Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

550 19. italy, a.d. 425,605
ix. conclusion
Under Lombards and Byzantines, then, Italy was very different from the
territory restored to Valentinian in 425. The pace of change had varied
from region to region, but, overall, Italy underwent a process markedly
different from the rest of western Europe. Whereas Gaul, Spain and Britain
had experienced considerable disruption in the fifth century, with the restoration
of some form of equilibrium in the sixth, the situation in Italy was
almost completely the reverse. The deposition of the last emperor passed
almost without notice. Under Ostrogothic government the peninsula saw
considerable continuity with the Roman past, even if not all members of
the Roman élite acquiesced in Theoderic’s regime. The forcible reintegration
of Italy into the empire by Justinian, however, belatedly brought to
Italy its share of cultural, economic, social and political dislocation.
To a major extent, of course, Roman Italy had always been a conglomeration
of regions united by the veneer of Roman civilization and government.
Under Theoderic that veneer had held firm, but Justinian’s
reconquest set in motion a sequence of events that caused the structures
of the Roman state to collapse and the peninsula to disintegrate into separate
regions. 127 The tumultuous events of the later sixth century saw Italy
torn apart between the new reality of Lombard power and the outmoded
aspirations of the imperial government in Constantinople. Such contradictions
were echoed at the beginning of the seventh century by the complex
reactions of Phocas to the new state of Italian affairs. In one sense, Phocas
tacitly recognized that Italy was largely lost to the empire when he ratified
Smaragdus’ treaties with Agilulf. Yet if by such actions Phocas seemed to
acknowledge the changed nature of Italian political realities, he was prone
to ideological conservatism. In 608, Smaragdus erected a column and
gilded statue in Phocas’ honour by the Rostra in the Roman forum. On its
base an inscription claimed that Phocas was ‘triumphator, forever
Augustus’ who had achieved peace and libertas for Italy: 128 the rhetoric is
substantially the same as that of Justinian.
By the early seventh century, the very act of setting up the column, statue
and inscription represented an anachronistic view of Rome and Italy and
their place in the empire. While the shift in power from Ravenna to
Constantinople meant that Italy was now a mere frontier province of the
Byzantine empire, the idea that it was an imperial possession continued to
beguile the emperors of Constantinople, and sixty years after Phocas one
last attempt was made to restore Italy to the empire. In 662, Constans II
came to Italy in person, aiming to wrest Italy from Lombard hands. Despite
some early successes in southern Italy, Constans failed to achieve his ambi-
127 Wickham (1981) 1–5, 9–14. 128 CIL 6.1200.
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