By the time of Belisarius's reconquest of North Africa, the Vandals had already lost Septem to local Berber (') revolts. The Byzantines retook the entire coastline, then established their "Commander of Mauretania" (') at the more defensible Septem instead of the old capital at Tingis. Mauretania and the Byzantine holdings in Andalusia were nominally part of the Exarchate of Africa but so distant that it is likely the garrison at Septem was forced to do homage to Visigothic Spain.