Gothic War (535-554): Justinian's Reconquest of Italy

The Gothic War was the long struggle of 535–554 in which the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I conquered the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy. His generals Belisarius and Narses eventually destroyed the Gothic state and restored Roman rule over Italy, Sicily and Dalmatia. But the war lasted nearly twenty years, cost enormous resources and left Italy so damaged that much of it fell to the Lombards within a generation.

Background: Ostrogothic Italy

Since 493 Italy had been ruled by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great, who governed with Roman officials and the Roman Senate and nominally recognised the emperor in Constantinople (see Theodoric the Great). Goths and Romans lived side by side, the Goths providing the army and the Romans the administration.

After Theodoric’s death in 526 his ten-year-old grandson Athalaric became king, with his mother Amalasuntha as regent. Educated and pro-Roman, she was opposed by Gothic nobles and kept in contact with Justinian. When Athalaric died in October 534, she made her cousin Theodahad co-ruler. He soon imprisoned her on an island in Lake Bolsena, where she was murdered in 535. Her death gave Justinian, fresh from his victory over the Vandals, a pretext for war (see Vandalic War).

The first phase: Belisarius (535–540)

In 535 Justinian launched a two-pronged attack. The general Mundus occupied Dalmatia, while Belisarius, with only around 7,500 men, took Sicily almost without a fight, entering Syracuse on 31 December 535. In 536 he crossed to the mainland and besieged Naples, which he captured after about three weeks when his soldiers crept through an aqueduct.

The Goths, blaming Theodahad, deposed him and elected Witiges, an experienced soldier, as king. Theodahad was killed as he fled. Belisarius entered Rome unopposed on 9 December 536. Witiges returned with a large army and besieged the city from March 537 to March 538. The Goths cut the aqueducts, but Belisarius, though outnumbered, held the walls for a year.

Reinforcements under Narses arrived in 538, but quarrels between the two generals hampered operations. In 539 the Goths and their Burgundian allies retook Milan and destroyed much of it; Procopius claims 300,000 men were killed there, a figure historians consider greatly exaggerated. Famine also ravaged central Italy.

In 540 Belisarius besieged Witiges in Ravenna, the Gothic capital. The Goths offered to make Belisarius emperor of the West; he pretended to accept, entered the city in May 540 and took Witiges prisoner to Constantinople. It seemed the war was over.

Totila’s revival (541–551)

It was not. Belisarius was recalled to face Persia, which had invaded Syria in 540, and the Roman commanders left in Italy squabbled and squeezed the population for taxes. The surviving Goths in the north chose new leaders, and in 541 Totila, also known as Baduila, became king.

Totila was an energetic and skilful leader. He defeated imperial armies at Faventia (Faenza) and in the Mugello in 542, took Naples in 543 and won support from many Italian peasants and slaves by promising relief from Roman tax collectors. The plague that struck the empire in the 540s further weakened Justinian’s ability to send troops (see Plague of Justinian).

Belisarius returned to Italy in 544 with few men and little money. He could not prevent Totila from capturing Rome on 17 December 546, when Isaurian soldiers of the garrison opened a gate. Totila tore down parts of the walls and briefly left the city almost deserted. Belisarius reoccupied Rome in 547, but he was recalled in 549, and Totila took the city again in January 550. His fleet raided Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and even the coast of Greece.

Narses and the final victory (551–554)

Justinian finally committed large resources. In 551 he appointed Narses, now in his seventies, to command an army that modern estimates put at between 20,000 and 30,000 men, including Lombard, Herul and Gepid contingents. Avoiding the Gothic-held roads, Narses marched around the head of the Adriatic and down the coast to Ravenna.

In late June or early July 552 the armies met at Taginae, also called Busta Gallorum, in the Apennines of Umbria. Narses placed dismounted cavalry and archers in a strong defensive line; the Gothic cavalry charge broke against them, and Totila was mortally wounded in the rout. Narses then took Rome.

The Goths chose Teia as their last king. In October 552 Narses defeated him in a two-day battle at Mons Lactarius, near Mount Vesuvius, where Teia was killed. The surviving Goths were allowed to leave or submit.

A final threat came from the Franks and Alamanni, who invaded in 553 under the brothers Leutharis and Butilinus. Disease weakened their armies, and in 554 Narses destroyed Butilinus’s force at the Battle of the Volturnus near Capua. On 13 August 554 Justinian issued the Pragmatic Sanction, restoring Roman law and property arrangements in Italy. Isolated Gothic garrisons held out longer: Compsa in the south until 555, and Verona and Brescia in the north until 562.

Key people

• Belisarius (c. 500–565): conqueror of Sicily, Naples, Rome and Ravenna in the first phase, but starved of troops in his second command.
• Narses (c. 480–c. 574): palace eunuch turned general, who won the decisive battles of 552 and governed Italy until about 567.
• Witiges (r. 536–540): Gothic king who besieged Rome and surrendered Ravenna; he died in Constantinople.
• Totila (r. 541–552): the most successful Gothic king of the war, who retook most of Italy.
• Teia (r. 552): the last Ostrogothic king, killed at Mons Lactarius.
• Amalasuntha (died 535): Theodoric’s daughter and regent, whose murder gave Justinian his pretext.
• Procopius: Belisarius’s secretary, eyewitness of the early campaigns and the main historian of the war; the poet-historian Agathias continued the story from 552.

Consequences for Italy

The cost of victory was immense. Italy had been fought over for almost two decades, with repeated sieges, plunder, famine and plague. Procopius reports that some 50,000 farmers died of hunger in Picenum alone during the famine of 538–539. Rome, besieged several times, shrank to a fraction of its former population, and the Roman Senate faded from history within a few decades.

Byzantine rule, centred on Ravenna under Narses and later an exarch, brought heavy taxation. In 568, only three years after Justinian’s death, the Lombards under Alboin crossed the Alps and quickly overran much of northern and central Italy (see Lombard invasion of Italy). Italy would not be united again under one ruler until 1861.

Historians still debate the war’s wisdom. Some see it as the natural aim of a Roman emperor; others argue it destroyed a functioning Romano-Gothic state and drained resources the empire needed in the East and the Balkans.

Timeline

• 535: Amalasuntha murdered; Belisarius takes Sicily (Syracuse, 31 December).
• 536: Naples captured; Witiges elected king; Belisarius enters Rome on 9 December.
• March 537 – March 538: Gothic siege of Rome.
• 539: Milan destroyed by the Goths and Burgundians.
• May 540: Belisarius enters Ravenna; Witiges captured.
• 541: Totila becomes king of the Ostrogoths.
• 17 December 546: Totila captures Rome.
• Summer 552: Battle of Taginae; Totila killed.
• October 552: Battle of Mons Lactarius; Teia killed.
• 13 August 554: Pragmatic Sanction reorganises Italy.

Why it matters

The Gothic War ended the Ostrogothic kingdom and restored Roman rule in Italy for the last time. But the devastation it caused hastened the end of ancient Italian society and opened the way to the Lombard conquest, shaping the divided map of medieval Italy.