Indulf

Who is Indulf?

Indulf, also known as Gundulf, was a Byzantine mercenary who defected to the Ostrogoths and became a leader in their army in the last years of the Gothic War of 535–554.

Indulf is first mentioned, by the historian Procopius, as a barbarian bodyguard of the Byzantine general Belisarius. When Belisarius departed Italy in early 549, Indulf remained behind, and soon after joined the Goths. In late spring/early summer of 549, the Ostrogoth king Totila entrusted him with a large army and a fleet, and sent him to campaign in Dalmatia, which the Byzantines had taken in 535/536. There, he used his known association with Belisarius to capture the fortified towns of Movicurum and Laureate, whose inhabitants had not learned of his volte-face. Indulf killed the inhabitants and plundered the two settlements and the surrounding countryside. He also defeated a Byzantine force sent against him by the local Byzantine governor and captured a number of supply ships destined for the Byzantine army in Italy, before returning with his men to Italy.

Indulf reappears in 551, when he was one of the three Gothic generals entrusted with besieging and capturing Ancona.