JUSTINIAN AND RECONQUESTunder the banner of restoring orthodoxy, yet very soon after the conquest the
emperor in Constantinople began imposing a religious policy which the Afri-
can church, traditionally linked with the church of Rome, found totally unac-
ceptable. Among the leading African bishops who protested personally and in
writing against Justinian’s condemnation of the Three Chapters were Facun-
dus of Hermiane and Primasius of Hadrumetum. After holding their own
council at Carthage in 550, they were summoned to Constantinople, where
they carried on their opposition and became the targets of imperial sanc-
tions. Reparatus of Carthage was eventually deposed along with many others,
and the chronicler Victor of Tunnuna, himself imprisoned for opposition to
Justinianic policy, later recorded the imprisonment and poor treatment of
African bishops in Constantinople. Thus the price of reconquest was high
on all sides, and both the conquering power and the local populations got
more than they had bargained for.^53 Africa was atypical, however, in that in
the late sixth century, despite all this, and despite the hard fi ghting which
ensued between the Byzantine army and the Berbers, it eventually did well,
thanks to local factors – its own bountiful natural resources, the speed of the
original conquest, which spared it from the lengthy war and frequent sieges
which so devastated Italy, and perhaps also the situation under Vandal rule,
which seems to have been better than was once thought and to have prof-
ited in turn from the prosperous condition of the late Roman province of
North Africa. The real puzzle of Byzantine Africa lies in the lack of literary or
documentary source material for the more peaceful second half of the sixth
century, and certainly in the seventh, which makes a closer assessment of
the economic and social effect of Byzantine reconquest extremely diffi cult.
Yet the newly conquered province was not subject to the kind of invasion
and consequent fragmentation experienced by Italy, or for example Greece,
where Justinian’s defence system failed to halt the Slav incursions of the late
sixth century. Eastern cults arrived and many new Christian sanctuaries were
built and others modifi ed.^54 In the seventh century, Africa had remained safe
from Persian conquest, and Maximus Confessor and other monks made their
base near Carthage. Efforts were also made to convert Berber tribes, even in
the sub-Sahara.^55 Arab armies arrived in Africa in the mid-seventh century
and a new Islamic settlement was founded as Kairouan, but North Africa
remained in the main a Byzantine province for much longer than Egypt.^56
Coin hoards indicate that the government in Constantinople was still able
to invest in North Africa in the second half of the seventh century, and the
eventual fall of Carthage to the Arabs came only in the 690s.
Fortifications and other buildingsEven if some of the countless fortifi cations claimed for Justinian belong
more probably to the reign of Anastasius, Justinian was a great builder. To
judge from Procopius’ account, much of the emperor’s extensive building
programme in the provinces was dedicated to defence. However, its overall