Exarch of Carthage
| Exarchate of Africa Exarchatus Africae |
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| Exarchate of the East Roman Empire | |||||
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| Capital | Carthage | ||||
| Historical era | Early Middle Ages | ||||
| • | Foundation of Exarchate | 585/590 | |||
| • | First Arab invasion | 647 | |||
| • | Battle of Carthage (698) | 698 | |||
The Exarchate of Africa was a division of the Byzantine Empire centered at Carthage, Tunisia, which encompassed its possessions on the Western Mediterranean. Ruled by an exarch (viceroy) it was established by emperor Maurice in the late 580s and survived until the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the late 7th century.
The Maghreb along with Corsica and Sardinia and the Balearic Islands were reconquered by the Byzantine Empire under Belisarius in the Vandalic War of 533 and reorganized as the Praetorian prefecture of Africa by Justinian I. It included the provinces of Africa Proconsularis, Byzacena, Tripolitania, Numidia, Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Sitifensis, and was centered at Carthage. In the 560s, a Roman expedition succeeded in regaining parts of southern Spain, which were administered as the new province of Spania.
After the death of Justinian, the Empire came into increasing attacks on all fronts, and the remoter provinces were often left to themselves to cope as best as they could for extended periods, although military officers, such as Heraclius the Elder, continued to rotate between the eastern provinces and Africa. By the 640s and 650s Byantium had lost its province of Mesopotamia to the Muslims and as well as its Sassanian opponent, and was thereby cut off from an important source of experienced officers seasoned by constant border warfare with the Persians. The Heraclian dynasty did continue to appoint some competent eastern officers to African posts, such as the Armenian Narseh, who commanded Tripoli, and John, the dux of Tigisis. Walter Kaegi speculates that some Armenian officers might have asked to transfer back to the east to defend their homes as the Muslims advanced into Armenia, but the sources are silent. Yet the officers who did continue to arrive from the east after the loss of Mesopotamia increasingly would have been more accustomed to defeats like the Battle of Yarmouk than the previously winning strategies used against the Sassanians, and new tactics and strategies developed slowly.
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