In around 550 CE, the Latin poet Corippus composed his epic Iohannis to celebrate the forgotten wars of a Byzantine general against the 'Moorish' or 'Berber' peoples of North Africa. This book explores the rich narrative of that poem and the changing political, social and cultural environment within which he worked. The study provides an important reappraisal of the dramatic first decades of Byzantine North Africa (533-550), including detailed assessments of the ethnography of Moorish Africa, the diplomatic and military history of the imperial administration, and the religious transformations (both Christian and 'pagan') of this period. In considering the Iohannis as a political text, the study also casts important new light on the continued importance of poetry and literature on the southern fringes of imperial power, and presents a model for reading epic as a historical source.