page_title: Gothic War (535–554)
section_title: Belisarius
hierarchical_section_title: Gothic War (535–554) / Background / Belisarius
caption_attribution_description: English: Frontispiece of Theodoric (sitting opposite Cassiodorus), from a 12th-century German manuscript. Leiden University Library, Ms. vul. 46: Gesta Theodorici. - Cassiodori Senatoris Vita. - Hugonis de S. Victore Eruditionis didascalicae. - Tractatus theologici. Latin. Manuscript on vellum. 186 ff., 220 x 125 mm. Fulda, dated 1176-7.
context_page_description: The Gothic War between the East Roman Empire during the reign of Emperor Justinian I and the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy took place from 535 until 554 in the Italian peninsula, Dalmatia, Sardinia, Sicily and Corsica. It was one the last of the many Gothic Wars with the Roman Empire. The war had its roots in the ambition of the East Roman Emperor Justinian I to recover the provinces of the former Western Roman Empire, which the Romans had lost to invading barbarian tribes in the previous century.
  The war followed the East Roman reconquest of the province of Africa from the Vandals. Historians commonly divide the war into two phases:
  From 535 to 540: ending with the fall of the Ostrogothic capital Ravenna and the apparent reconquest of Italy by the Byzantines.
  From 540/541 to 553: a Gothic revival under Totila, suppressed only after a long struggle by the Byzantine general Narses, who also repelled an invasion in 554 by the Franks and Alamanni.
  In 554 Justinian promulgated the Pragmatic sanction which prescribed Italy's new government. Several cities in northern Italy held out against the East Romans until 562. By the end of the war Italy had been devastated and depopulated.
context_section_description: In 533, using a dynastic dispute as a pretext, Justinian had sent his most talented general, Belisarius, to recover the North African provinces held by the Vandals. The Vandalic War produced an unexpectedly swift and decisive victory for the Byzantine Empire and encouraged Justinian in his ambition to recover the rest of the lost western provinces. As Regent, Amalasuntha had allowed the Byzantine fleet to use the harbours of Sicily, which belonged to the Ostrogothic Kingdom. After her son's death in 534, Amalasuntha offered the kingship to her cousin Theodahad; Theodahad accepted, but had her arrested and, in early 535, killed.Through his agents, Justinian tried to save Amalasuntha's life but to no avail and her death gave him a casus belli to go to war with the Goths. Procopius wrote that "as soon as he learned what had happened to Amalasuntha, being in the ninth year of his reign, he entered upon war".
  Belisarius was appointed commander in chief (stratēgos autokratōr) for the expedition against Italy with 7,500 men. Mundus, the magister militum per Illyricum, was ordered to occupy the Gothic province of Dalmatia. The forces made available to Belisarius were small, especially when compared to the much larger army he had fielded against the Vandals, an enemy much weaker than the Ostrogoths. The preparations for the operation were carried out in secret, while Justinian tried to secure the neutrality of the Franks by gifts of gold.
caption: Theodoric
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