Belisarius of the Byzantine Empire defeats Gelimer and the Vandals at the Battle of Ad Decimum, near Carthage, North Africa.

Belisarius was a military commander of the Byzantine Empire under Emperor Justinian I. Belisarius was instrumental in the reconquest of much of the Mediterranean territory belonging to the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century prior. He is considered one of the greatest military commanders of Byzantium and in history generally.

The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, it endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The term 'Byzantine Empire' was coined only after its demise; its citizens used the term 'Roman Empire' and called themselves 'Romans'.

Gelimer, was a Germanic king who ruled the Vandal Kingdom in antique North Africa from 530 to 534. He became ruler on 15 June 530 after deposing his first cousin twice removed, Hilderic, who had angered the Vandal nobility by converting to Chalcedonian Christianity; most Vandals at the time were fierce Arian Christians.

The Vandals were a Germanic people who were first reported in the written records as inhabitants of what is now Poland, during the period of the Roman Empire. Much later, in the fifth century, a group of Vandals led by kings established Vandal kingdoms first within the Iberian Peninsula, and then in the western Mediterranean islands, and North Africa.