Gothic War (535–554)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Gothic War of 535 to 554 began with a death and ended with a continent changed beyond recovery. When Amalasuntha, regent of the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy, was murdered in early 535 by her own cousin Theodahad, Emperor Justinian I of the Eastern Roman Empire had the excuse he had been waiting for. Procopius, the war's most detailed chronicler, captured the moment precisely: as soon as Justinian learned what had happened to Amalasuntha, "being in the ninth year of his reign, he entered into war."

  What followed was nearly two decades of siege, famine, plague, and betrayal across the Italian Peninsula, Dalmatia, Sardinia, Sicily, and Corsica. The war would pit the full weight of Byzantine ambition against one of the most capable Gothic leaders the ancient world had produced. It would produce moments of brilliant generalship and spectacular failures of command. And when it was finally over, the Italy that emerged bore almost no resemblance to the one the Byzantines had claimed to be saving.

  How did an empire with every military advantage nearly lose this war? Why did Justinian, at the peak of his power, allow his finest general to be repeatedly undercut? And what did victory actually cost the world that inherited its wreckage?

• 2. An Uneasy Inheritance

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  In 476, Odoacer deposed Emperor Romulus Augustulus and named himself King of Italy. That act formally ended the Western Roman Empire in Italy, but the arrangement that replaced it was stranger than a simple conquest. Odoacer recognised the nominal suzerainty of the Byzantine emperor Zeno, though his growing strength unsettled Constantinople. Zeno's solution was to send the Ostrogoths of Theodoric the Great into Italy as imperial representatives, formally tasked with removing Odoacer. They succeeded. Italy came under Gothic rule, but in a form Theodoric and the emperors Zeno and Anastasius carefully negotiated: the land and its people remained part of the empire, Theodoric served as viceroy and head of the army, and civil administration stayed exclusively in Roman hands.

  The division ran deep into daily life. Romans were Chalcedonian Christians; Goths were Arian Christians. The army was exclusively Gothic, the civil service exclusively Roman. Unlike the Vandals or the early Visigoths, the Goths practised considerable religious tolerance, and the dual system held together as long as Theodoric's personal authority held it together. His capable leadership conciliated the Italian aristocracy and kept the arrangement functional.

  But the system began to fracture during Theodoric's later years. The ascension of Emperor Justin I and the end of the Acacian schism between the Eastern and Western churches drew Italian senators toward Constantinople. The execution of the distinguished official Boethius and his father-in-law in 524 deepened the estrangement between Gothic rulers and their Roman subjects. When Theodoric died in August 526, his heir was his 10-year-old grandson Athalaric. His mother Amalasuntha, educated in the Roman tradition, served as regent and tried to bring the Senate and the Empire closer. Gothic magnates resented Athalaric's Roman-style education and plotted against her. Amalasuntha had three leading conspirators killed and quietly wrote to Justinian asking for sanctuary in case she was deposed, though she remained in Italy. After Athalaric died in 534, she offered the kingship to her cousin Theodahad, who accepted and then had her arrested. Her murder in early 535 handed Justinian the opening he needed.

• 3. Belisarius in the Field

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  Justinian appointed Belisarius commander in chief of the expedition against Italy with 7,500 men, a deliberately small force by the standards of the time. Two years earlier, Belisarius had recovered the North African provinces from the Vandals in a campaign so swift and decisive that it emboldened Justinian's broader ambitions. A second general, Mundus, the magister militum per Illyricum, was ordered to occupy the Gothic province of Dalmatia.

  Belisarius landed at Sicily, whose population was well disposed toward the empire, and swept across the island with little resistance, with the only real fighting at Palermo overcome by late December. While he prepared to cross into Italy, Theodahad sent envoys to Justinian offering first to cede Sicily and then, in a more desperate gesture, to cede all of Italy.

