Flavius Cresconius Corippus

Corippus was a schoolmaster and poet from the hinterland of Roman Africa (Tunisia). Following the Byzantine reconquest under Belisarius and the subsequent Berber revolts of Antalas and Stotzas, he witnessed the decisive military campaigns of Byzantine general John Troglita.

Around 548 CE, he composed the *Iohannis* (De Bellis Libycis), an eight-book masterpiece of classical hexameter verse modeled on Virgil, providing modern historians with an invaluable ethnography of Berber tribes, weaponry, and geography. He later served at the imperial court of Justin II in Constantinople.