Belisarius was able
to land in Sicily to refresh his soldiers wearied with a long voyage,
and to obtain accurate information as to the preparations, or rather
no-preparations, of the enemy.

Early in September the army landed at the promontory of Caput-vada,
about one hundred and thirty miles south-east of Carthage, and began
their march towards the capital. They journeyed unopposed through
friendly Catholic villages, and royal parks beautiful in verdure and
abounding in luscious fruits, until, after eleven days, they arrived at
the tenth milestone[141] from Carthage, and here came the shock of war.
Gelimer had planned a combined attack on (13th Sept., 533) the Imperial
army, by himself, operating on their rear, and his brother Ammatas
making a vigorous sally from Carthage and attacking them in front. If
the two attacks had been really simultaneous, it might have gone hardly
with the Imperial army; but Ammatas came too soon to the field, was
defeated and slain. Gelimer arriving later on in the day inflicted a
partial defeat on the troops of Belisarius, but, coming to the spot
where lay the dead body of his brother, he stayed so long to bewail and
to bury him that Belisarius had time to rally his forces and to convert
defeat into victory. Gelimer fled to the open country. Belisarius
pressed on and without further opposition entered the gates of Carthage,
where he was received by the majority of the citizens, who spoke the
Latin tongue, and professed the Catholic faith, with unconcealed
rejoicing. Some Roman merchants who had been confined for many weeks in
the dungeon were (15th Sept., 533) liberated by their anxious gaoler.
But the Imperial victory came too late for the captive Hilderic, as he
had been already put to death in prison by order of his successor. There
was thus neither friend nor foe left to bar Justinian's claim to rule as
Augustus over Africa.

[Footnote 141: Ad Decimum.]

Belisarius was accompanied in this, as in many subsequent expeditions,
by his secretary and counsellor, the rhetorician Procopius, who has
written the story of their wars in a style worthy of his hero-chief. He
describes the sensations of surprise at their own good fortune, with
which Belisarius and his suite found themselves at noon of the 15 th
September, sitting in Gelimer's gorgeous banquet-hall, served by the
Vandal's lackeys and partaking of the sumptuous repast which he had
ordered to be prepared in celebration of his anticipa