Belisarius: The Last Roman General (22 page)

The next morning, Belisarius followed with the remaining cavalry and the infantry. The army marched towards Tricamerum, approximately 150
stades
(about 17 miles) from Carthage, where the Vandals were encamped. The Byzantine cavalry set up their own camp, leaving a large distance between themselves and the enemy.

The Battle of Tricamerum

On the following day Gelimer waited until just before midday before leading his troops out of their camp and ordering them to assume their battle formations with a small stream directly to their front. It could be that the habit of the Byzantines to take their meals at noon was well known: the Persians had similarly attempted to force the Byzantines into forming battle lines before they could eat their meal. Gelimer may have been using the same tactic of making the enemy fight on empty stomachs.

Yet there is a further reason behind his decision to attack. When assessing the numbers available, the Byzantine forces at this point look extraordinarily light. Belisarius had begun with 5,000 cavalry, not including his personal
comitatus
or the reinforcements led by Valerianus and Martinus which had joined the expedition at Methone. Although the Vandals had been defeated at Ad Decimum, they had nevertheless fought hard at times, inflicting casualties and so reducing the number of men available to Belisarius. It is unlikely that the army facing Gelimer was much more than 8,000 strong. The 10,000 or more infantry were yet to arrive at the battlefield.

Facing them, the Vandal army was likely to be slightly larger than the available Byzantine forces. Many men had been lost at Ad Decimum, either killed, taken prisoner, or seeking sanctuary after the battle. Their absence was more than compensated for by the arrival of Tzazon and his men from Sardinia. Taking into account the overall manpower available (see above, Chapter 5), and deducting the losses incurred, it would appear reasonable to suggest that Gelimer may have had a maximum of around 15,000 men. It is not surprising that he wished to attack before the Byzantine infantry arrived to balance the numbers.

Whatever the motive, the Byzantines were caught unawares. With extreme haste, the army prepared for battle and deployed across from the Vandals on the opposite bank of the stream.

It is sometimes difficult when reading Procopius to understand the narrative since he usually makes Belisarius the centre of events. However, a close reading of the text reveals that Belisarius only joined the main force just before the battle. Therefore, the deployment of the Byzantine troops was made by John the Armenian. John had deployed the troops and so had greater knowledge of what was happening. It made sense for him to remain in charge throughout the battle, so Belisarius only gave him ‘advice’. Accordingly, John took his position in the centre of the battlefield with the
comitatus
and the standard.

On the left wing, Martinus and Valerian, John, Cyprian, Althius and Marcellus commanded a section of the Byzantine missile-armed cavalry, being reinforced by the
foederati
who were armed solely for close combat. The left wing is likely to have numbered around 3,500–4,000 men.

On the right wing were Pappas, Barbatus, Aigan and others with the balance of the regular cavalry. Again, this would suggest a maximum number of 4,000 men. The Huns were deployed apart from the Byzantine army. This would allow them to choose which side to join when they saw which was winning.

The Vandals deployed with Tzazon leading his veterans from the Sardinian campaign in the centre. To the left and the right the Vandal
chiliarchs
led the remainder of the army. Since the Byzantines were to concentrate upon the Vandal centre, and not upon a weaker wing, it is possible that the two wings were roughly equal in numbers. Behind the Vandal centre was a force of Moorish allies, the strength of which is completely unknown. Like the Huns, they waited until the battle had been decided before taking any action; they did not want to alienate their possible future masters by an untimely attack. Gelimer himself travelled around the entire force, exhorting the men to fight bravely. He also ordered that they fight only with the sword, disdaining to use their spears or other weapons. This may have been a tactic to encourage close combat and so reduce the effects of large-scale Byzantine missile fire. Yet there is no record of him taking part in the actual fighting.

The battle opened with John following Belisarius’ advice and sending a few troops to skirmish with the Vandal centre. The plan appears to have been to either shoot at the Vandals who would lose men and be unable to respond, or to provoke a counterattack that would lose momentum and cohesion as it crossed the stream. The enemy would then be easy for the outnumbered Byzantines to destroy. Tzazon was too wily to take the bait: a charge by the Vandals forced the Byzantine skirmishers to retire, but the Vandals did not attempt to cross the stream.

Seeing that the tactic had nearly worked and that the Vandals had no response to mounted archers other than to charge them, John now personally led out the
bucellarii,
and again was forced to withdraw without the Vandals crossing the stream. John or Belisarius now recognised that the Vandals were not going to take the bait, and that their losses from arrow fire alone were not going to be sufficient to cause them to withdraw. However, they also noticed that the two wings of the Vandal army had not moved to support Tzazon. As a result, John now led out almost all of the
comitatus,
including the standard, and attacked the Vandal centre. An extremely fierce hand-to-hand battle ensued, in the course of which Tzazon was killed.

