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Gothic War (535–554)

535–554 war between the Byzantine Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy

14 dated entries naming Gothic War (535–554), drawn from 13 separate years between 535 CE and 562 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

Also written as Gothic War (535-554) in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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6th century

  • 535Gothic War: Emperor Justinian I appoints Belisarius commander-in-chief (stratēgos autokratōr), and sends a Byzantine expeditionary force of only 8,000 soldiers (half are heavy East Roman cavalry) to begin the reconquest of Italy.source
  • 535The death of Amalasuintha gives Byzantine Emperor Justinian I a pretext to invade Italy and begin the Gothic War.source
  • 536Summer – Gothic War (535–554): Belisarius crosses the Strait of Messina and invades Italy. He conquers the city of Rhegium and advances to Naples.source
  • 538Gothic War: Vitiges strengthens the garrisons of various towns and besieges Ariminum. Byzantine forces under the Armenian general Narses arrive at Picenum.source
  • 539March – Gothic War: The Goths and the Burgundians recapture Mediolanum (modern Milan), after many months of siege, the city reaching the point of starvation. The Byzantine garrison (1,000 men) surrenders and is spared, but the inhabitants are massacred (according to Procopius 300,000 people are murdered), and the city itself is destroyed.source
  • 540May – Gothic War: Belisarius conquers Mediolanum (modern-day Milan) and the Gothic capital Ravenna. Vitiges and his wife Matasuntha are taken as captives to Constantinople.source
  • 542Spring – Battle of Faventia: King Totila scatters the Byzantine forces near Faventia (modern Faenza) with 5,000 men, beginning the resurgence of Gothic resistance to the reconquest of Italy.source
  • 544Gothic War: Emperor Justinian I sends Belisarius back to the Ostrogothic Kingdom (Italy) with an inadequate Byzantine expeditionary force (4,000 men and 200 ships).source
  • 545Gothic War: King Totila establishes his military base at Tivoli (Central Italy), and prepares a campaign to reconquer the region of Latium.source
  • 547Gothic War: Belisarius recaptures Rome from the Ostrogoths, but his Italian campaign is unsuccessful (he is starved of supplies and reinforcements from Constantinople).source
  • 550January 16 – Gothic War: The Ostrogoths under king Totila recapture Rome after a long siege, by bribing the Isaurian garrison.source
  • 551Gothic War: Narses arrives in Venetia and discovers that a powerful Gothic-Frank army (50,000 men), under joint command of the kings Totila and Theudebald, has blocked the principal route to the Po Valley. Not wishing to engage such a formidable force and confident that the Franks would avoid a direct confrontation, Narses skirts the lagoons along the Adriatic shore, by using vessels to leapfrog his army from point to point along the coast. In this way he arrives at the capital Ravenna without encountering any opposition. He attacks and crushes a small Gothic force at Ariminum (modern Rimini).source
  • 553Gothic War: Frankish invasion — Two Frankish-Alemanni dukes, brothers Lothair and Buccelin, cross the Alps from Germany with a force of 75,000 men, mostly Frankish infantry. In the Po Valley, they win an easy victory over a much smaller Byzantine force at Parma, and are joined by remnants of the Gothic armies, bringing the total strength of the invaders to about 90,000 men. Narses, gathering his forces as quickly as possible, marches north to harass the Franks, but is not strong enough to engage them in battle. In Samnium (Southern Italy) the brothers divide their forces: Lothaire goes down the east coast, then returns to the north, to winter in the Po Valley. Buccelin follows the west coast into Calabria, where he spends the winter — his army being seriously wasted by attrition and disease.source
  • 562The last Ostrogothic strongholds at Verona and Brixia are taken by the Byzantine Empire, ending the Gothic War.source

Named in the same entries