He discovered its landing-place from the prisoners, and also learned that it was lying at anchor almost wholly without men; Zazo had taken all his troops to his brother. A few of our triremes, sent from Carthage, were sufficient to capture the one hundred and fifty galleys which were occupied only by sailors; not a single spear flew. Genseric's much-dreaded dragon-ships were towed to Carthage; they allowed themselves to be captured without resistance, like a flock of wild swans, which, storm-beaten, wearied, and crippled, enter an inclosed pond; the proud birds can be grasped with the hand. One of Belisarius's commanders obtained Sardinia; it was necessary, but amply sufficient, to show them Zazo's head on a spear; the islanders would not believe in the defeat of the Vandals before; now that they could touch the head of their dreaded conqueror, they did believe it. Corsica, too, submitted. Also populous Cæsarea in Mauritania, and one of the Pillars of Hercules; Septa, with Ebusa and the Balearic Isles. Tripolis was besieged by Moors, who, during the battle between the Byzantines and the Vandals, were trying to win land and people on their own account. The city was occupied by our troops and received from the hands of Pudentius for the Emperor. One might think the whole Vandal nation existed in its royal family and a few of the nobles. When Zazo and the nobles about him fell, after the King vanished, all resistance ceased; it was like a bundle of sticks: when the string that fastens them is cut, they all fall apart. Since the day of Trikameron the Barbarians everywhere allow themselves to be seized like sheep without defence. They are mainly to be found weaponless in the Catholic basilicas, where, seeking refuge, they embrace the altars which they have so often dishonored. The men are just the same as the women and children. Really, if their brothers in Italy and Spain, and their cousins, the Franks, Alemanni, or whatever else the Barbarians in Gaul and Germany are called, were as highly educated as these Vandal writers of Greek and Latin poetry, the Imperator Justinianus could speedily recover the whole West through Belisarius and Narses. But I fear the Vandals alone have attained such a degree of culture. CHAPTER XVIII More news! Perhaps another war and conquest close at hand.