Gennadius ( el, Γεννάδιος, Gennádios, ) was an East Roman (Byzantine) general and the first

exarch of Africa The Exarchate of Africa was a division of the Byzantine Empire around Carthage that encompassed its possessions on the Western Mediterranean. Ruled by an exarch (viceroy), it was established by the Emperor Maurice in the late 580s and surviv ...

Biography

Gennadius was appointed as ''

magister militum (Latin for "master of soldiers", plural ) was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander, ...

Africae'' in , and quickly defeated the Romano-Moorish kingdom of

Garmul Garmul was a Berber king of the Mauro-Roman Kingdom. Garmul, who destroyed a Byzantine army in 571, launched raids into Byzantine territory, and three successive generals (the praetorian prefect Theodore and the ''magister militum'' Theoctistus in ...

Mauretania Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, ...

. He held this post until named

exarch An exarch (; from Ancient Greek ἔξαρχος ''exarchos'', meaning “leader”) was the holder of any of various historical offices, some of them being political or military and others being ecclesiastical. In the late Roman Empire and ea ...

by Emperor

Maurice Maurice may refer to: People * Saint Maurice (died 287), Roman legionary and Christian martyr * Maurice (emperor) or Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus (539–602), Byzantine emperor *Maurice (bishop of London) (died 1107), Lord Chancellor and ...

() sometime between 585 and 592. Already a '' patricius'' by 582, he was awarded the title of honorary consul sometime before 585. As exarch, he had an extensive correspondence with Pope

Gregory the Great Pope Gregory I ( la, Gregorius I; – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was the bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death. He is known for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregori ...

on issues of the African Church, and especially the suppression of the

Donatists Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the Church, in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and th ...

. Gennadius (Dahbiah) suppressed a series of

Moorish 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 se ...

revolts in and , and retired from his post sometime between September/October 598 and July 600. He was succeeded by Innocentius as a civilian

praetorian prefect of Africa The praetorian prefecture of Africa ( la, praefectura praetorio Africae) was an administrative division of the Eastern Roman Empire in the Maghreb. With its seat at Carthage, it was established after the reconquest of northwestern Africa from the ...

References

Sources

* {{DISPLAYTITLE:Gennadius (''magister militum Africae'') 6th-century births 6th-century Byzantine people 7th-century deaths Byzantine generals Exarchs of Africa Gennadius (Africae) Patricii