Vandals and Byzantines: A New Phase

The end of Western Roman power opened a phase of shifting governments in Sicily. The island controlled important passages between the Italian peninsula and North Africa: whoever held its ports could move ships and supplies across the central Mediterranean. For this reason, the island's political fortunes were bound to the wars fought on both shores of the sea. The story of the fifth and sixth centuries passes through three main stages: the arrival of the Vandals, the governments linked to the Heruli and the Goths, and finally the conquest ordered by the emperor Justinian. Dates help us find our bearings, but they alone do not describe what was happening in the cities and the countryside.

Vandals, Heruli and Goths

The Vandals, by then also settled in North Africa, reached Sicily in the fifth century; the chronology of the source places their arrival in 468. Control of the island formed part of their maritime policy, made possible by the crisis of Western imperial defense. To understand the period, one must picture ports from which ships departed or arrived, but also inland territories far from the theaters of military operations. A conquest changed whom one owed obedience and tribute; it did not transform on the same day the work of the fields or the layout of the roads. The scarcity of great monuments attributed to this brief phase makes it all the more important to distinguish the history of governments from the daily practices that continued.

Vandal rule was followed by that of the Heruli and then the Goths; in 491 Sicily entered the kingdom of Theodoric. Meanwhile, Christianity was already present in Sicilian cities. Burials, catacombs, and early cult buildings recall that religious communities had a history of their own, one that did not begin with the new rulers. Connecting roads and inhabited areas likewise continued to be used. These are traces of continuity that help us read the post-Roman West without imagining a sharp break between ancient and medieval. When the power of Constantinople intervened, it therefore found an inhabited and structured island, not a territory to be founded anew.

Belisarius and Byzantine Sicily

A new passage came in 535, when the general Belisarius conquered the island on behalf of the emperor Justinian. Sicily became a base for Byzantine operations on the Italian peninsula. The choice had an obvious geographic logic: from its territory one could quickly reach the coasts of the mainland and control a central stretch of the maritime routes. The episode also makes it clear that "Byzantine" refers to the Eastern Roman Empire, not to a civilization that appeared out of nowhere. The Eastern government claimed continuity with the Roman imperial tradition; the island thus passed under an authority that looked to Constantinople while inheriting many structures of the preceding world.

Syracuse was a significant center of the Byzantine age. Its harbor, defenses, and connections with eastern Sicily gave it an administrative and military role that one understands by looking at the map, even before the monuments. The Greek and Roman city was not abandoned: buildings, streets, and funerary spaces were used or transformed by a population that was by then largely Christian. For this reason, Syracuse cannot be read by passing directly from the Greek theater to the Baroque facade of the cathedral. Between those two moments lie centuries of urban life, imperial decisions, and ecclesiastical relations with the eastern Mediterranean. The evidence is less conspicuous, but it serves to reconstruct the city's continuity.

Wars, churches and tombs of the Byzantine age

Byzantine rule should not be read solely through military administration. The wars weakened the economy and imposed a heavy burden on the population. A long governmental presence could produce security for certain trades and, at the same time, weigh on taxpayers and the countryside. Religious developments add another layer. The shift from papal jurisdiction to the patriarchate of Constantinople makes visible the competition between centers of ecclesiastical authority. For the inhabitants, a decision made far from the island could affect the management of local communities, the relations between bishops and political power, and the way Sicily was positioned within Mediterranean Christianity.

Architecture, too, helps tell the story of this season, although many buildings have been modified or have come down to us in fragmentary form. The basilica of Contrada Vigna a Mare, near Santa Croce Camerina, and that of Santa Domenica, at Castiglione di Sicilia, broaden the view beyond the great centers, toward places where Christian communities organized space for worship. Many buildings followed models widespread throughout the Empire, adapted however to the island's places and materials. Comparing them, when possible, means asking which forms were shared and which solutions depended on the terrain, the materials, and local needs.

In the latomie of Palazzolo Acreide, moreover, tombs dating to the Byzantine and Christian period are preserved. This detail suggests a concrete way of reading the continuity of places: a space marked by ancient history could take on new functions in a changed religious context. Stones alone do not tell us who frequented them, but they show that a landscape was reused, reinterpreted, and inhabited by different generations. Precisely for this reason, when faced with evidence from the Byzantine era, one should ask what existed before and what modifications were introduced afterward. Monumental Sicily rarely offers buildings that have remained identical to their original construction.

Towards the Arab conquest

When the Arab conquest began in the ninth century, this phase reached a turning point. The advance of the new rulers was also favored by the weakness produced by the conflicts and tensions of Byzantine government. The history of the Vandals and the Byzantines thus prepares what followed without being reduced to a mere interval between Rome and the Arabs. In these centuries, authorities changed, Christian places of worship were consolidated, Syracuse maintained a political role, and the island remained at the center of Mediterranean competitions. Recognizing this phase makes the Sicilian landscape more legible: beneath every famous monument there is often a succession of uses and decisions that belongs to these less-told centuries as well.

Photo: Arpingstone · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons