In 590 North Africa had been re-conquered from the Vandals for almost sixty years. The quick and smooth course of the reconquest by the Byzantine armies had not, however, led to the re-establishment of a fully pacified Roman province. Incursions of African tribesmen, sedentary and nomadic, and rebellions of local chieftains, already troubling during the Vandal régime, now more often acting in concert, continued under Byzantine rule, and were to continue after the Arab conquest. They brought insecurity, sporadic fighting, and, in response, as in Italy, militarisation of government. Here, too, the civil administration, though it continued to function, was eclipsed by the supreme authority of an Exarch, stationed at Carthage. Under the reign of Maurice, Byzantine authority was consolidated in the North African core-provinces: Proconsularis, Byzacena and Numidia. Maurice's realistic reform here produced the basis for comparative prosperity and stability during the first half of the seventh century.

A DONATIST REVIVAL?

One of Gregory's first letters to Africa, addressed to the Exarch, is a request that he should fight the ‘enemies of the Church’ with the same ‘vehemence’ he had applied to outside enemies. Gregory had heard reports that heretics had been ‘lifting up their necks against the Catholic Church in defiance of the Lord, to subvert the Christian faith’; if not curbed, they will continue to pour their poison into the Christian body. The heretics referred to are identified as Donatists, and Gregory went on to recommend several measures he wanted the Exarch to get the bishops to adopt (see below pp. 193–7) to combat them.