Totila's Reconquest and the Sack of Rome

December 546 · Rome and central Italy Theater

December 546

The able and charismatic Totila rallied the Goths and swept back across Italy, retaking city after city from the neglected, unpaid Byzantine garrisons. In 546 he starved Rome into surrender and, in fury, drove out its population and threw down stretches of its walls — the city was left all but deserted. Belisarius, sent back with pitifully few men, could only claw the ruin back briefly.

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