stylistic:style_transfer
Byzantine reconquest, 551–554

During 550–51, the Byzantines assembled a large expeditionary force of 20,000 or 25,000 men at Salona on the Adriatic, including regular Byzantine units and a large contingent of foreign allies, notably Lombards, Heruls and Bulgars. Narses, the imperial chamberlain (cubicularius) was appointed to command in mid-551. The following spring, Narses led this Byzantine army around the coast of the Adriatic to Ancona and then turned inland, intending to march down the via Flaminia to Rome. Near the village of Taginae, the Byzantines encountered the Ostrogothic army, commanded by Totila, who had been advancing to intercept Narses. Finding himself considerably outnumbered, Totila ostensibly entered into negotiations while planning a surprise attack, but Narses was not fooled by the ruse and deployed his army in a strong defensive position. Reinforcements having arrived, Totila launched a sudden attack at the Battle of Taginae, with a mounted assault on the Byzantine centre. The attack failed and, by evening, the Ostrogoths had broken and fled; Totila was killed in the rout. The Goths holding Rome capitulated and, at the Battle of Mons Lactarius in October 553, Narses defeated Teias and the last remnants of the Gothic army in Italy.

Though the Ostrogoths were defeated, Narses soon had to face other barbarians who invaded Byzantine northern Italy and southern Gaul. In early 553, an army of about thirty thousand Franks and Alemanni crossed the Alps and took the town of Parma. They defeated a force under the Heruli commander Fulcaris and soon many Goths from northern Italy joined their forces. Narses had dispersed his troops to garrisons throughout central Italy and had wintered at Rome. After serious depredations throughout Italy, the barbarians were brought to battle by Narses on the banks of the river Volturnus. In the Battle of the Volturnus, the Byzantines held off a furious Frankish assault while the Byzantine cavalry encircled them. The Franks and Alemanni were all but annihilated. Seven thousand Goths held out at Campsa, near Naples, until capitulating in the spring of 555. The lands and cities across the River Po were still held by Franks, Alemanni and Goths and it was not until 562 that their last strongholds, the cities of Verona and Brixia, were subjugated. According to the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea, the barbarian population was then allowed to live peacefully in Italy under Roman sovereignty.