The Battle of Mammes or Battle of Mamma was an engagement between troops of the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
and an army of
Moors
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinct or ...
in 534.
The Byzantines were led by
Solomon.
The Moors used a tactic that had worked well with
Vandals
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 fifth century.
The Vandals migrated to the area betw ...
, they made a circle of camels which scared Byzantine horses to such an extent that horse archery became impractical.
The Moors also hid some of their own cavalry in some nearby mountains.
Solomon anticipated the trap and sent men to the side of the circle not facing the mountains.
Due to the Moor formation these were not able to do much damage and when the Moors charged the fighting turned against them.
Solomon then decided to attack the other side of the circle, predicting it to be weakened to such an extent that the hidden cavalry could not spring into action in time.
Solomon’s prediction was correct, the Byzantines quickly broke through.
They killed hundreds of camels, enslaved the Moor women and children and according to
Procopius
Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gen ...
slew 10,000 men.
The situation was not yet stabilized and the Moors soon returned but were decisively defeated at Mount Burgaon.
See also
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Cutzinas
Cutzinas or Koutzinas ( el, Κουτζίνας) was a Berber tribal leader who played a major role in the wars of the East Roman or Byzantine Empire against the Berber tribes in Africa in the middle of the 6th century, fighting both against and f ...
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Family tree of Byzantine emperors
This is a family tree of all the Eastern Roman Emperors who ruled in Constantinople. Most of the Eastern emperors were related in some form to their predecessors, sometimes by direct descent or by marriage. From the Doukid dynasty (1059) onwards a ...
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History of the Byzantine Empire
This history of the Byzantine Empire covers the history of the Eastern Roman Empire from late antiquity until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD. Several events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the transitional period during which the Roman ...
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Moorish wars
The Moorish wars were a series of wars fought between the Byzantine Empire attempting to restore all of Roman North Africa, and the various Berber kingdoms and Nomads which formed after the collapse of Roman rule over the region. The war also ...
References
{{reflist
Mammes
Mammes