Français – عربي – ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ – English
During the Vandal occupation of North Africa, bishop Laetus of Nepta (Nefta, Southern Tunisia) was imprisoned and burned alive by the Vandal King Huneric. Fifty years later, he reportedly appeared in a dream to the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, to beseech him to deliver North Africa from the Vandals.
Laetus was the bishop of Nepta, now Nefta, an oasis city in the Jerid region, in modern-day Tunisia. At this time, while the indigenous North African population was mostly Christian, the Vandal invaders, who practiced the Arian religion, were persecuting their Christian subjects. Like many North African bishops, Laetus of Nepta was imprisoned at the order of the Vandal King Huneric. After a harsh captivity, he finally died as a martyr: he was burned alive in 484.
Some 50 years after his death, Laetus reportedly appeared in a dream to the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, to beseech him “in the name of the Lord Almighty” to deliver North Africa from the Vandal oppression. The story of this dream is told by Victor of Tunnuna, a 6th-Century North African bishop who wrote a historical chronicle of Vandal Africa and the Byzantine reconquest. According to Victor of Tunnuna, it was this dream that convinced Justinian to reconquer North Africa.
