 Humming ominously as it courses through the bloodied blades of grass, the whispering wind flows across the field where the bodies lay. With a wet face, the Centurion gazes across the field where thousands of his comrades had been. Where men stood, nervous with anticipation, their hands trembling as they were wracked with fear, they are now pitched over, dead, rotting, bloated and cold. What a terrible thing it is. To win a battle. Hi there viewer! If you enjoy my content, please consider liking the video and subscribing to help the channel grow. Enjoy! So, Tilo was in Naples. His siege victorious, he was finally in the city. He was seen as a conqueror, but also a magnanimous hero to the people of Naples as the victory he achieved came without the spilling of blood. Instead, Tilo was able to secure the Byzantine surrender by offering clemency, keeping true to his word, not a man of the Neapolitan garrison was harmed. Now, Tilo was eagerly awaiting the arrival of a messenger. After taking the city, he had sent an envoy to Justinian, directed to offer peace terms. The stipulations were that Tilo would keep Italy with autonomy, but in a subordinate and supportive role to Justinian. It was a generous offer that Tilo hoped would bring some relief to the Italian people. He sat still for a moment, contemplating the offer. Had it been generous enough? Justinian's ambitions might preclude him from accepting any offer aside from full annexation. It may not be enough. Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted as a commotion broke out in a group of nearby soldiers. Tilo rushed over to see what was going on. It was the envoy. They had arrived with a letter bearing the seal of Justinian. This was it. Tilo eagerly opened the letter with anticipation. His heart pounding away. As the moments passed, the Gothic troops watched as their king's energy died down, his disposition going from eager and excited to firm and composed. Tilo's peace offering was swiftly and utterly rejected. There would be no peace. Disappointed but not entirely shocked, Tilo knew he would have to decisively win this war. And so, he and his army set out on the next phase of their campaign. Their target, the Eternal City herself, Rome. In Constantinople, Justinian knew the situation was bad. His generals had been disorganized and thoroughly incapable of making any progress in defeating Tatila. Now, with his loyal force, Tatila was on the march to Rome. What was the point of it all if they couldn't even keep control of Rome? Finally, in the wake of his commander's ineptitude, Justinian relented. He knew what he had to do. Even though he did not trust him, Justinian knew his current commanders in charge of the Italian campaign were not going to get the job done. So, he called on Bellisarius to return to his previous position and finish what he had begun almost ten years ago. He returned the property Theodora had taken and the general was given some ships and some men and sent back to Italy with his new orders. Defeat, Tatila. After the next year, the famed general arrived in Ravenna to assess the situation. Unlike his last campaign in Italy, this time he only had a few thousand troops under his command. A shockingly insufficient force. Even with his newfound position, it seems Justinian still held some resent after all. And while Justinian most certainly did still hold some suspicions, the reality is that Justinian likely couldn't have given Bellisarius a large army even if he wanted to. The plague had completely destroyed the manpower pool of the Byzantine Empire and they needed troops all over. At this point, they would continue to be at war with Persia for another few months and they still needed most of their forces in the east. Even after the troops was signed, the Byzantine-Persian relations would continue to be antagonistic and they would need to keep troops in the area to ensure Castro couldn't freely march across Syria as he had before. The troops Justinian had scraped together for Bellisarius were already from the bottom of the barrel. For now, the hopes were for the military genius of Bellisarius to compensate for the lack of men. Unfortunately, this would not be the case. Even for Bellisarius, there's only so much you can do with such few men. What ensued was a frustrating multi-year stalemate with neither side being strong enough to take on the other. The Tyla would take a town only for Bellisarius to take it back a short time later. Troops would skirmish, but the armies would never meet for a pitched battle. Each side would send raiders to harass the other, attacking supply lines and burning the countryside to prevent the other army from foraging. As time went on, the war became uglier and uglier as both armies resorted to plundering. Civilian casualties were mounting, yet no progress was being made. The city of Rome in particular changed hands three times, much of it being destroyed and as population more diminished than ever due to the constant conflict. After almost five years of this futile struggle, Bellisarius knew he had to get more troops and he