Byzantine rule in North Africa spanned around 175 years. It began in the years 533/534 with the reconquest of territory formerly belonging to the Western Roman Empire by the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire under Justinian I and ended during the reign of Justinian II with the conquest of Carthage (698) and the last Byzantine outposts, especially Septem (708/711), in the course of Islamic expansion.The time of Arab conquest of the last Byzantine outpost is uncertain, compare only Walter Kaegi: The Islamic conquest and the defense of Byzantine Africa. In: Susan T. Stevens, Jonathan P. Conant (editor.): North Africa under Byzantium and Early Islam. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection, Washington (D. C.) 2016, ISBN 978-0-88402-408-8, p. 65–86, escpecially S. 70–71, who assumes 711; but also Susan Raven: Rome in Africa. 3. Auflage. Routledge, London u. a. 1993, ISBN 0-415-08150-5, S. 229, who puts the conquest '10 years after the fall of Carthage and emphasises that only Arab and Visigothic sources are available for this subject. This concurs with Walter E. Kaegi: Muslim Expansion and Byzantine Collapse in North Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2010, ISBN 978-1-107-63680-4, page 155, who states that Ceuta is referred to in Byzantine sources for the last time in 641.
The region's administrative structure was initially in line with the typical late Roman administrative structures that had been existing for the past 300 years. Civil powers were thus in the hands of a Praetorian prefect, the head of the supreme civil administrative authority in the Late Roman Empire. The military powers, however, were incumbent on a Magister militum per Africam. These powers were merged into a single office from 591 at the latest, and East Roman North Africa became the heartland of one of two exarchates, with the founding of which the East Roman Emperor Maurice (582–602) was able to counteract the consequences of imperial overstretch through bundling and decentralization. No further change in these administrative structures took place until the end of Byzantine rule.
The reconquest of this region was of the greatest strategic and economic significance and the most enduring of all conquests in the West. While the Lombard kingdom was established in parts of East Roman Italy after 568 and East Roman rule in southern Spain came to an end amidst the final and most desperate Roman-Persian war, the areas reconquered in the Maghreb remained entirely in the East Roman hands until the Arab conquest of North Africa. This made the region the most important cornerstone of Eastern Roman/Byzantine power in the West.
Initial situation
The rapid establishment of Eastern Roman rule in today's Maghreb was the result of the increasing political vacuum in the African provinces of the former Western Empire and the Germanic successor state of the Vandals, which was primarily characterized by the dissolution of regional power and administrative structures.
Former Western Roman North Africa at the close of the 5th and beginning of the 6th century.
With the partition of the empire in 395, all Roman areas in Africa west of the Great Syrte became part of the Western Roman Empire. Specifically, these were the provinces of Tripolitania, Byzacena, Zeugitana (also called Proconsularis provincia or Africa proconsularis), Numidia, Mauretania Sitifensis, Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana. These provinces could be considered, at least in part, to be the heart of the western empire, since they supplied Italy with grain and generated a large part of the western empire's tax revenues. From 429 they were caught up in the political turmoil of the migration of peoples by the Vandals crossing at Septem. After the assassination of Emperor Valentinian III in 455 at the latest, no region in Africa was under Western Roman rule.
Vandal rule
In parts of western Roman North Africa in 439, with the conquest of Carthage by the Vandals under their king Geiseric, a de facto independent empire ruled by predominantly Germanic warriors had been established. This Vandal Kingdom dominated the western Mediterranean region with its powerful fleet and brought Corsica and Sardinia, the Balearic Islands and the western tip of Sicily under his control.For the Vandal kingdom see Helmut Castritius: Die Vandalen. Etappen einer Spurensuche. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, 2007, ISBN 978-3-17-018870-9; Andy Merrills, Richard Miles: The Vandals. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford/Malden (MA) 2010, ISBN 978-1-4051-6068-1; Roland Steinacher: Die Vandalen. Aufstieg und Fall eines Barbarenreichs. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2016, ISBN 978-3-608-94851-6; Konrad Vössing: Das Königreich der Vandalen. Geiserichs Herrschaft und das Imperium Romanum. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2014, ISBN 978-3-8053-4761-7. This was extremely consequential for Western Rome, as Africa was a rich and heavily urbanized province; In addition to olive production, the function of the province as a granary for Western Rome, especially Italy, was of central importance.Comprehensive Ralf Bockmann: Africa. In: The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Volume 1. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2018, ISBN 978-0-19-881624-9, p. 29–31, here p. 29.
