arius commissioned me to compose an order to be read aloud at the
departure of each body of troops.

A few dozen of our precious Huns dashed out into the country and seized
some of the harvests just ripening in the fields, over which they
became involved in a discussion with the Roman colonists. As the
Huns, unfortunately, speak their Latin only with leather whips and
lance-thrusts, there were several dead men after the conference,--of
course only on the side of the wicked peasants, who would not let the
horses of the Huns eat their fill of their best grain. Our beloved Huns
cut off the heads of the men whom they had thus happily liberated from
the Vandal yoke, hung them to their saddles, and brought them to the
General for a dessert. Belisarius foamed with rage. He often foams; and
when Belisarius lightens, Procopius must usually thunder.

So it was now. So I wrote a proclamation that we were the saviors,
liberators, and benefactors of the provincials, and therefore would
neither consider their best grain-fields as litter for our horses nor
play ball with their heads. "In this case," I wrote convincingly, "such
conduct is not only criminal, but extremely stupid. Our little body of
troops could venture to land only because we expect that the
inhabitants of the provinces will be hostile to the Vandals and helpful
to us." But I appealed to our heroes still more impressively,
addressing not their honor or their conscience, but their stomachs! "If
ye die of hunger, O admirable men," I wrote, "the peasants will bring
us nothing to eat. If ye kill them, the dead will sell you nothing more
and the living almost less. You will drive the provincials to be the
allies of the Vandals--to say nothing of God and His opinion of you,
which is already somewhat clouded. So spare the people, at least for
the present, or they will discover too early that Belisarius's Huns are
worse than Gelimer's Vandals. When the Emperor's tax-officers once rule
the land, then, dear descendants of Attila, you will no longer need to
impose any constraint upon yourselves; then the 'liberated' will have
already learned to estimate their freedom. You cannot go as far as
Justinian's tax-collectors, beloved Huns and robbers." The proclamation
was of that purport, only dressed in somewhat fairer words. We are
marching forward. No sign of the Barbarians. Where are they hiding?
Where is this King of the Vandals dreaming? If he does not wake soon,
he will find him