Childhood is rooting for Justinian's conquest of Italy

Childhood is rooting for Justinian's conquest of Italy.
Adulthood is realizing that a strong, romanized Ostrogothic Kingdom made mlre sense.

Childhood is idolizing Justinian at all. Adulthood is realising he set himself up for failure by not dealing with the Sassanids first.

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Was there any chance at all ? I always saw it a corrosive war that would weaken both empires.

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How? He settled for peace with the Sassanids for almost all his reign. It was his retarded successor who fucked everything up

Word. The Ostrogoths were somewhat Romanophiles themselves, they had a good thing going despite the Byzantine wars. It was those Lombard savages who fucked everything up and kept most of Italy in the dark for centuries.

Vandals literally did nothing wrong

Justinian invaded Italy because the rightful King was assassinated along with his mother and regent. She was a Romanboo and insisted on having the boy educated in a Pro-Roman style which got him killed, she was assassinated not long after. While its possible it was just a dynastic fued/succession troubles and that is why they were killed the ones who killed her used her Roman sympathy as a weapon to turn others against her.

Justinian invaded after she was killed, they were pen pals so its possible it was an emotional decision. I do like to imagine a world where he had sent her military support before she was killed, even financial aid would could have been used to strengthen her position. Had she and her son lived its entirely possibe Italy could have been integrated in to Rome diplomatically or even that Justinian elevated her son to Western Roman Emperor. Its sad how things turn out.


Its probably Roman propaganda used to justify invasion but:
>According to the Eastern Roman historian Procopius, it is believed that Amalasuntha and Justinian I had a very close diplomatic relationship. More specifically, Procopius believed that Amalasuntha was thinking about handing over Italy to Justinian around the time of her death.

>romanized Ostrogothic Kingdom
lol
in the dark ages

>supporting G*rmanics
>bashing the last true Roman Emperor
You are scum.

>The Ostrogoths were somewhat Romanophiles themselves, they had a good thing going despite the Byzantine wars
nah, fuck them, they destroyed rome

There hadn't been a true Roman emperor since Diocletian.

Yep.

Unfortunately for Italy, the Byzanshits (and the Popes) had to step in and fuck Italy up.

Childhood is idolizing Justinian I
Adulthood is realizing Justinian II made more sense

t. Constantine

At that point the so-called "Fall of Rome" looked more like a civil war than a conquest.

Also, remember the one who deposed the last Roman emperor was Odoaker, not Theodoric (which by the way called himself Flavius Teodoricus).

A few centuries more and they would have been fully romanized, as the iberians, gauls and illyrians were.

I too used to idolize Justinian's wars. But the more you read the more you realize those wars proved disastrous for everyone, and were a big factor for the Muslim infestation of Africa, Sicily, etc.

who took your nose, who took your nose? :)

Italy got fucked up something fierce, but North Africa was a relatively small campaign that yielded good results. Had he stopped there the overall impact would likely have been a net positive for the empire.

this was also meant for
I'm sure it was mostly a justification to invade Italy. Which rise the following question - why would you need a justification to start a war to reclaim what it's supposedly your rightful clay?

Childhood is idolizing Heraclius.

Adulthood is realizing that him converting to Islam and thus keeping the empire whole would have made more sense

...

Childhood is idolizing the Ostrogoths
Adulthood is realizing Odoacer made more sense.

that would have never worked, easily over 90% of the population unironically believed devils would stab their butts with pitch forks in the afterlife if they became apostates