In 441 an Eastern Roman attempt to defeat the Vandal fleet and end their rule failed. Rather, the Western Roman Empire had to recognize the Vandal rule east of Numidia in a treaty in 442.Jonathan Conant: Staying Roman. Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439–700. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012, ISBN 978-0-521-19697-0, p. 275. In 468, the kingdom of the Vandals became the target of another, this time large-scale, joint venture between the Western Empire under Anthemius and the Eastern Roman Empire under Leo I. However, this Vandal campaign failed catastrophically, mainly because the Vandal king Geiseric succeeded in setting fire to the large Roman fleet. After Vandal raids along the coast of eastern Roman Illyricum (and possibly the failure of another, smaller Roman campaign in 470), the eastern Roman emperor Zeno guaranteed the Geiseric family in a treaty (foedus) in 475 ownership of the province of Africa and the islands; subsequently there were no more conflicts between the Vandal Kingdom and the Eastern Roman Empire for decades.
In the 94 years of its existence, the kingdom of the Vandals was characterized by dynastic disputes over dominance and, above all, by the contrast between the Nicene Roman population and the Vandals, who were Romanized but adhered to the Arian faith of Christianity. In addition, they had considerable difficulties in defending the national borders against the Berbers or in keeping the Berbers under Vandal rule under control.Denys Pringle: The Defence of Byzantine Africa from Justinian to the Arab Conquest. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford 1981, ISBN 0-86054-119-3 (reprint 2001), p. 97. This situation prompted large landowners and smallholders alike to fortify their farms.Compare Averil Cameron: Vandal and Byzantine Africa. In: Averil Cameron, Bryan Ward-Perkins, Michael Whitby (editor.): The Cambridge Ancient History. Band 14: Late Antiquity. Empire and Successors. AD 425–600. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 0-521-32591-9, p. 556. However, contrary to older opinions, the time of the Vandal Kingdom was not an era of serious economic decline, rather trade relations continued,Averil Cameron: Vandal and Byzantine Africa. In: Averil Cameron, Bryan Ward-Perkins, Michael Whitby (editor): The Cambridge Ancient History. Band 14: Late Antiquity. Empire and Successors. AD 425–600. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 0-521-32591-9, p. 552. although probably limited by the independence of the Vandal Kingdom and its aggressive foreign policy, especially under Geiseric.Averil Cameron: Vandal and Byzantine Africa. In: Averil Cameron, Bryan Ward-Perkins, Michael Whitby (editor): The Cambridge Ancient History. Band 14: Late Antiquity. Empire and Successors. AD 425–600. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 0-521-32591-9, p. 557.
Roman-Berber areas
In the years following 439, Numidia and the provinces of ancient Mauritania initially remained under Western Roman rule .Jonathan Conant: Staying Roman. Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439–700. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012, ISBN 978-0-521-19697-0, p. 284. Here, the Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III approved the raising of private armies by large landowners because he hoped that this would lead to attacks on Vandal territory. After the assassination of Valentinian III, this warlord-like status of large landowners prompted the disintegration of these provinces into various small empires, which were perceived as Berber in the public of the rest of the Mediterranean area and especially in the region around Carthage.Jonathan Conant: Staying Roman. Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439–700. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012, ISBN 978-0-521-19697-0, p. 252. Numidia and the coastal areas of the Mauritanian provinces were immediately conquered by the Vandals, but after the death of the Vandal king Huneric in 484, some seceded from the Vandal Kingdom. Roman-Berber areas persisted throughout the Mauritanian provinces, above all a Regnum Maurorum et Romanorum with the capital Altava, whose importance continued to increase until the 570s. The exclusively Berber character of these areas, which were predominantly not under Vandal rule and were formerly Western Roman, has now been completely refuted.Jonathan Conant: Staying Roman. Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439–700. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012, ISBN 978-0-521-19697-0, p. 273–284. In particular, the regions around Altava as well as Lixus and Volubilis in the extremely western Mauretania Tingitana showed continued existence of the old trade connections and Latin grave inscriptions, in some cases up to the year 655.Jonathan Conant: Staying Roman. Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439–700. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012, ISBN 978-0-521-19697-0, p. 289. In addition, the petty kingdoms of this region welcomed many Romans who were persecuted by the Vandals for religious and other reasons.Jonathan Conant: Staying Roman. Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439–700. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012, ISBN 978-0-521-19697-0, p. 102
End of the Vandal Kingdom
In its final years, the Vandal Kingdom was ringed with hostile Romano-Berber petty kingdoms and was under constant attacks from them. Under the penultimate Vandal king, Hilderic, who was intent on reaching a settlement with the East and turning away from Arianism, the foreign and domestic political difficulties of his empire increased considerably, with a Vandal defeat against the Berbers leading to his fall at the hands of Gelimer in 530. The last Vandal king Gelimer, on the other hand, not only saw himself confronted with the threat from the Berbers after the coup d'etat, but also had to send part of his army and fleet to Sardinia to put down an uprising by the noble Godas there, and at the same time he had to face another uprising of the Tripolitan governor Prudentius initially watched idly.Detailed description of the situation in the Vandal kingdom at the eve of Byzantine conquest by Andy Merrills: Gelimer's slaughter. In: Susan T. Stevens, Jonathan P. Conant (editor): North Africa under Byzantium and Early Islam. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection, Washington (D. C.) 2016, ISBN 978-0-88402-408-8, p. 23–39.