army against the Vandals and Gelimer, the most of them began immediately
to show hostility to the plan, and they lamented it as a misfortune,
recalling the expedition of the Emperor Leon and the disaster of
Basiliscus, and reciting how many soldiers had perished and how much
money the state had lost. But the men who were the most sorrowful of
all, and who, by reason of their anxiety, felt the keenest regret, were
the pretorian prefect, whom the Romans call "praetor," and the
administrator of the treasury, and all to whom had been assigned the
collection of either public or imperial[36] taxes, for they reasoned
that while it would be necessary for them to produce countless sums for
the needs of the war, they would be granted neither pardon in case of
failure nor extension of time in which to raise these sums. And every
one of the generals, supposing that he himself would command the army,
was in terror and dread at the greatness of the danger, if it should be
necessary for him, if he were preserved from the perils of the sea, to
encamp in the enemy's land, and, using his ships as a base, to engage in
a struggle against a kingdom both large and formidable. The soldiers,
also, having recently returned from a long, hard war, and having not yet
tasted to the full the blessings of home, were in despair, both because
they were being led into sea-fighting,--a thing which they had not
learned even from tradition before then,--and because they were sent
from the eastern frontier to the West, in order to risk their lives
against Vandals and Moors. But all the rest, as usually happens in a
great throng, wished to be spectators of new adventures while others
faced the dangers.

But as for saying anything to the emperor to prevent the expedition, no
one dared to do this except John the Cappadocian, the pretorian prefect,
a man of the greatest daring and the cleverest of all men of his time.
For this John, while all the others were bewailing in silence the