Praetorian prefecture of Italy in the context of "Diocese of Africa"

Flavius Julius Constans (c. 323 – 350), also called Constans I, was Roman emperor from 337 to 350. He held the imperial rank of caesar from 333, and was the youngest son of Constantine the Great.

After his father's death, he was made augustus alongside his brothers in September 337. Constans was given the administration of the praetorian prefectures of Italy, Illyricum, and Africa. He defeated the Sarmatians in a campaign shortly afterwards. Quarrels over the sharing of power led to a civil war with his eldest brother and co-emperor Constantine II, who invaded Italy in 340 and was killed in battle by Constans's forces near Aquileia. Constans gained from him the praetorian prefecture of Gaul. Thereafter there were tensions with his remaining brother and co-augustus Constantius II (r. 337–361), including over the exiled bishop Athanasius of Alexandria, who in turn eulogized Constans as "the most pious Augustus... of blessed and everlasting memory." In the following years he campaigned against the Franks, and in 343 he visited Roman Britain, the last legitimate emperor to do so until Manuel II in 1400, more than a thousand years later.

Justin II (Latin: Iustinus; Ancient Greek: Ἰουστῖνος, romanized: Ioustînos; died 5 October 578) was Eastern Roman emperor from 565 until 578. He was the nephew of Justinian I and the husband of Sophia, the niece of Justinian's wife Theodora.

Justin II inherited a greatly enlarged but overextended empire, with far fewer resources at his disposal compared to Justinian I. He ended the payment of tributes and adopted a hardline stance against the empire's neighbors, which resulted in rekindling of war with the Sassanid Empire, and in a Lombard invasion which cost the Romans much of their territory in Italy. His later reign was marked by severe mental illness.

Vitiges (also known as Vitigis, Vitigo, Witigis, Witiges, Wittigis or Wittigeis, and in Old Norse as Vigo) (died 542) was king of Ostrogothic Italy from 536 to 540. Known as a veteran of King Theodoric’s campaigns, he was a seasoned commander & therefore after the fall of the Amal dynasty he succeeded to the throne of Italy just after the Roman capture of Naples. This was because Belisarius had quickly captured Sicily the previous year and was in southern Italy at the head of the forces of Justinian I, the Eastern Roman Emperor.

Vitiges was the husband of Queen Amalaswintha's only surviving child, Mataswintha; therefore, his royal legitimacy was based on this marriage. The panegyric upon the wedding in 536 was delivered by Cassiodorus, the praetorian prefect, and survives, a traditionally Roman form of rhetoric that set the Gothic dynasty in a flatteringly Roman light. Soon after he was made king, Vitiges had his predecessor Theodahad murdered. Theodahad had enraged the Goths because he failed to send any assistance to Naples when it was besieged by the Byzantines, led by Belisarius.