A map of the wars through which Justinian sought to recover North Africa and Italy, from the campaign against the Vandals to Narses's campaign against the Ostrogoths.
This map accompanies the article The Dream of Rome's Rebirth (El sueño del renacer de Roma), by Mario Agudo Villanueva, published in issue 272 of Historia National Geographic. It shows the theatre of the two great wars that Justinian entrusted to his general Belisarius: the war against the Vandals in North Africa and the Gothic War in Italy.
Each campaign has its own colour. A yellow line marks the expedition against the Vandals, which crosses the Mediterranean to the African coast. Brown lines follow Belisarius through Sicily and the Italian peninsula between 535 and 540. Blue lines show Narses's campaign (552-553), and a green arrow marks the Burgundian intervention of 538. The colours of the terrain distinguish the Vandal kingdom, the Ostrogothic kingdom in 526 and the Eastern Roman Empire.
Zooming in, you can read the names of the cities that appear in the narrative, such as Carthage, Syracuse, Naples, Rome, Ravenna and Milan. The battles are also easy to pick out, each marked with a cross and a date: Ad Decimum and Tricamarum (533), Mugello (542), Tagina and the naval battle of Ancona (552), and Mons Lactarius (553). A purple line traces the provincial border of Byzantine Italy in 554.
Published in Historia National Geographic no. 272, 2026-8
