Belisarius knew that success for his expedition relied on gaining the support of the local population, which had largely retained its Roman identity and to which he presented himself as a liberator. Thus on the next day of the landing, when some of his men stole some fruit from a local orchard, he severely punished them, and assembled the army and exhorted them to maintain discipline and restraint towards the native population, lest they abandon their Roman sympathies and go over to the Vandals. Belisarius' pleas bore results, for, as Procopius reports ("The Vandalic War", I.17), "the soldiers behaved with moderation, and they neither began any unjust brawls nor did anything out of the way, and , by displaying great gentleness and kindness, won the Libyans to his side so completely that thereafter he made the journey as if in his own land".