  Mundus moved into Dalmatia in March 536 and captured its capital, Salona, but a large Gothic army arrived and Mundus' son Mauricius was killed in a skirmish. Mundus inflicted a serious defeat on the Goths but was mortally wounded in the pursuit. The Byzantines withdrew and abandoned Dalmatia, emboldening Theodahad to imprison the Byzantine ambassadors. Justinian appointed a replacement general, Constantinianus, who retook Dalmatia efficiently. The Gothic general Gripas abandoned Salona, citing its ruined fortifications and the pro-Byzantine sympathies of its citizens. By late June, all of Dalmatia was in Byzantine hands.

  Belisarius crossed into Italy in 536, capturing Rhegium and marching north. Naples was besieged for three weeks before imperial troops forced entry in November, after which the largely barbarian Byzantine army sacked the city. Belisarius then moved north to Rome, which, warned by Naples' fate, offered no resistance. He entered unopposed in December. The first of three sieges of Rome began in March 537 when the Gothic king Vitiges, who had deposed and replaced Theodahad after the fall of Naples, arrived with a large army outside the city's walls.

• 4. Command Divided

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  Reinforcements from Constantinople arrived during the first siege of Rome: 1,600 Huns and Slavs in April 537, followed by 5,000 more men in November. The Byzantines pushed back, their cavalry capturing towns in the Goths' rear. The imperial navy cut the Goths off from seaborne supplies, and the fall of Ariminum, close to Ravenna, forced Vitiges to abandon the siege and withdraw in March 538.

  As Vitiges moved northeast, the Byzantine force holding Ariminum, 2,000 horsemen under a commander named John, found themselves in a precarious position: the city had few supplies for a siege, and John had defied Belisarius's order to swap cavalry for infantry. Reinforcements arrived in the form of 5,000 troops under the eunuch general Narses, plus 2,000 Herul allies. Belisarius and Narses met at Firmum to decide whether to march to John's relief. Most officers opposed it, resenting John's challenge to Belisarius's authority. Narses argued that a Gothic victory would lift enemy morale. A letter from John describing the city's imminent danger resolved the debate. Belisarius divided his force into three columns; Vitiges, outnumbered and surrounded, withdrew to Ravenna.

  The bloodless victory only deepened the tensions. John publicly credited Narses rather than Belisarius. At a subsequent officers' council, Belisarius proposed besieging Auximus and relieving Milan while Narses preferred to secure the Via Aemilia and press Ravenna. Justinian eventually wrote directly to settle the dispute, stating that Narses had not been sent to Italy to command the army and that all officers were to follow Belisarius alone. Narses replied that Belisarius's proposals were not "in the interests of the state" and departed with his forces for Ariminum. He then sent John to subdue Aemilia, which fell quickly.

  The human cost of this paralysis arrived in March 539. Mediolanum, now Milan, the second most populous and wealthy city in Italy after Rome, had been under siege by Goths and 10,000 Burgundians who had crossed the Alps at Vitiges's request. The Byzantine relief force commanded by Martin and Uliaris failed to advance without reinforcements from John and a general named Justin, who refused to move without orders from Narses. Belisarius pleaded; Narses agreed; John fell ill before he could cross the Po. When starvation finally forced Mundilas, the Byzantine commander inside the city, to accept Gothic terms, the garrison was spared, but the civilians were massacred and the city was razed.

• 5. The Fall of Ravenna

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  After the disaster at Mediolanum, Narses was recalled and Belisarius was confirmed as supreme commander with authority throughout Italy. Vitiges, running low on options, sent envoys to the Persian court hoping to persuade Khosrow I to reopen hostilities with the Byzantines, which would force Justinian to concentrate Belisarius in the east.

  Belisarius turned toward Ravenna, the Gothic capital, but first had to neutralise strongholds at Auximus and Fiesole. During those sieges, the Frankish king Theudebert I crossed the Alps with a large army and came upon Gothic and Byzantine forces camped on opposite banks of the Po. The Franks attacked the Goths, who had expected them as allies, and routed them. The Byzantines, equally surprised, were also defeated and withdrew south into Tuscany. The Franks themselves were then destroyed by an outbreak of dysentery, which caused great losses and forced their withdrawal. Both besieged cities capitulated in October or November 539.