Procopius does not give us the detail we need to assess what happened next. It is possible that Belisarius (not John, who was now involved in the fighting), recognising that the Vandal centre was giving way and that the Vandal flanks were unlikely to intervene, ordered an all-out attack. The timing was crucial. The Vandal centre quickly collapsed in rout, the panic then spreading outwards to the wings. In a short space of time, the Vandal army was fleeing in terror. At this point, the Huns joined in the pursuit, declaring their allegiance to Belisarius.

However the pursuit was to be a short one; the Vandals returned to their camp, and, without the infantry, Belisarius did not have the necessary troops to assault the position. Instead, the Byzantine troops turned and began to strip the Vandal bodies of their belongings. According to Procopius, the Byzantines left fifty men dead on the battlefield, the Vandals 800. Although not in itself a large number, this was a significant proportion of the Vandal army. More than five per cent of the Vandal forces were dead, and there were many injured in the camp. Things were looking bleak for Gelimer.

In the afternoon the Byzantine infantry arrived. Belisarius now formed the entire army ready to attack the Vandal camp. It was not to be necessary. Gelimer, along with a few relatives and servants fled unnoticed. When the Vandals realised that their leader had gone, they too escaped from the camp as best they could. The Byzantines stormed the empty camp and took possession of all of the treasures which had been left by the Vandals. Procopius says that
this was a vast sum, not only including many valuables made by and for the Vandals while they had been in Africa, but also including many treasures taken during their extensive sea-borne raids of the previous century.

In their frenzy for loot, Belisarius lost control of the troops: they spent the night pursuing the fugitives, killing the men and enslaving the women and children. Belisarius was deeply worried in case the Vandals should reform and attack the disorganised Byzantines, who would quickly fall under such an assault.

At daybreak Belisarius took up a position on a hill and harangued the troops concerning their behaviour. Slowly discipline was restored and Belisarius gave his orders. John and 200 men were to pursue Gelimer, not halting until his capture or death. Belisarius then gave pledges to those Vandal fugitives who had sought sanctuary in local churches. They were disarmed and sent under guard to Carthage. After finally gathering his army together again, Belisarius began his own pursuit of Gelimer.

The Generalship of Belisarius and Gelimer

The most notable aspect of Gelimer’s generalship at Tricamerum is the lack of any mention of him by Procopius after the deployment of the troops. Unlike Tzazon, he does not appear to have fought in combat during the day, but to have joined his troops in retiring to the camp after their defeat. It would appear that Gelimer had deployed behind the stream hoping that the Byzantines would either deploy with an obvious weak point that he could quickly attack, or that the Byzantines themselves, being overconfident following their victory at Ad Decimum, would attack before they were reinforced by their infantry. In such a situation they would disorder their own troops as they crossed the stream, leaving them vulnerable to attack. When neither of these situations materialised, he appears to have done nothing, instead giving the advantage of the initiative to the Byzantines, an advantage they would exploit to the full.

The situation was the result of one major factor in Gelimer’s experience in leading troops: he did not know how to deal with the Byzantine horse archers. Their range gave them the tactical advantage against troops who waited, so if he waited, they would slowly wear his army down. Furthermore, this would give time for the Byzantine infantry to arrive. Fast action was needed.

Yet if he attacked, the formation of his troops would be disrupted by the stream, so giving the advantage to the Byzantines. It appeared that either decision would result in a defeat.

Therefore, at the crucial point in the battle, Gelimer hesitated and was lost. His failure to adopt any meaningful strategy left him open to the aforementioned horse archers. They first weakened his centre with archery, before the
bucellarii
charged home and caused the centre to rout. The troops on the wings watched helplessly as the centre was put to flight and Tzazon killed.
Gelimer’s inability to formulate a plan of attack or to make important judgments when needed had lost him the battle.

Gelimer’s decision to flee from the Vandal camp also needs analysis. It is usually compared to his indecision at the Battle of Ad Decimum. There, Procopius has Gelimer grieving for his brother Ammatus, and so losing the battle when Belisarius attacks. In this instance, it is the loss of his brother Tzazon that causes Gelimer to lose heart. This is very simplistic and further factors need to be taken into account.

Gelimer had deposed Hilderic partly because of his inability to lead his men to victory in battle as a Germanic king should. Having lost two battles, Gelimer’s leadership would now be under question, and it is likely that upon their return to the camp many of the Vandal nobles were regretting their decision to support his seizure of the throne. At least some of the nobles and warriors would have remained loyal in theory to Hilderic and his policies towards Justinian. Although powerless to prevent Gelimer taking the throne by force, they were likely to surrender to Belisarius when the tides of war turned against them, or even decide to attack Gelimer themselves. Finally, it is probable that many of Gelimer’s most powerful and loyal supporters, such as his brothers, had been killed in the two battles. His position was now extremely weak. Those nobles and warriors left in the camp who had the least loyalty to Gelimer knew that their rule in Africa was at an end. They had neither the troops nor the will to continue the fight. However, they would have a good chance of escaping with their lives if they offered to surrender Gelimer to Belisarius in return for their safety. Gelimer would have been aware of this. Even before the Byzantine attack, the recriminations would have begun.