Last updated Vandal coin found in Sardinia depicting Godas. Latin legend: REX CVDA.
Godas (died 533) was a Gothic nobleman of the Vandal kingdom in North Africa. King Gelimer of the Vandals made him governor of the Vandalic province of Sardinia, but Godas stopped forwarding the taxes he collected and declared himself ruler of Sardinia.[1]
In 533, he began communicating with Justinian I, Byzantine emperor, as an independent sovereign, clearly with the intent of creating his own principality out of the island of Sardinia. In reaction, Gelimer sent a large army composed of most of the available army in Africa to Sardinia under his brother Tzazo to put down the rebellion.[2] According to Procopius, Tzazo landed at Cagliari and immediately captured the city, killing Godas and the soldiers with him.[3] A military expedition sent to support him by Justinian failed to reach Godas in time.[4]
Godas' revolt proved fatal to the Vandal kingdom; for while Tzazo was away with the bulk of the Vandal forces, a Byzantine army commanded by Belisarius landed unopposed near Caputvada with the intention of restoring North Africa to the Byzantine Empire. Belisarius then defeated the remaining Vandal troops and captured Carthage before Gelimer summoned Tzazo back home.[5]
Notes
↑ Procopius, De Bellus III.10.25–27. Translated by H.B. Dewing, Procopius (Cambridge: Loeb Classical Library, 1979), vol. 2 p. 99
↑ Hodgkin, Thomas. Italy and her Invaders (Oxford, 1895), vol. 3 p. 669.
↑ Procopius, De Bellus III.24.1; translated by Dewing, vol. 2 pp. 196–97
↑ Procopius, De Bellus III.11.1, 24.19; translated by Dewing, vol. 2 pp. 101, 199–200
↑ Procopius, De Bellus III.25; translated by Dewing, vol. 2 pp. 201ff
Bibliography
Onnis, Omar; Mureddu, Manuelle (2019). Illustres. Vita, morte e miracoli di quaranta personalità sarde (in Italian). Sestu: Domus de Janas. ISBN978-88-97084-90-7. OCLC1124656644.
Procopius of Caesarea was a prominent late antique Byzantine scholar from Palaestina Prima. Accompanying the Byzantine general Belisarius in Emperor Justinian's wars, Procopius became the principal Byzantine historian of the 6th century, writing the History of the Wars, the Buildings, and the Secret History. He is commonly classified as the last major historian of the ancient Western world.
The 530s decade ran from January 1, 530, to December 31, 539.
Year 533 (DXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Iustinianus without colleague. The denomination 533 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Gelimer, King of the Vandals and Alans (530–534), was the last Germanic ruler of the North African Kingdom of the Vandals. He became ruler on 15 June 530 after deposing his first cousin twice removed, Hilderic, who had angered the Vandal nobility by converting to Chalcedonian Christianity, as most of the Vandals at this time were fiercely devoted to Arian Christianity.
Hilderic was the penultimate king of the Vandals and Alans in North Africa in Late Antiquity (523–530). Although dead by the time the Vandal kingdom was overthrown in 534, he nevertheless played a key role in that event.
The Battle of Ad Decimum took place on September 13, 533 between the armies of the Vandals, commanded by King Gelimer, and the Byzantine Empire, under the command of General Belisarius. This event and events in the following year are sometimes jointly referred to as the Battle of Carthage, one of several battles to bear that name. The Byzantine victory marked the beginning of the end for the Vandals and began the reconquest of the west under the Emperor Justinian I.
The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the 5th century.
The Battle of Tricamarum took place on December 15, 533 between the armies of the Byzantine Empire, under Belisarius, and the Vandal Kingdom, commanded by King Gelimer, and his brother Tzazon. It followed the Byzantine victory at the Battle of Ad Decimum, and eliminated the power of the Vandals for good, completing the "Reconquest" of North Africa under the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. The main contemporary source for the battle is Procopius, De Bello Vandalico, which occupies Books III and IV of his magisterial Wars of Justinian.
The Gothic War between the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire during the reign of Emperor Justinian I and the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy took place from 535 until 554 in the Italian peninsula, Dalmatia, Sardinia, Sicily and Corsica. It was one of the last of the many Gothic Wars with the Roman Empire. The war had its roots in the ambition of the East Roman Emperor Justinian I to recover the provinces of the former Western Roman Empire, which the Romans had lost to invading barbarian tribes in the previous century.
Tzazo was the brother to King Gelimer (530–534), the last Vandal ruler of the North Africa. Tzazo died on 15 December 533 during the Battle of Tricamarum, which finally brought to an end the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa.
The Vandalic or Vandal War was a conflict fought in North Africa between the forces of the Byzantine, or East Roman, empire and the Vandalic Kingdom of Carthage, in 533–534. It was the first of Justinian I's wars of reconquest of the lost Western Roman Empire.
The praetorian prefecture of Africa was a major administrative division of the Eastern Roman Empire located in the Maghreb. With its seat centered at Carthage, it was established after the reconquest of northwestern Africa from the Vandals in 533–534 AD by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. It continued to exist until the late 580s, when it was replaced by the Exarchate of Africa.
Flavius Belisarius was a military commander of the Byzantine Empire. He was instrumental in the reconquest of much of the Mediterranean territory belonging to the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century prior.
John the Armenian was a Byzantine official and military leader. He was killed during the Vandalic War in 533.
Apollinarius was a Byzantine governor of the Balearic Islands, appointed in 534. The main source about him is Procopius.
The Battle of Cape Bon was an engagement during a joint military expedition of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires led by Basiliscus against the Vandal capital of Carthage in 468. The invasion of the kingdom of the Vandals was one of the largest amphibious operations in antiquity, with 1,113 ships and over 50,000 personnel.
Solomon was an East Roman (Byzantine) general from northern Mesopotamia, who distinguished himself as a commander in the Vandalic War and the reconquest of North Africa in 533–534. He spent most of the next decade in Africa as its governor general, combining the military post of magister militum with the civil position of praetorian prefect. Solomon successfully confronted the large-scale rebellion of the native Berbers (Mauri), but was forced to flee following an army mutiny in spring of 536. His second tenure in Africa began in 539 and it was marked by victories over the Berbers, which led to the consolidation of the Byzantine position. A few years of prosperity followed, but were cut short by the rekindled Berber revolt and Solomon's defeat and death at the Battle of Cillium in 544.
The Vandal Kingdom or Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans was established by the Germanic Vandal people under Gaiseric. It ruled in North Africa and the Mediterranean 435–534 CE.
Vandal Sardinia covers the history of Sardinia from the end of the long Roman domination in 456, when the island was conquered by the Vandals, a Germanic population settled in North Africa until its reconquest in 534.
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