Fall of Carthage

conquest · 698 · Carthage

Theophanes tells it in one year's entry. The Arabs campaigned against Africa, took it, and set a garrison of their own army in it; the emperor Leontius, learning this, sent the patrician John, a capable man, with all the Roman fleets. John reached Carthage, forced the chain across its harbour by battle, routed the enemy and drove them out, freed all the forts of Africa, left a garrison of his own, reported to the emperor and wintered there awaiting orders. Then the caliph sent a stronger and larger fleet, and drove John and his ships out of the harbour by battle. The exarchate did not recover, and the African church that had given the Latin west Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine falls silent from here.