Justin has begun experiencing intermittent bouts of insanity after learning of the fall of Dar’a, and in 574 the empress Sophia, acting on his behalf, enters into peace negotiations with the Persians.

In 574 also, Constantinople concludes a treaty stipulating that the Romans pay a yearly tribute to the Avars.

Induced by Sophia to adopt as his son the general Tiberius, Justin confers on him the title of caesar, as Tiberius II Constantine, in December 574.

Although nominally still emperor, Justin will live hereafter in retirement until his death.

The Roman-Persian war that had begun five years earlier ends in 576 with Persia’s defeat at Melitene.

Justin's successor, crowned by him Tiberius II Constantinus on September 26, 578, nine days before the death of Justin himself, removes the taxes and, choosing between his enemies, awards subsidies to the Avars while taking military action against the Persians.

Constantinople and Persia now enter into peace negotiations to settle the Armenian question.

Tiberius, to increase his popularity, immediately begins spending money that Justin had reserved in his treasury.

Development and learning have flourished during Khosrau’s forty-eight-year reign and Persian literature has enjoyed a Golden Age.

Khosrau seems about to make a settlement on Constantinople's terms when he dies in the early spring of 579.

His eldest son and successor kills his brothers, according to the oriental fashion, and takes the throne as Hormizd IV.

He rejects Tiberius's proposals, however, refusing to surrender any of the territories conquered by his father, and hostilities resume.

One Gregory, born around 540 to a wealthy patrician family in Rome, had chosen to follow a public career.

At the age of 30 he had been named prefect of Rome but, unfulfilled by worldly success, had soon embraced a life of piety and contemplation.

He had become a monk in about 574 in one of the seven monasteries he had constructed with his own money, following the Rule of Saint Benedict, and has spent several years cloistered there until summoned around 578 by Pope Benedict to serve as cardinal deacon in Rome.

Famine had followed the devastation wrought by the Lombards, and from the few words the Liber Pontificalis has about Benedict, it appears that his death on July 30, 579, comes in the midst of his efforts to cope with these difficulties.

His successor, Pope Pelagius II, seemingly a native of Rome, is of Gothic descent, as his father's name was Winigild.

Pelagius makes Gregory permanent ambassador at the court of Emperor Tiberius in Constantinople.

The Roman Senate sends an embassy to Constantinople with a gift (three thousand pounds of gold) to emperor Tiberius II Constantine, along with a plea for help against the Lombards.

This is its last recorded act.

Sirmium, which for much of the sixth century had been controlled by the Goths and then the Gepids, had returned to Roman control in 567.

The Avars, having appeared along the Danube at about the same time, had launched a first attack on Sirmium in 568, but were seen off by the local governor, Bonus.

The Romans had secured peace with the Avars through the payment of an annual tribute, which by 578 had risen to some eighty thousand solidi.

In 580, however, the Avar khagan, Bayan I, marches with his men to the right bank of the Sava river across from Sirmium, and begins construction of a bridge to cross it.

The city at this time is largely undefended and unprepared to withstand a siege, as most of the Roman forces are engaged in the east against Sassanid Persia.

The Roman emperor Tiberius II tries to forestall the Avar attack by diplomatic means, but when the khagan′s ambassador demands the surrender of the city, he replies that he would sooner give one of his two daughters as a bride to the khagan, rather than surrender Sirmium.

Tiberius manages to send in a few officers from Dalmatia to oversee the city's defense, while the envoy Thognis tries unsuccessfully to treat with Bayan.

The truce in Mesopotamia had come to an end in 578 and the main focus of the war shifted to this front.

After Persian raids in Mesopotamia, the new magister militum of the East, Maurice, who had first entered the imperial government as a notary, leads an effective campaign against Persia on the eastern frontier.

Mounting raids on both sides of the Tigris, captures the fortress of Aphumon and sacks Singara.

Khosrau had again sought peace in 579, but died before an agreement could be reached and his successor Hormizd IV had broken off the negotiations.

The Ghassanids score yet another victory over the Lakhmids in 580, while imperial raids again penetrate east of the Tigris.

Around this time, however, …

…the future Khosrau II is put in charge of the situation in Armenia, where he succeeds in persuading most of the rebel leaders to return to Sassanid allegiance, although …