[5] After Belisarius departed for Constantinople, he was succeeded as magister militum Africae by his domesticus (senior aide), the eunuch Solomon from Dara.

[7] Belisarius himself was forced to return to Italy, and Justinian appointed his cousin Germanus as magister militum to deal with the crisis.

This careful organization enabled him to strike successfully against the Aurasii, evicting them from their mountain strongholds, and firmly establish Roman rule in Numidia and Mauretania Sitifensis.

[12] Justinian then sent Areobindus, a man of senatorial rank and husband to his niece Praejecta, but otherwise undistinguished, with a few men to Africa, not to replace Sergius, but to share command with him.

[13] Soon after, in March 546, Areobindus was overthrown and murdered by Guntharic, the dux Numidiae, who had come into negotiations with the Moors and intended to set himself up as an independent king.

[14] The man Justinian sent to replace him was the talented general John Troglita, whose exploits are celebrated in the epic poem Iohannis, written by Flavius Cresconius Corippus.

Despite his numerically weak forces, he managed to win over several Moorish tribes, and in early 547 he decisively defeated Antalas and his allies, and drove them from Byzacena.

As Procopius recounts: And this John, immediately upon arriving in Libya, had an engagement with Antalas and the Moors in Byzacium, and conquering them in battle, slew many; and he wrested from these barbarians all the standards of Solomon, and sent them to the emperor—standards which they had previously secured as plunder, when Solomon had been taken from the world.A few months later, however, the tribe of the Leuathae, in Tripolitania, rose up, and inflicted a severe defeat upon the imperial forces in the plain of Gallica.

[16] The loyalty of these dependent princes of the various Moorish tribes was secured by means of annual pensions and gifts, and the peace was kept by a strong network of fortifications, many of which still survive to the present day.

It was caused by the unwarranted murder of the aged tribal leader Cutzinas, when he came to Carthage to receive his annual pension, by the magister militum, John Rogathinus.

Under the prefect Thomas, during the period 565–570 the network of fortifications was further strengthened and expanded, the administration reformed and decentralized, and largely successful efforts were made to proselytize the Garamantes of the Fezzan and the Gaetuli, living to the south of Mauretania Caesariensis.

[18] At the same time, Africa was one of the more tranquil regions of the Empire – which was being assaulted on all sides – and this allowed for troops to be transferred from the province to the East.

Little information exists about them, but these were never subdued by the Vandals, and claimed continuity from the Roman Empire, their leaders styling themselves with titles such as imperator, like the chieftain Masties at Arris (in the Aures) in the late 5th century, or, in the case of king Masuna of Altava (modern Ouled Mimoun, northwest Algeria), rex gentium Maurorum et Romanorum in the early 6th century.

[20] When Belisarius defeated the Vandals, the Romano-Moorish kings had apparently acknowledged Roman suzerainty (at least nominally), but soon, taking advantage of the Moorish revolts, renounced it.

In the late 560s, the Moorish king Garmul (probably a successor of the aforementioned Masuna of Altava) launched raids into Roman territory, and although he failed to take any significant town, three successive generals (the praetorian prefect Theodore and the magister militum Theoctistus in 570, and Theoctistus' successor Amabilis in 571) are recorded by John of Biclaro to have been killed by Garmul's forces.

Thus the new emperor, Tiberius II Constantine, re-appointed Thomas as praetorian prefect, and the able general Gennadius was posted as magister militum with the clear aim of reducing Garmul's kingdom.

Preparations were lengthy and careful, but the campaign itself, launched in 577–78, was brief and effective, with Gennadius utilizing terror tactics against Garmul's subjects.