多迪拉

Totila, original name Baduila (died 1 July 552), was the penultimate King of the Ostrogoths, reigning from 541 to 552. A skilled military and political leader, Totila reversed the tide of the Gothic War, recovering by 543 almost all the territories in Italy that the Eastern Roman Empire had captured from the Ostrogothic Kingdom in 540.

A grandnephew of Theudis, sword-bearer of Theodoric the Great and king of the Visigoths, Totila was elected king by Ostrogothic nobles in the autumn of 541 after the deaths of two former Ostrogothic kings, Ildibad and Eraric. Both had been killed by the Gothic nobility for attempting to surrender to the Romans. Totila proved himself both as a military and political leader, winning the support of the lower classes by liberating slaves and distributing land to the peasants. After a successful defence at Verona, Totila pursued and defeated a numerically superior army at the Battle of Faventia in 542. Totila followed these victories by defeating the Romans outside Florence and capturing Naples. By 543, fighting on land and sea, he had reconquered the bulk of Rome's southern territories, but not the capital. Rome still held out, and Totila appealed unsuccessfully to the Senate in a letter reminding them of Rome's loyalty to his predecessor Theodoric the Great. In the spring of 544, the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I sent general Belisarius to recapture Italian territory, but Totila captured Rome in 546 from Belisarius, which was depopulated after a yearlong siege. When Totila left to fight the Byzantines in Lucania, south of Naples, Belisarius retook Rome and rebuilt its fortifications.

After Belisarius retreated to Constantinople in 549, Totila recaptured Rome again and went on to complete the reconquest of Italy and Sicily.……

Early life

"Totila" was the nom de guerre of a man whose real name was Baduila, as can be seen from the coinage he issued. "Totila" is the name used by the Byzantine historian Procopius, who accompanied the Byzantine general Belisarius during the Gothic War, and whose chronicles are the main source of information for Totila.……

Initial victories

Eraric's murder and replacement with Totila suggested to the Byzantines—since Eraric favoured negotiation with Imperial power—that this Gothic successor likely preferred war and so a Byzantine expeditionary force of twelve thousand men was sent north from Ravenna to Verona to stave off any possible impending attack.

Taking Naples

Procopius reported (Wars, 7.9–12) that during the next two campaigning seasons, Totila was able to take several strategically important centres, including the fortress at Auximum, which allowed him to cut off land communications between Rome and Ravenna.……

Siege of Rome

Realizing the gravity of the situation in 544, Justinian issued an edict known as the Pragmatic Sanction, designed to rebuild a working government at Ravenna, and that year he also sent Belisarius back to Italy to counter the growing Gothic threat.……

Death

Totila's next exploit was the conquest and plunder of Sicily, after which he subdued Corsica and Sardinia and sent a Gothic fleet against the coasts of Greece. By this time the emperor Justinian I was taking energetic measures to check the Goths, assembling a large army and sending his navy against Totila's fleet, which it defeated in 551.……

Aftermath

For the Byzantines, the war officially ended in 554, which was followed by the broad promulgation of Justinian's Pragmatic Sanction.……