Count Belisarius

Now let me close this chapter with the conclusion of the story of King Geilimer. There he was with his nephews and cousins and brothers-in-law on Mount Pappua, living with the wild Moorish tribesmen, in despair of rescue – what more miserable man in all Africa? For if the Vandals could have been described as the most luxurious nation in the world, their neighbours the Moors were among the most poverty-stricken, living all the year round in underground huts which were stifling or dank according to the season. They slept on the floor, each with only a single sheepskin under him, and wore the same rough shirt and hooded burnous, winter and summer; and had no armour worth the name and few possessions. Bread, wine and oil were absent from their diet, which consisted of water and herbs and unleavened barley-cake made not of milled flour but of grams bruised in a rough mortar and baked in the embers.

The sufferings of Geilimer and his family cannot easily be understated. They were forced to be grateful to their Moorish friends for the miserable hospitality which these offered; and since Pharas was keeping strict guard, no fresh supplies could enter. Soon the barley began to give out. They had no amusements, no baths, no horses, no charming women, no music; and far in the distance below them they could sec the white walls and towers of Hippo Regius, and the oval of the Hippodrome, and vessels sailing in and out of the harbour; and among the dark masses of green, which were orchards, shone little silver patches, which were cool fish-pools.

Pharas, growing weary of the siege, attempted an assault on the mountain cliff; but his Herulians were repulsed with heavy loss by the Moorish garrison, who toppled boulders down upon them. He decided to starve Geilimer out. One day he wrote him a letter which ran as follows:

Dear Sir and King, I greet you.

I am a mere barbarian and totally uneducated. But I am speaking this to a scribe who will record what I have to tell you faithfully, I trust, (if not, I will whip him well.) What in the world, my dear Geilimer, has come upon you that you and your kinsmen stay perched up on that desolate crag with a pack of naked, verminous Moors? Is it perhaps that you wish to avoid becoming a slave? What is slavery? A foolish word. What living man is not a slave? None. My men are slaves to me in all but name; and I to my anda, Belisarius; and he to the Emperor Justinian; and Justinian, they say, to his wife, the beautiful Theodora; and she to someone else, I know not whom, but perhaps it is her God or sonic bishop or other. Come down, monarch of Mount Pappua, and become a fellow-slave with the great Belisarius, my master and anda, to the Emperor Justinian, the slave of a slave. Belisarius is willing, I know, to spare your life and send you to Kesarorda [Constantinople] where you shall be made a patrician and given rich estates and pass the rest of your life in every comfort, among horses and fruit-trees and full-bosomed women with charmingly small noses. He will pledge you his word, I am confident, and once you have that assurance, you have everything.

Signed: x the mark of Pharas, the Herulian your well-wisher.

Geilimer sobbed when he had read this letter. Using the ink and parchment which Pharas had thoughtfully sent with his messenger, he answered briefly that honour forbade him to yield; for the war was an unjust one. He prayed that God would punish Belisarius one day for the misery that he had inflicted on the innocent Vandals. He ended: 'As for me, I cannot write more; for misfortune has robbed me of my wits. Farewell, then, good-hearted Pharas, and of your charity send me a harp and a sponge, and a single loaf of white bread.'

Pharas read the last sentence over and over, but could make no sense of it. The messenger then interpreted it: Geilimer wished to experience again the smell and taste of good bread, which he had not eaten for so long a time; and the sponge was to treat an inflamed eyefor the Moors suffer from ophthalmia, which is infectious; and the harp was to provide musical accompaniment to an elegy that he had composed upon his misfortunes. Then Pharas, being a man of generous feelings, sent the gifts, but did not relax his watch.