When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us,
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will."
To the credit of the Roman General it must be remembered that his heterogeneous and ill-disciplined army fell far short of being an efficient fighting machine; but he seems to have incurred needless risk both at Decimum and Tricamerum by drawing his cavalry away from his infantry, whilst his being unaware for many days that he was surrounded by the enemy's troops on the march from Caputvada seems wholly inexcusable. But the incapacity of Gelimer to lead an army with skill and determination, his want of foresight and unpreparedness, neutralized the gravest errors. The water was left open for the enemy's fleet at a time when the semblance even of an attack by sea would have dispersed them for good. He failed to push his splendid success at Decimum, and on the night after Tricamerum, when a muster of the Vandal troops might have annihilated the Roman forces in detail, he had deserted the scene of action. Again, the task of Belisarius was much lightened by the timely revolt of Sardinia and by a simultaneous rising in Tripoli, whereby the resources of his adversary were considerably diminished. Though of little moment after the land successes, the preservation of the Byzantine fleet was due, perhaps, to its making for port, in opposition to the injunctions of Belisarius, instead of remaining exposed on the incommodious coast. For an exhaustive critique of the campaign, see Pflugk-Hartung, Belisars Vandalkrieg, Hist. Zeitschrift, Munich, 1889.
[430] 70 A.D.; Tacitus, Hist., v; Josephus, Bel. Jud., v, vi, etc. The objects were figured on the Arch of Titus, the most conspicuous being the seven-branched candlestick.
[431] See p. 500. Their mother was Eudocia, daughter of Valentinian III and Eudoxia, the former the grandson, the latter the great grand-daughter, of Theodosius I.
[432] Procopius, De Bel. Goth., ii, 29.
[433] Cod., I, xxvii, 1.
[434] The two Mauritanias were conjoined.
[435] Cod. I, xxvii, 2. This is an elaborate act descriptive of the new administration, and dealing with the duties and pay of its several members. The Praetorian Praefect and the Master of Soldiers are often mentioned by Procopius in the second book of his Vandalic War. For long the government of Africa was practically a military despotism, and the civil chief was merely the first secretary of the general in power.