The Generalship of John Troglita: Art in Artifice

The activities of a 6th century Byzantine general, John Troglita, the magister militum per African from 546 onwards, is the subject of this chapter. Procopius’ De Bello Vandalico is our only historiographical source. Together with this we have an account of John’s activities against the African Mauri in the Iohannis, an epic poem by Corippus.  The latter work has often been regarded with scepticism by historians as it borrows freely from the epic tradition, and is clearly propagandistic. Both Procopius and particularly Corippus focus on two major battles in Troglita’s campaign, but Procopius’ account of Troglita’s campaigns is not as detailed as for the preceding period of the rebellion. Whereas Procopius devotes very little attention to John, Corippus’ epic poem gives full rein to a dramatic and heroic portrait. This chapter arrives at an assessment of the quality of John’s leadership, his strategies, and his failures and successes based on these two accounts.  The chapter also looks closely at how these two disparate portraits have been received by scholars, and how John’s portrait has been transmitted to historians and readers of the present.