TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 55 to seek shelter within the walls of the city, to which alone he appears to have been indebted for safety. A party of Moors, of the tribe called Levatce, had encamped under the walls of Leptis, to receive from the governor the reward of past fidelity, and the bribe for their future good conduct. Eighty of their deputies were accordingly introduced into the town, and admitted to a conference with the Prefect. On the statement of certain grievances of which they complained Sergius rose to leave the tribunal ; but one of the suppliants detained him by the robe, while the rest of the deputies pressed nearer to his person and urged their demands in louder terms. Provoked at this insolence, an officer of the Prefect drew his sword and plunged it into the Moor, and the death of this imprudent offender became the signal for a general massacre. One only of the Levatae escaped from the city to bear the melancholy news of the slaughter of his companions to the rest of the tribe without the walls. They instantly took up arms and invested the city ; and though at first repulsed with great loss by a sally of the Komans, they shortly after succeeded in defeating the Prefect ; and his general Pudentius, having incautiously exposed himself, was cut off and slain in the field. Sergius retired with the remainder of his army upon the city, and shut himself up within its walls ; but as he was incapable of continuing the contest with advantage, he finally withdrew to Carthage, in order to claim the assistance of his uncle, and induce him to march his army against the Moors *. The result of * Solomon, the uncle of Sergius, was intrusted with the command of the army by Belisarius, when that general left the African coast, and governed with the title of