Belisarius

Belisarius, born around 500 and living until March 565, was a military commander who served the Byzantine emperor Justinian I and is widely regarded as one of the greatest commanders of Byzantium and of history generally. During the Vandal War of 533 to 534 he conquered the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa, defeating its forces at the Battle of Ad Decimum and forcing King Gelimer to surrender within nine months. In the Gothic War, beginning in 535, he invaded Italy and captured much of the peninsula from the Ostrogoths, including Rome itself, which he famously defended for roughly a year, from 537 to 538, against a much larger Gothic army. He also fought the Sasanian Empire on Byzantium's eastern frontier, winning at the Battle of Dara in 530 before suffering a defeat at Callinicum in 531. Belisarius was instrumental in the Byzantine reconquest of much of the Mediterranean territory that had belonged to the former Western Roman Empire, achieving these results despite frequently limited resources, and he is often counted among the so called Last of the Romans for his role in the empire's brief resurgence under Justinian.