When Theodoric died, the enmities of race and sect, which he had suppressed with a strong hand, broke out afresh. He left behind him a grandson, Athalaric, only ten years old, to whose mother, Amalasunta, was entrusted the regency during his minority. His other grandson, Amalaric, was king of the Visigoths, and sufficiently occupied in building up his power in Spain. In Italy, the hostility to Amalasunta's regency was chiefly religious; but the Eastern Emperor on the one side, and the Franks on the other, were actuated by political considerations. The former, the last of the great Emperors, Justinian, determined to recover Italy for the Empire: the latter only waited an opportunity to get possession of the whole of Gaul. Amalasunta was persuaded to sign a treaty, by which the territory of Provence was given back to the Burgundians. The latter were immediately assailed by the sons of Chlodwig, and in the year 534 the kingdom of Burgundy, after having stood for 125 years, ceased to exist. Not long afterwards the Visigoths were driven beyond the Pyrenees, and the whole of what is now France and Belgium, with a part of Western Switzerland, was in the possession of the Franks. [Sidenote: 534. END OF THE VANDALS.] While these changes were taking place in the West, Justinian had not been idle in the East. He was fortunate in having two great generals, Belisarius and Narses, who had already restored the lost prestige of the Imperial army. His first movement was to recover Northern Africa from the Vandals, who had now been settled there for a hundred years, and began to consider themselves the inheritors of the Carthaginian power. Belisarius, with a fleet and a powerful army, was sent against them. Here, again, the difference of religious doctrine between the Vandals and the Romans whom they had subjected, made his task easy. The last Vandal king, Gelimer, was defeated and besieged in a fortress called Pappua. After the siege had lasted all winter, Belisarius sent an officer, Pharas, to demand surrender. Gelimer refused, but added: "If you will do me a favor, Pharas, send me a loaf of bread, a sponge and a harp." Pharas, astonished, asked the reason of this request, and Gelimer answered: "I demand bread, because I have seen none since I have been besieged here; a sponge, to cool my eyes which are weary with weeping; and a harp, to sing the story of my misfortunes." Soon afterwards he surrendered, and in 534 all Northern Africa was restored to Justinian. The Vandals disappeared from history, as a race, but some of their descendants, with light hair, blue eyes and fair skins, still live among the valleys of the Atlas Mountains, where they are called Berbers, and keep themselves distinct from the Arab population. [Sidenote: 552.]