The slackness with which the generals of Justinian prosecuted the Gothic war in the period between the triumph of Belisarius at Ravenna in A. D. 540, and the final conquest of Italy in A. D. 553, is mainly to be explained by the fact that, just at the moment of the fall of Ravenna, the empire became involved in a new struggle with its great Eastern neighbour. Continue reading “The last years of Justinian’s reign: Antioch sacked by Chosroes’ Persians – The Plague irreversibly weakens the Empire” →