Diplomatic efforts, however, secured the allegiance of the Moorish leaders Cutzinas and Ifisdaias, who joined the imperial army with several thousand of their men.

[4] Upon his arrival in Carthage, Troglita reorganized his troops, bolstering the local forces with the veterans he had brought with him – mostly horse archers and cataphracts – and marched out to meet the rebels.

The Moors, taken by surprise by the imperial army's swift advance, withdrew again to the mountainous and wooded interior, where they gathered their forces under the leadership of Ierna of the Leuathae and Antalas.

Troglita encamped near the Moorish positions and dispatched an envoy, Amantius, to bring Antalas his terms: the general offered amnesty in exchange for submitting to imperial authority again.

[5] Corippus narrates the subsequent battle at length, but his imitation of Virgilian verse provides little concrete detail: it is clear that it was a long, indecisive, and bloody conflict, which probably took place to the south or east of Sbeitla in late 546 or early 547.