amed of good fortune, they lived solely for the pleasure of the
moment; every barrier gave way, every curb broke; they could not
satisfy themselves. The demon of Africa, pleasure, seized upon them.
They roved, singly and in couples, through the camp and its vicinity,
following the track of the fugitives wherever the search for booty or
revelry lured them. There was no thought of the enemy, no fear of the
General. Those who were still sober, laden with treasure and driving
their captives before them, tried to escape to Carthage. Belisarius
says that if the Vandals had attacked us again an hour after we took
possession of their camp, not a man of us all would have escaped. The
victorious army, even his bodyguard, had entirely thrown off his
control.

At the gray dawn of morning with the blast of the trumpets he summoned
all the warriors; that is, all who were sober. His bodyguard now came
hastily in deep shame. Instead of thanks and praise, he gave leaders
and men a lecture such as I never before heard from his lips. We have
become mere hired soldiers, adventurers, ruffians, fierce and brave,
like greedy beasts of prey; well suited for bloody pursuit, like
hunting leopards, but not fit to leave the captured game to the hunter
or bring it in and fasten it in a cage; we must first have our share of
the blood and the food. It is by no means beautiful; yet it is far more
enjoyable than philosophy and theology, rhetoric, grammar, and
dialectics. But the Vandal War is over, I think. To-morrow we shall
doubtless capture the fugitive King.

* * * * *

I always say so. The most weighty decisions hinge upon the most trivial
incidents. Or, as I express it when I am in a very poetical mood, the
goddess Tyche likes to sport with the destinies of men and nations, as
boys toss coins in the air and determine gain and loss by "heads"
or "tails."

You, O Cethegus, have condemned my philosophy of the world's history as
old wives' croaking. But judge for yourself. A bird's cry, a blind
delight in hunting, a shot sent to the wrong mark, and the result is
this: the Vandal King escapes when already within the grasp of our
fingers; the campaign, which seemed ended, continues, and your friend
must spend weeks in an extremely tiresome besieging camp before an
extremely unnecessary Moorish mountain village.

Belisarius had committed the pursuit of the fugitive King to his
countryman, the Thracian Althias. "I