Belisarius warns against divided command

Belisarius tells his officers that a camp cannot keep secrets, yet their disorder forces him to speak plainly. Each subordinate is behaving as though he were the supreme commander and following his own judgment. Belisarius's warning is that even necessary action becomes impossible when authority fragments inside an army. The quotation therefore supplies a compact statement of unity of command before the episode examines his control of a complicated force at Dara. It also links personal leadership to the later tactical story rather than treating the battle as a sequence of maneuvers alone.