Vitiges

King Theodahad of the Ostrogoths had ceded Provence and upper Alamannia to the Franks for gaining their support in the war.

The possession of Arles and …

…Marseilles is guaranteed to Childebert by his brothers.

The Goths at first negotiate, then stiffen their resistance.

One of their nobles, Vitiges, had married Amalasuntha's only surviving child, Mathesuentha, in a ceremony designed to bolster his claim to kingship over the Ostrogoths.

The panegyric upon the wedding in 536 is delivered by Cassiodorus, the praetorian prefect.

(It survives as a traditionally Roman form of rhetoric that sets the Gothic dynasty in a flatteringly Roman light.)

Theodohad had had been an elderly man at the time of his succession; following the imprisonment and death of his mother-in-law, he is murdered in autumn 536 at the order of Vitiges.

The Goths attempt to block Belisarius' armies as they enter the Italian peninsula, where the progress of East Roman arms, replenished by Hunnish and Slavic conscripts, proves slower.

Vitiges gathers together an army of forty-five thousand men and on March 2 initiates a siege of Rome, subjecting the city to privation and starvation.

Belisarius conducts a delaying action outside the Flaminian Gate, where he and a detachment of his bucellarii are almost cut off.

Vitiges sets up seven camps, overlooking the main gates and access routes to the city, in order to starve it out.

He blocks the Roman aqueducts that are supplying Rome with water, necessary both for drinking and for operating the corn mills.

Vitiges attempts to assault the northern and eastern city walls with four siege towers on March 21, but is repulsed at the Praenestine Gate, known as the Vivarium, by the defenders under the imperial generals Bessas and Peranius.

Vigilius gives Belisarius the letters from the Court of Constantinople, which recommend Vigilius himself for the Papal See.

False accusations—namely, that Pope Silverius had written to Vitiges offering to betray the city—now lead Belisarius to depose Silverius on a charge of treasonable correspondence with the Goths, and degrade him to the rank of a simple monk.

In his place, Vigilius is elected pope, consecrated and enthroned on March 29, 537.

Silverius finds his way to Constantinople, where Justinian entertains his complaint and sends him back to Rome, but Vigilius will eventually be able to banish his rival to the prison island Pandataria (Ventotene), where Silverius will spend the rest of his life in obscurity.

The Ostrogoths besieging Rome, among other acts of sabotage, destroy the five hundred-year-old Aqua Virgo aqueduct, putting an end to the three-centuries-old Baths of Caracalla, then try to use the underground channel as a secret route to invade the city.

Belisarius receives his promised reinforcements, sixteen hundred cavalry, mostly of Hunnic or Slavic origin and expert bowmen, on April 9.

Despite shortages, he begins raids against the Gothic camps and Vitiges is forced into a stalemate.

The Goths capture the Portus Claudii at Ostia, left unguarded by the Romans, in April.

Belisarius, forced to unload his supplies at Antium (modern Anzio), sends urgent messages for reinforcements to Constantinople.

Famine has brought the city to despair by June.

Belisarius sends his secretary Procopius to Naples for more reinforcements and supplies.

Vitiges arranges a three-month armistice for Gothic envoys to travel to Constantinople.

Belisarius brings his long-awaited reinforcements, namely three thousand Isaurians and eighteen hundred cavalry embarked in Ostia, along with a supply convoy, safely to Rome in November.

The Goths are forced to abandon the Portus Claudii.

Belisarius sends John "the Sanguinary" with a force of two thousand men towards Picenum in December to plunder the east coast of Italy.

He arrives at Ariminum (Rimini), where the local Roman population welcomes him.