started thinking of ways to do just that. He didn't think he could convince Justinian because of the trust issues between the two men, but he thought of Theodora. Even though they had a strained relationship, Bellisarius' wife was very close with Theodora. Perhaps the Empress could convince Justinian to see reason. Yes, Theodora, that was the way to go. Bellisarius would leverage his wife's relationship with Theodora to get the troops he needed. However, a short time later, Bellisarius received a letter that was most unwelcome and most certainly unexpected. Theodora would not be helping him secure more troops. The reason for this, you see, is because Theodora was dead. She had most likely died of cancer a short time before Bellisarius' wife had arrived. After rising from the lowest depths of the social ladder, the Empress had spent 21 years on the throne. She had been highly influential and involved in politics, playing a key role in the administration. She had been a fierce advocate for women, had kept the Emperor from fleeing during the Nica riots, and in spite of the discord between her and Bellisarius, had kept things running while Justinian was sick. While she had died, her legacy lives on, and people today can still see her menacing countenance peering down at them from the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. Justinian was completely and utterly heartbroken. While Theodora had serious differences in opinion to Justinian, and while she had at some point taken actions that harmed the Empire, Justinian and Theodora had genuinely loved and adored each other. After her death, Justinian could never bring himself to marry again, even though he would live for another 20 years. Instead of receiving reinforcements, and in the wake of his failures in Italy, Justinian, at the prompting of Bellisarius' wife, made the decision to recall the general. Setting aside his distrust, the grieving Justinian greeted the general with open arms, the two of them catching up and reconciling their relationship before the fame general announced his retirement from military life. For the rest of his life, Bellisarius would play a small role in politics, before briefly coming out of retirement 10 years later to fight one last battle against the Hunnic army that had crossed the Danube. In this battle, Bellisarius proved again for the last time his ability to win battles while being significantly outnumbered. While Justinian was distraught at the death of Theodora, not everything was bad news. The plague had died down in much of the empire that had been afflicted over the past several years. At last, there was some light at the end of the tunnel. There was room to recover, and recovery is exactly what happened. Justinian's emergency tax increases and budget cuts had been responsible for keeping the empire solvent. While some of these measures had been harsh, they were effective, and the empire was in much better shape financially. While it's difficult to imagine life ever being normal, after all that's happened, with the plague dying down, some degree of normalcy returned, and the empire got back to work. However, as they did so, it became apparent that yet another problem had presented itself. Across the countryside, the mass death had created considerable labor shortages. There were huge swaths of arable land simply waiting to be cultivated, but not enough people to actually tend to the fields. The rich landowners who controlled this land were dependent on its agricultural production in order to maintain and expand their fortunes, and as a result, an intense battle for labor began between them, with landowners trying to outmaneuver and outbid each other for farm labor. The wages for poor farm hands quickly got out of control as the poor were able to demand much more than they could prior to the plague. As wages increased, prices did too to compensate. Suddenly, there was a new economic issue on the empire's hands, wage and price inflation. Justinian attempted to stop this by enacting a wage limit, but, like others who tried to do such wage and price controls, it was more or less completely ignored. This wage war marked the beginning of a general agitation across the Mediterranean for more peasant rights, a process that would continue for centuries. Nevertheless, farm work and agricultural production gradually improved, and people were finally able to again put food on the table. In the wake of the mass death, famine, and economic collapse that preceded it, this agitating for higher wages seemed like a much easier bullet to take. Regardless of their new issues, things were looking up for the Byzantines and at least the country was getting back to work in whatever capacity it could. Meanwhile, across the Persian border, the plague had taken root and was causing a degree of devastation that the Byzantines understood only too well. In the wake of the catastrophe unfolding in Persia, the king of Lausica saw an opportunity to revolt against Persian rule. Wait, hold on, I know just what you're thinking. The Lausic king? Didn't that guy literally