  Reinforced from Dalmatia, Belisarius moved on Ravenna. The imperial fleet patrolled the Adriatic, cutting the city off. An embassy arrived from Constantinople with surprisingly lenient terms: Justinian, anxious about the impending Persian war, offered to partition Italy, keeping the south for Constantinople and leaving the north of the Po to the Goths. The Goths accepted; Belisarius refused to sign, judging it a betrayal of everything he had fought for, even though his own generals disagreed with him.

  In a stranger turn, the disheartened Goths offered to make Belisarius western emperor. He had no intention of accepting but saw an opportunity. He feigned acceptance. In May 540, Belisarius and his army entered Ravenna. The city was not looted; the Goths were well treated and allowed to keep their properties. Several Gothic garrisons north of the Po surrendered. Others, including Ticinum and Verona, remained Gothic. Shortly after, Belisarius sailed for Constantinople, where he was refused a triumph. Vitiges was made a patrician and sent into comfortable retirement. The captured Gothic soldiers were dispatched to reinforce the eastern armies.

• 6. Totila's Reversal

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  Belisarius's departure left most of Italy in Byzantine hands but created an immediate vacuum of competent command. Justinian failed to appoint a single commander for the Italian theatre. Byzantine armies fell into disorder, neglecting discipline and committing plunder. The new imperial bureaucracy antagonised the Italian population with oppressive taxes.

  Gothic leadership changed rapidly. Ildibad, chosen as king after Belisarius's breach of faith became clear, re-established Gothic control over Venetia and Liguria, but had Uraias murdered over a quarrel between their wives and was then assassinated himself in May 541. A candidate named Eraric, from the Rugian remnants of Odoacer's old army, took the kingship briefly but was perceived as planning to hand the realm to Justinian. In the early autumn of 541, Eraric was murdered and Ildibad's nephew Totila, also known as Baduila, was proclaimed king.

  Totila's timing was unexpectedly good. The Plague of Justinian struck the eastern empire in 542, killing an estimated quarter of the population at its height, draining Byzantine manpower and tax revenues. A new Byzantine-Persian war forced Justinian to concentrate forces in the east. The Byzantine generals inside Italy were divided and incompetent: at Verona, two generals captured a city gate through treachery, then halted to argue over the prospective loot, allowing the Goths to retake it. Totila attacked their camp near Faenza with 5,000 men and destroyed the Byzantine army at the Battle of Faventia. At the subsequent Battle of Mucellium, Byzantine forces numerically superior to Totila's were defeated while attempting to relieve Florence.

  Marching south through sparsely garrisoned territory, Totila deliberately bypassed Rome and let his army sweep the countryside, reducing Byzantine control to isolated coastal strongholds. When fortified towns fell, their walls were usually razed so they could not be used again. At Naples in 543, he allowed the city to surrender on terms and, in the words of the historian J. B. Bury, showed "considerable humanity" toward the defenders, nursing famished citizens back to strength after the Byzantine garrison departed safely. He then attempted to broker a peace with Justinian. When Justinian refused, Totila had copies of his appeal posted throughout Rome. Despite widespread resentment of Byzantine rule, no uprising followed. Disgusted, he marched north to besiege the city.

  Belisarius returned to Italy in 544 with 200 ships. He reoccupied much of southern Italy, but Procopius describes him as starved of reinforcements and supplies by Justinian's jealousy and unwilling to march to Rome's relief. When he finally attempted a river-borne relief operation up the Tiber, a complicated plan involving a fireboat dropped onto a Gothic watchtower from a makeshift tower built on two lashed skiffs, his subordinate Isaakes abandoned his assigned position to attack a Gothic stockade and was captured. Belisarius, misreading news of the capture as meaning Portus had fallen to the Goths, ordered an immediate retreat to save a city that turned out to still be in Byzantine hands. He was said to have been struck with a bout of aphasia at the moment. The relief of Rome failed.

