Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

534 19. italy, a.d. 425,605
was thoroughly disillusioned with him. Encamped near Terracina, they
reverted to the old principle of choosing a leader of established military
skill as their king: their choice fell on Vitigis, a proven warrior. Theodahad
fled for Ravenna, but Vitigis’ agents overtook and murdered him. For the
next four years, Vitigis sought to check Belisarius’ advance through central
Italy. By 540, however, he found himself blockaded in Ravenna, with little
option but to surrender to the Byzantine army.
With the capture of Ravenna, it might well have seemed that the war was
over. Just as well: in the east, a revival of Persian fortunes was posing severe
problems for Justinian. 42 Any confidence about the Italian situation proved
ill-founded. Shortly after Vitigis’ surrender, two Gothic leaders in northern
Italy, Uraias and Ildibad, raised a revolt. While this posed a new threat to
Byzantine ambitions, it also demonstrated the inherent disunity of the
Gothic forces by this stage of the war: Ildibad had Uraias assassinated, but
not long afterwards was himself murdered by the Rugian leader Eraric. In
turn, Ildibad’s nephew, Totila, engineered Eraric’s death, and afterwards
found himself proclaimed king.
In Totila, the Goths found a leader who was able to stand up to
Byzantine aggression. The war for Italy entered a new phase. For much of
the 540s, Totila was successful in dismembering Belisarius’ conquests,
although it seems that he never lost sight of obtaining a negotiated settlement
to the war. 43 But in 551 the Persian war ended with a peace treaty, and
Justinian was able to devote most of his attention to Italy. The new
Byzantine commander there, the Armenian eunuch Narses, proved a
match for the daring Totila, and his army was far larger than any that the
Goths could put into the field. In mid 552, Totila’s army was defeated in the
Apennines, the king himself dying of a wound sustained in battle. Once
again, however, the Goths proved tenacious in their resistance: the full submission
of Italy was not achieved until Narses took Verona and Brescia in
562.
Justinian celebrated the conquest of Italy with grandiose propaganda.
An inscription on the Ponte Salario just outside Rome proclaimed ‘the restoration
of the liberty of the city of Rome and the whole of Italy’, while
an anonymous chronicler asserted that, through Narses’ victories, Italy had
been restored to its ‘former happiness’. 44 The memory of the Ostrogothic
kingdom was obliterated. Depictions of the king and his courtiers were
removed from the mosaics in Theoderic’s great church of S. Apollinaire
Nuovo at Ravenna. Some even went so far as to claim that the Goths were
expelled from Italy, though this is plainly untrue. 45 But the euphoria which
engendered such claims and actions was misplaced. Italy had not emerged
42 Moorhead (1994) 86–98. 43 Heather (1996) 267–9.
44 CIL 6.1199; Auctarii Havniensis Extrema 3 (ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH, AA 9.337).
45 Procop. Wars viii.35.36–7; but cf. Agathias 1.1.1. Cf.p.548 below, n. 118.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008