invite the Persians into his country just a few years ago? Wasn't he literally petitioning Kostra to go to war with Justinian so that he could be with the Persians instead? Well, yes, viewers, you got that right. The same king who had just revolted against the Byzantines seemed to have a bad case of buyers or mors and became discontented with his new Persian overlords. Now, he wanted to revolt against the Persians and go back to the Byzantines. Like, dude, we really don't care who you're going to prom with. Just make up your mind already. But in all fairness to the Lausic king, his kingdom was situated as a proxy state between two world powers who could both crush him. He needed to maintain some kind of friendly relations with at least one of them to prevent the other from doing just that. But he also needed to limit infringements on his kingdom's autonomy. Lausica was precariously balanced between a rock and a hard place, and both powers tried curtailing the rights of Lausica at any opportunity, so it makes sense why the Lausic king was constantly on the lookout for a better deal. Nevertheless, the king was now begging Justinian to take him back and send an army to kick the Persians out. With the Byzantines recovering and the Persians now worse for the wearer, Justinian felt obliged to reopen the war with Persia. However, this time they would do their best to make sure all the fighting was done in Lausica. There would be no repeat of Castro's raids in Syria. With that, Justinian ordered his forces into Lausica to support the rebellion. Unfortunately, the same issues plagued the Byzantine forces that had during the invasion of Armenia. The Byzantine commanders were not unified, disorganized, and most certainly not of Bellosarius's caliber. Even in the Persians weakened state, they were still more than a match for the Byzantines, and what ensued was another bloody stalemate, which featured a series of failed assaults on fortified positions. The Byzantine forces would attempt to besiege a Persian fortress, only to have it broken up by a reinforcing army. The Persians would then launch an offensive of their own, only to be defeated and pushed back. This bloody campaign, just like the one in Italy, would continue for years. Personally, when reading these accounts and when hearing the stories of these wars in both the east and the west, my mind would continually drift to imagery of the First World War, a force of men led by incompetent commanders assaulting fortified positions over and over again, only to be repulsed each time, the area and communities around becoming more devastated with each attack. On the occasion they were victorious, it would be at a horrific cost as thousands of men who had family, friends, dreams, and passions lay dead in a field, all for a few hundred yards of land. The folly that is war would be humorous, or not so horrifyingly tragic. Nevertheless, Justinian felt compelled to continue his wars and realize his ambitions for storing the Roman Empire. The biggest problem for him was that he just couldn't find a general who he felt was both competent and trustworthy. He truly felt that he was balancing on the edge of a knife when it came to his military leadership, and he did not want an ambitious general to set themselves up as emperor. In his handling of the war effort, his first priority was to get the ball moving again in Italy. It had been years now since Tila had retaken most of it, and Justinian wanted to finally put the Ostrogoths down. Justinian realized that his policy of dividing the commands of his armies was not going to work, and began to look for another solution. But finding a good general was easier said than done. Justinian tried a couple options that for one reason or another just didn't work out, until finally, almost three years after Belisarius had retired, Justinian found his man, Narciss. The reason Narciss was the solution is because Narciss, as it turns out, was a eunuch, and an elderly one at that. Because eunuchs cannot have children, they were seen as more trustworthy, so Narciss had been involved with the government for some time. If you remember back to the Nica riots, Narciss was the one to bribe the blue team to leave the hippodrome before the massacre, and he had served as a general for a brief stint in the first Italian campaign. Justinian felt that Narciss, in his old age, and with no prodigy, was unlikely to revolt against him, and was comfortable giving him a supreme command. So that was it. Narciss was appointed commander, and as the Byzantine recovery continued, Justinian was able to scrape together a force of around 30,000 men for him, which included a lot of mercenaries and allies from outside the Empire. Almost 10 years after the pandemic began and nearly 16 years after the war in Italy began, Narciss set out to finish what Balasarius had started. With his new army, Narciss marched up and around the Dalmatian coast and into Italy. After reaching Ravenna, Narciss travelled south towards his target, Rome. He witnessed the legacy of the Roman Empire personally as his army marched