Introduction

John Troglita is not a particularly well-known figure from the ancient world, and many consider Belisarius to have been the last general of renown in late antiquity. But fame is not necessarily the only measure of quality. We first hear mention of John serving under Belisarius during the Vandalic War (533–534), and then under Germanus and Solomon, fighting the African tribes. From 541 to 545/546, Justinian appointed him as dux Mesopotamiae on the eastern border against the Sassanids. In 546 John Troglita was reassigned as magister militum Africae to quell the insurrections in the African territories, which he accomplished. His career was therefore successful enough for him to be re-employed in a number of different contexts, and he was responsible for successfully concluding the campaign against the African tribes – so one must wonder why he does not get more recognition in the ancient sources. Can this be attributed to his style of generalship, or to other factors? And to what extent are the majority of modern scholars justified in referring to him as a competent general, but not especially brilliant?

The Sources

Our two main sources for John's generalship are the works of Procopius of Caesarea and Flavius Cresconius Corippus, both contemporaries of the events they describe. Both focus on three major battles in John's campaign in 547 (possibly concluding in 548), of which John lost the second but was ultimately victorious in the third. The account of Procopius comes at the end of his two books on the Vandalic War. Throughout, he presents examples of good and bad generalship, in line with the didactic nature of his work (Wars 1.1.2), but his description of John's campaign is too brief to be included in this binary. But where Procopius devotes very little attention to John, his strategic skills or his leadership, Corippus gives full rein to a heroic portrait of this military leader in his epic poem.

From the perspective of today's ancient historian both these resources therefore have clear shortcomings from the outset. The aim here is to arrive at a balanced assessment of John's generalship, between the heroic general that Corippus describes and a mere footnote to Justinian's African campaigns, as Procopius would have it.