North Africa After Rome

[Tuskin]

So after the Romans were driven out of North Africa, who ruled the region? We know the Vandals held Carthage, Hippo Regius and the former province of Africa. In Mauritania there were several Romanized Moorish kings but how Romanized they were and if they recruited the North African Legions are unknown. Also the area of Tripolitania wasn't ruled by the Vandals or the Eastern Roman Empire.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Tripolitania was still under Roman rule according to the Treaty of 442, so was Mauretania. The Vandals took Tripolitania in 455 when Valentinian III died and the treaty was deemed void. Mauretania would remain "Roman" until it was reunited with Africa in 533 under Belisarius.

There's actually a book about Vandal North Africa but I can't remember what it's called. I will try and find it though, it's a fantastic work.

[TheDeaconBosco]

Tripolitania was still under Roman rule according to the Treaty of 442, so was Mauretania. The Vandals took Tripolitania in 455 when Valentinian III died and the treaty was deemed void. Mauretania would remain "Roman" until it was reunited with Africa in 533 under Belisarius.

There's actually a book about Vandal North Africa but I can't remember what it's called. I will try and find it though, it's a fantastic work.

Please do, I've been looking for details on this very subject but came up short for a while.

[Tuskin]

Tripolitania was still under Roman rule according to the Treaty of 442, so was Mauretania. The Vandals took Tripolitania in 455 when Valentinian III died and the treaty was deemed void. Mauretania would remain "Roman" until it was reunited with Africa in 533 under Belisarius.

There's actually a book about Vandal North Africa but I can't remember what it's called. I will try and find it though, it's a fantastic work.

I was more referring North Africa after 476 when Odoacer overthrew the Western Roman Empire. Most of Mauritania was divided up between Romano Moorish kings and when Justinian retook most of North Africa from the Vandals, Mauritania wasn't made an official province or Theme. Also between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Vandalic Wars, who ruled Tripolitania?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romano-Berber_states

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Under Justinian Mauretania was simply incorporated as part of the territory of the province of "Africa." Tingis may have become part of "Spania" but I'm not sure.

As for Tripolitania, if I recall correctly pretty much everything up to Leptis Magna remained under vandal rule, and past that it was empty until you hit the Eastern Empire in Libya Superior. Arae Philaenorum was the only city between Ptolemais and Leptis anyways, so there wasn't exactly much to rule in that portion. The olive groves and grain fields were always nice to have under your control though, but they simply may have been abandoned out of feasibility.

[General Maximus]

The thing I would like to ask is, did the Empire with Exarchate of Africa under Justinian really control Mauretania in the same level, the same 'complete' way that the Empire did in the centuries before? Coastal cities, maybe, but what about the inner regions? Most maps from various sources show Romans reconquering northern coastile of what was Mauretania Caesariensis (present-day Algeria), not recapturing what was Mauretania Tingitana, leaving that and the inner lands in the control of client kings.

Which against confuses me. Emperor Maurice had all the time and opportunities to officially reconquer the remaining coastline of Africa, but he chose not to.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

They didn't really reconquer it, no, you're right. They controlled as far as Iol Caesarea and a small region around Tingis, but most of it was abandoned. Hence why it was just made part of the Exarchate of Africa.

Maurikios should have, IMO. It was a long frontier, but relatively easy to defend since the nomads posed no serious threat, and very lucrative due to the olive groves.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

Maurikios should have, IMO. It was a long frontier, but relatively easy to defend since the nomads posed no serious threat, and very lucrative due to the olive groves.

Well i would be sceptical if the border was that easy to handle. After all we know that the Vandals had their problems with fighting the local Tribes at and beyond their border. Considering that the Vandals had max. 15k man and a lot of them were used to secure other parts than the border i don't think it would have been easier for the Romans to handle them, because they wouldn't have been able to use more man. Rather the opposite.

[General Maximus]

They didn't really reconquer it, no, you're right. They controlled as far as Iol Caesarea and a small region around Tingis, but most of it was abandoned. Hence why it was just made part of the Exarchate of Africa.

Maurikios should have, IMO. It was a long frontier, but relatively easy to defend since the nomads posed no serious threat, and very lucrative due to the olive groves.

True. As far as I know, they had already abandoned southern part of Mauretania region back in the time of Crisis of the Third Century when Berber tribes burned their inner cities to the ground. Diocletian, Constantine, Justinian and Maurice probably didn't see much of a value in there, because all the grain-producing land was around Carthago and already reconquered. And the associated costs of rebuilding all those cities and repopulating the entire region with Romans, especially when Roman budget and manpower was tight and no longer being the power they once were, they were expecting invasions any time.

[Linke]

Were the Vandals a minority in their kingdom?, did they mix with Romans or Moors?

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

They mixed with the Romans, yes.

[TheDeaconBosco]

I've heard that some Vandal aristocrats were allowed to stay and keep their estates after Justinian's reconquest, is that true?

[Geronimo2006]

I've heard that some Vandal aristocrats were allowed to stay and keep their estates after Justinian's reconquest, is that true?

