Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/176

 such victories all the occupants, contents, and constituents of the camp became the prize of the conquerors; and the slave market for Moorish captives at Carthage was so over-*stocked that a youth could be purchased for the same price as a sheep. The final pacification of Africa was due to John Troglita, the successor of Artabanes, who, in several campaigns extending over three years, inflicted many defeats on the Moors, and drove the most turbulent tribes beyond the Roman frontier. His deeds of valour provoked so much admiration among the Africans, and were of such signal benefit to the country, that one of their number, Cresconius Corippus, was impelled to celebrate his career in an epic poem designed to place him in the same niche of glory as the heroes immortalized by Homer, Virgil, and Claudian.

As a result of his conquest of Africa, Justinian came into collision with the Visigoths of Spain, an event which led to a permanent occupation of a portion of the south-east coast of that peninsula by the Byzantines. The castle of Septem, on the headland to the south of the Straits of Gades, was in the hands of these barbarians, wherefore a brigade was sent by Belisarius to capture it. Shortly after they had succeeded