  On the 17th of December 546, Totila's men scaled the walls at night and opened the Porta Asinaria. Procopius states that Isaurian troops from the imperial garrison had arranged a secret pact with the Goths. Rome was plundered, and Totila, who had expressed an intention to level the city, satisfied himself with tearing down about one-third of its walls before marching south after the Byzantine forces in Apulia. Belisarius reoccupied Rome four months later in the spring of 547, hastily rebuilding the demolished sections by piling the loose stones "one on top of the other, regardless of order." Totila returned, was unable to overcome the defenders, and the two sides settled into a grinding stalemate that lasted until Belisarius was recalled from Italy yet again.

• 7. Narses and the End

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  During 550-551, the Byzantines assembled an expeditionary force of between 20,000 and 25,000 men at Salona on the Adriatic, composed of regular Byzantine units alongside Lombards, Heruls, and Bulgars. Narses, serving as the imperial chamberlain, was appointed to command in mid-551. The following spring, he led the army around the Adriatic coast to Ancona and then turned inland, intending to march down the Via Flaminia to Rome.

  Near the village of Taginae, the two armies met. Totila, considerably outnumbered, entered into ostensible negotiations while planning a surprise attack. Narses was not deceived. He deployed in a strong defensive position and waited for reinforcements to arrive. When Totila launched a mounted assault on the Byzantine centre at the Battle of Taginae, it failed. By evening, the Ostrogothic army had broken and fled. Totila was killed in the rout. Rome's Gothic garrison then capitulated. At the Battle of Mons Lactarius in October 553, Narses defeated Teias and destroyed the last remnants of the Gothic army in Italy.

  The war was not quite finished. In early 553, an army of roughly thirty thousand Franks and Alemanni had crossed the Alps and taken the town of Parma, defeating a force under the Heruli commander Fulcaris. Many northern Italian Goths joined them. Narses, whose troops were dispersed in garrisons across central Italy, had wintered at Rome. He brought the barbarians to battle on the banks of the river Volturnus: the Byzantine cavalry encircled the Franks and Alemanni while the infantry held off their assault. The invaders were all but annihilated. Seven thousand Goths held out at Campsa, near Naples, until capitulating in the spring of 555. The cities of Verona and Brixia, the last Gothic and Frankish strongholds north of the Po, did not fall until 562. In 554, Justinian issued a pragmatic sanction prescribing Italy's new government.

• 8. The Price of Victory

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  Italy did not survive its liberation intact. The great cities were abandoned. Urban society, which had depended on a settled farming hinterland, collapsed. The Italian population, ground between Gothic and Byzantine reprisals, heavy Byzantine taxation, and years of siege and massacre, shifted allegiances. Identity moved away from the empire and toward religion, family, and city.

  Historians have debated whether the war was worth fighting at all. The conventional verdict calls it a pyrrhic victory: the Byzantine Empire spent resources that might have defended against more serious threats in western Asia and the Balkans. Pagan Slavs and Kutrigurs had raided provinces south of the Danube from 517. A century after the Gothic War, Dalmatia and most of Greece, including Macedonia and Thrace, were lost to the Slavs and Avars.

  The historian Warren Treadgold offered a different view. He placed heavier blame on the Plague of Justinian, which struck in 540-541 and is estimated to have killed up to a quarter of the population at its height. No ruler, he argued, could have anticipated the plague; it would have been catastrophic for the empire regardless of Italian policy. The plague sapped the manpower and tax revenues needed to complete the campaign more quickly, prolonging a war that might otherwise have ended well before it became ruinous.

  The war's long shadow extended far beyond the 6th century. Only three years after Justinian's death in 565, the Germanic Lombards invaded and seized the mainland Italian territories. What remained of Byzantine Italy shrank to the Exarchate of Ravenna, a band of territory stretching across central Italy to the Tyrrhenian Sea and south to Naples, plus parts of the deep south. Rome itself remained under imperial control until the Lombards conquered the Exarchate in 751. Byzantine influence persisted in coastal areas of southern Italy until the late 11th century. The interior was ruled by Lombard dukes based at Benevento and later also at Salerno and Capua. The unified Italy of the Romans, Byzantines, and Goths was broken permanently, a fracture that was not healed until the unification of Italy in the 19th century.