From wikipedia:

North Africa (which is north Tunisia and eastern Algeria in the period of the Vandals) became a Roman province again, from which the Vandals were expelled. Many Vandals went to back Saldae (which is called today Béjaïa north Algeria) where they integrated themselves with the Berbers. Many others were put into imperial service or fled to the two Gothic kingdoms (Ostrogothic Kingdom and Visigothic kingdom), some Vandal women married Byzantine soldiers settled in north Algeria and Tunisia. The best Vandal warriors were formed into five cavalry regiments, known as Vandali Iustiniani, and stationed on the Persian frontier. Some entered the private service of Belisarius.^[24] Gelimer himself was honourably treated and received large estates in Galatia where he lived to be an old man. He was also offered the rank of a patrician but had to refuse it because he was not willing to change his Arian faith".^[20] In the words of historian Roger Collins: "The remaining Vandals were then shipped back to Constantinople to be absorbed into the imperial army. As a distinct ethnic unit they disappeared".^[22]

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Oh no, Mauretania was the Olive-Oil producing capital of the Roman Empire, outdoing Spain and the other regions by a long shot. North Africa was far more fertile back then and the Notitia Dignitatum shows the Romans had a line of fortresses to defend it (And also control the nomad migrations between summer and winter grazing grounds).

North Africa would be a nice place to live if it wasn't so devoid of trees. Trees=moisture=wetter conditions so the place wouldn't be a desert like it is today. The fact that the Olive groves and the grain fields collapsed when they did, considering North Africa was about to undergo a period of climate change in the time of the Early Arab/Moorish conquests, made it what it is today.

[General Maximus]

Oh no, Mauretania was the Olive-Oil producing capital of the Roman Empire, outdoing Spain and the other regions by a long shot. North Africa was far more fertile back then and the Notitia Dignitatum shows the Romans had a line of fortresses to defend it (And also control the nomad migrations between summer and winter grazing grounds).

I agree with that mate. But what I am saying is, Roman Empire of Justinian and Maurice (the last two powerful emperors before Arab invasions) didn't have the same financial and economic capacity to focus and rebuild such a large region on a massive scale, which was possible back in the time of the Principate, while constantly tackling the Sassanids, the Lombards, the Visigoths and the newly appearing Slavic tribes on the Danube all at the same time. Justinian even turned what remained of the Limitanei of the empire into meaningless unpaid peasant militia, to save on money to pay for them. That great plague didn't help either, and they spent their resources in Italy.

Or it might've been just that they still had the capacity and resources, yet chose not to use it.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

I'd argue the plague crippled the Empire but frankly I don't know too much about Justianian's era.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

I'd argue the plague crippled the Empire but frankly I don't know too much about Justianian's era.

The plague crippled the Empire quite a lot, but mostly urban areas in general. That means Mesopotamia and Sassanid provinces as well. Both empires needed quite some time to recover while other less affected groups could gather strenght like the nomadic Tribes south of the Roman Provinces but also on the Arabian Peninsula.

[General Maximus]

The plague crippled the Empire quite a lot, but mostly urban areas in general. That means Mesopotamia and Sassanid provinces as well. Both empires needed quite some time to recover while other less affected groups could gather strenght like the nomadic Tribes south of the Roman Provinces but also on the Arabian Peninsula.

Indeed. That plague caused a big decline in the urban population, resulting in a heavy blow to the classical urban system of the Empire all around. It depopulated Italy to the point of no return, with city of Rome itself being near-abandoned with less than 8,000 population. This meant that suddenly Justinian had too few men in Italy to recruit a new army there, and he was instead forced to use the existing eastern army to cover his reconquests, stretching it to the limit and severely weaking it in the long run. Besides, Italy was rendered completely incapable resist to the Lombard invasions after his death.

In the end, Italy lost all the economic and population benefit, as the Roman population was gone and the one that remained was slowly replaced by barbarian Lombards who held zero loyalty to the Romans. Africa also lost a lot of population, also to the point that it was unable to defend itself from Arabs. Afterwards the rise in population by the time of Emperor Maurice resulted in repopulation of most regions (except Italy, now firmly under Lombards). But then all that came to nothing when the Empire exhausted itself fighting the Sassanids.

But at the same time, that classical urban system managed to survive in the eastern empire itself for one more century, until it finally diminshed under Arab and Slavic two-way onslaught. After that, aside from the Asia Minor coast, southern Thrace and parts of Greece by 1025 AD, the rest of the Empire was depopulated.

If it was any other time, Rome would've not suffered much. Antonine plague of the Principate was enormous, but little happened to Roman prosperity. But this time when the plague struck, it was a dangerous situation where a half-collapsed empire was already stretched to the limit trying to restore itself, fighting (or keeping peace) on three directions at the same time while having half the army strength needed, using badly damaged infrastructure in reconquered regions whose economy had to be rebuilt, and having to use the economy for all this while bribing the Persians.

Sassanids didn't escape it either, although effect would've been somewhat less I think, because they had all their territories and economy working before that.