Belisarius

Flavius Belisarius served as military commander under Byzantine Emperor Justinian I around 500-565, tasked with reclaiming Mediterranean territories the Western Roman Empire had lost a century earlier. He crushed the Vandal Kingdom of North Africa in nine months during the Vandalic War, forcing King Gelimer to surrender after victories at Ad Decimum and Tricamarum. During the Gothic War he recaptured Rome while vastly outnumbered, then held the city through a brutal siege. His campaigns against Persia brought mixed results - a loss at Thannurin, victory at Dara, defeat at Callinicum - but he turned back a Hunnic incursion at Melantias and twice used military deception to break sieges without battle, lifting the blockade at Ariminum and repelling a Persian invasion by fooling their commander. He died in March 565, remembered as one of the last Romans and among history's most resourceful generals.