to the eternal city using the old Roman highway system that had been in use for centuries. The roads. It seemed as though they were representatives of the thousand-year-old Empire facilitating Narciss and calling out to him as he marched to restore Rome to its rightful place within the Empire. His army was strong. He knew Tatila could not simply ignore him. He would be drawn out and forced to face the Byzantine army. At a town called Tagene, the two armies met. Tatila saw that he was clearly outnumbered and needed to think of something fast. He had a couple thousand reinforcements on the way, but they were still a ways away and Tatila was vulnerable. The Byzantine army had infantry deployed on a nearby hill and its main force was positioned between the hill and a forest. They had the numbers and the high ground. He had his cavalry try to surprise the Byzantines and overtake the hill, but they were easily beaten back. After, he tried to open a dialogue with the Byzantines, pretending to negotiate terms all the while preparing an attack, but Narciss was always on guard and did not budge. Realizing this wouldn't work, Tatila tried delaying the Byzantines with other antics until the reinforcements could arrive. Finally, they did just that and Tatila felt much more comfortable in his new position, but he wanted to wait until the best opportunity to strike. After some time, he noticed some movement in the Byzantine camp. It looked as though they were preparing to eat and rest. This is my best chance, Tatila thought, as he ordered his troops to mount their horses. Adrenaline, surging through his body, he ordered his cavalry to charge towards the Byzantine center, with himself leading the way. The horsemen were bolstered with confidence as they followed their leader into battle, but as they charged, their confidence was abruptly sapped from each man as they saw movement on both of their flanks in the forest and on the hill. Byzantine archers were filling the flanks, they had trapped them. Tatila had miscalculated and it was too late to change course. As soon as they saw the archers, Tatila's cavalry force was met with a flurry of arrows. The horsemen left and right, horses and men were struck, stumbling and collapsing underneath themselves. It was a slaughter. The Gothic cavalry force was decimated and they routed. Narcies ordered his army forward, and when the rest of the Gothic troops saw what happened, they scattered. Tatila's entire army disintegrated before Narcies' eyes. It's not clear what happened or when, but Tatila was found among the dead. The Gothic king had been killed in the battle. Narcies had won a complete victory. With victory in his grasp, Narcies continued on to Rome. The sacred city would soon be his, marking the fifth time Rome had changed hands during this war. He would fight one last battle against Tatila's successor, but it was futile. The Goths had been vanquished. Though it was the end of the war, it was just the beginning of the occupation and Narcies would spend another 8 years mopping up the remaining Gothic forces as they continued to resist in a regular fashion. In the east, the deadlocked conflict in Lausica continued even after Tatila's death. Time and time again, Persian and Byzantine forces would clash, each of them attacking each other in turn. Finally, a huge Persian force was defeated by the Byzantines as they attempted to capture the Lausic town of Vassis. Out of time and out of supplies, the Persians had to retreat from Lausica before the winter set in, giving over control to the Byzantines. Eventually thereafter, Castro sued for peace and recognized Lausica as a client state of Justinians in exchange for a small annual sum of gold. Breathe, inhale, hold, exhale. The emperor watched as the birds flew over the sea. Now at peace, finally victorious after a near 30 years of constant war, the emperor felt as free as the birds overhead. He had visited these walls many times, and now he felt almost as if he were as old as they were. As his other companions had come and gone, as Theodora had lived and died, as the empire's enemies had raided and pillaged, the walls had been his companion through it all, protecting him and keeping his enemies away. The one time the walls had failed him was perhaps the most crucial. The one enemy the walls did not keep out nearly brought the empire to its knees. Woe to those touched by the plague. What could have been had it not struck? On next week's episode, join us as our series comes to an end. What happened after the wars? Were the Byzantines able to hang on to their conquests? What was the full impact of the plague? To find out, tune in next week to Contagions. Be sure to subscribe to stay tuned and like the video to help the channel grow. Over on Patreon, your host Sean Sharp will be regularly posting content that delves deeper into some of the subjects we would like to explore further but don't have time for on the YouTube channel. Go check it out and become a patron for more content and to support the channel. That's it for us today, we'll catch you next time viewer.