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130 5. the western kingdoms
Despite the loss of Ravenna, many other major towns of northern Italy
were still in the hands of Ostrogothic garrisons, and in 540 fighting was
renewed when it was clear that Belisarius was not going to honour his
secret pledges to make himself western emperor. A new king was chosen
in the person of Ildibad (540–1). After his murder, the crown passed
rapidly to his nephew Baduila or Totila (541–52), who won a significant
victory over imperial forces at Faenza in 542. The scale of the renewed war
was such that Belisarius had to be sent back to Italy in 544, but he failed
to achieve the same dramatic results. Baduila took Rome in December 546,
was forced to abandon it in 547 and regained it in 550. Belisarius was
recalled in 548 and eventually replaced by the emperor Justinian’s cousin
Germanus, who had married Vitigis’ widow Matasuintha. On Germanus’
unexpected death en route for Italy in 550, the eunuch and former treasurer
Narses was given command, and he inflicted a crucial defeat on Baduila in
the battle of Busta Gallorum in June/July 552. Baduila died from wounds
received there and was succeeded briefly by Teias (552), former commander
in Verona. He too fell in battle against Narses, at Mons Lactarius
in October. Some of the northern towns continued to resist, and the last
of these, Verona, only fell in 562, but no Ostrogothic king was chosen after
Teias.
viii. italy: the lombards, 568,90
It appears ironic that the restoration of imperial rule over Italy, that was
so long and hard fought for, should have proved so short-lived. Within six
years of the extinguishing of the last Ostrogothic resistance in 562, Italy
was subjected to a new invasion, that of the Lombards. This people had
been one of those who had moved into the vacuum north of the Danube
caused by Odoacer’s elimination of the Rugi in 488. They had fallen into
subjection to the Heruls, but defeated them in 510, killing their king
Rodulf. In the 540s they were encouraged by Justinian to cross the Danube
into western Pannonia as a counter to possible Frankish aspirations in the
Balkans. They shared this role with the Gepids, who were again given
control of Sirmium, which they had lost to the Ostrogoths in 504, and,
with the Heruls, were established around Singidunum. Justin II reversed
his predecessor’s policy of generally favouring the Lombards in their periodic
conflicts with the Gepids, and in consequence the Lombards allied
themselves with the rising power of the Avars, north of the Danube. The
destruction of the Gepid kingdom of Sirmium by the Avars in 567 seems
to have led the Lombards to decide to put a greater distance between
themselves and their quondam allies. In later traditions, their move into
Italy was presented as the result of treasonable negotiation on the part of
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