CHAPTER IX PROCOPIUS TO CETHEGUS: I am writing this--really and truly, though it is not yet three months since we left Constantinople--in Carthage, at the capitol, in the royal palace of the Asdings, in the hall of Genseric the Terrible. I often doubt the fact myself--but it is so! On the day after the battle at Decimum the infantry, coming from the camp, joined us, and the whole army marched to Carthage, which we reached in the evening. We chose a place to encamp outside of the city, though no one opposed our entrance. Nay, the Carthaginians had opened all their gates and lighted torches and lanterns everywhere in the streets and squares. All night long the bonfires shone from the city into our camp, while the few Vandals who had not fled sought shelter in the Catholic churches. But Belisarius most strictly prohibited entering the city during the night. He feared an ambush, a stratagem of war. He could not believe that Genseric's capital had actually fallen into his hands with so little trouble. On the following day, borne by a favoring breeze, our ships rounded the promontory. As soon as the Carthaginians recognized our flag, they broke the iron chains of their outer harbor, Mandracium, and beckoned to our sailors to enter. But the commanders, mindful of Belisarius's warning, anchored in the harbor of Stagnum, five thousand paces from the city, waiting further orders. Yet that the worthy citizens of Carthage might make the acquaintance of their liberators on the very first day, a ship's captain, Kalonymos, with several sailors, entered Mandracium, against the orders of Belisarius and the Quæstor, and plundered all the merchants--Carthaginians as well as strangers--who had their homes and storehouses on the harbor. He took all their money, many of their goods, and even the beautiful candlesticks and lanterns which they had brought out in honor of our arrival. We had hoped--Belisarius gave orders for a diligent search--to liberate the captive King Hilderic and his nephew. But this, it appears, was not accomplished. In the royal citadel, high up on the hill crowned by the capitol, is the gloomy dungeon where the usurper held the Asdings prisoners, as he barred all his foes here. The executioner supplied the place of a jailer to his predecessors. He also held captive many merchants of our empire, fearing (and my Hegelochus showed with what good reason; the General sent him to-day with rich gifts to Syracuse) that, if allowed to sail thither, they might bring us all sorts of valuable information. When the jailer, a Roman, heard of our victory at Decimum, and saw our galleys rounding the promontory, he released all these captives. He wanted to set the King and Euages free also, but their dungeon was empty. No one knows what has become of them.