Gelimer has meanwhile remained blockaded by Pharas…

Gelimer has meanwhile remained blockaded by Pharas at the mountain stronghold of Medeus, but as the blockade drags through the winter, Pharas has grown impatient.

He attacks the mountain stronghold, only to be beaten back with the loss of a quarter of his men.

While a success for Gelimer, it does not alter his hopeless situation as he and his followers remain tightly blockaded and begin to suffer from lack of food.

Pharas sends him messages calling upon him to surrender and spare his followers the misery, but it is not until March that the Vandal king agrees to surrender after receiving guarantees for his safety.

According to Gibbon's translation of Procopius, Pharas wrote “Like yourself, I am an illiterate Barbarian, but I speak the language of plain sense and an honest heart.

Why will you persist in hopeless obstinacy?

Why will you ruin yourself, your family, and nation?

The love of freedom and abhorrence of slavery?

Alas!

my dearest Gelimer, are you not already the worst of slaves, the slave of the vile nation of the Moors?

Would it not be preferable to sustain at Constantinople a life of poverty and servitude, rather than to reign the undoubted monarch of the mountain of Papua?

Do you think it a disgrace to be the subject of Justinian?

Belisarius is his subject; and we ourselves, whose birth is not inferior to your own, are not ashamed of our obedience to the Roman emperor.

That generous prince will grant you a rich inheritance of lands, a place in the senate, and the dignity of Patrician: such are his gracious intentions, and you may depend with full assurance on the word of Belisarius.

So long as heaven has condemned us to suffer, patience is a virtue; but, if we reject the proffered deliverance, it degenerates into blind and stupid despair.” Gelimer is now escorted to Carthage.