] spreading the report
that the reason they had come was this, that Sergius might give them the
gifts and insignia of office which were customary[62] and so make the
peace secure. But Sergius, persuaded by Pudentius, a man o