Chronicle 1 part 4/4

But while Narses remained at Ariminum, Belisarius, approaching Rome to winter, receives by surrender Urbinum, and Urbevetus, and the island of the Bolsena lake. (A.D. 539.) In the second indiction, Appion being sole consul. Narses returns to Constantinople. Belisarius, besieging Auximum, enters it in the seventh month, and likewise Fesulae. The Goths, having entered Milan, demolish the walls, and having gained the plunder, kill all the Romans. They carry off the commanders Mundila and Paulus to Ravenna. Theudibert, king of the Franks, arriving with a great army, ravages Liguria and all Aemilia. He overthrows and plunders the town of Genoa, situated on the shore of the Tyrrhenian sea. His army thereafter labouring with disease, in order to help it, making a pact with Belisarius, he returns to Gaul.

Germanus is summoned from Africa to Constantinople. Solomon is again sent thither. Calluc, Master of the Soldiers, fighting first prosperously with the Gepids, in a second battle falls unhappily. (A.D. 540.) In the third indiction, Justin the younger being sole consul. The Parthians, entering Syria, overthrow many cities: against whom Germanus, taking up arms, leads with him his son Justin, who was also consul, in the very fasces of office. Antioch the great, having been plundered, is demolished by the Persians. Belisarius enters Ravenna, taking with him king Vitiges and the queen, and all the wealth and the more noble of the Goths, and returns to the emperor, being summoned by Marcellus the count. Solomon, fighting successfully in Africa, drives out the rebels.

The Goths dwelling beyond the Po, with Oraio nephew of Vitiges and Heldebadus as their leaders, hearing that king Vitiges with the queen and the wealth of the palace, and likewise that the Goths had been driven from their own seats and carried off to the East by Belisarius, resolve to rebel, setting up for themselves Heldebadus as king: against whom, to wage war, Bessa the patrician went up from Ravenna to Placentia, Constantinus being directed by the emperor from Dalmatia to Ravenna, to take charge of the army. (A.D. 541.) In the fourth indiction, Basilius being sole consul. The Parthians persisting as enemies, Belisarius undertook the expedition of the East, Germanus having returned to the royal city. The Goths, Heldebadus having been slain, ordain Erarius as king for themselves. Solomon is killed in Africa:

Sergius succeeded in his place as commander of the war and governor of the province. (A.D. 542.) In the fifth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius. The soldiers, secretly entering Verona, while in gaping greed they wrangle over the plunder, are driven from the city to their own disgrace by the Goths coming out from their hiding places. The Goths, king Erarius having been slain, made Totila over to the kingdom. Who, to the ruin of Italy, soon crosses the Po, and at Faventia, a city of Aemilia, overcomes the Roman army, routs the commanders, occupies Caesena and Urbinum, Mons Feretris and Petrapertusa, and ranging hither and thither lays Italy waste. Again in provisioning Tuscany, at Mucellium, through his commanders Ruderit and Wiliarid and Bleda, he overcomes the Roman army. In which battle Bessa the patrician escapes wounded:

but the rest, fleeing, were saved here and there. (A.D. 543.) In the sixth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius for the second year. Totila lays waste Campania, and overthrowing the walled cities, besieges Tibur through his men. A great mortality lays waste the soil of Italy, the East now and Illyricum being equally afflicted. In the East, the Persians still holding on in conflict with our men, Sergius in Africa is troubled by rebellions with Stotzas and the Moors. (A.D. 544.) In the seventh indiction, after the consulship of Basilius for the third year. Totila besieges Firmum and Asculum, and having invaded Naples lays it desolate, and Tibur. But Rome is besieged from afar, in which John the Master of the Soldiers had been in command.

Belisarius being stationed in the East, John, the patrician and praetorian prefect of consular rank, is exiled, and his house is given to Belisarius. (A.D. 545.) In the eighth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius for the fourth year. Totila entered Firmum and Asculum under oath: the Roman soldiery having been dismissed with their possessions, he exercised his cruelty upon the Romans, and stripped and slew them all. In Africa John, rushing upon the tyrant Stotzas, slays him, and is himself killed by his armour-bearer. In which tyranny a certain John, chosen, is called Stotzas the younger. Belisarius, recalled from the East, falling into offence and grave peril, and lying subject to envy, is again sent back to Italy.

Who, coming, directs Bessa to Rome, sends John to the emperor. Totila, having laid waste Picenum, and fighting at Auximum, conquers. And ranging thence through Tuscany, he destroys Spoletium, and held the towns of Asisium and Clusium, and besieges Perusia. (A.D. 546.) In the ninth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius for the fifth year. Pope Vigilius, the fifty-ninth [perhaps sixtieth] from the apostle Peter, summoned by the emperor, departs from Rome, and comes to Sicily. Totila, having occupied Lucania and Bruttium, overthrows Naples. He besieges Rome. Sergius is summoned from Africa, and Areobindus, having received the niece of the emperor, is sent there as judge. In the East a treaty with the Parthians is entered into through Constantianus, Master of the Soldiery, and the army returns to Constantinople. (A.D. 547.) Indiction...

...the tenth, after the sixth consulship of Basilius. The Goths send an embassy to the emperor through the bishop of the city of Asisium, named Aventius. John the Master of the Soldiers hastens to Italy. Belisarius, having gone out from Ravenna, comes to Dyrrachium: and thence, John being directed to Calabria, he himself proceeded through Sicily to Rome. Pope Vigilius entered Constantinople on the eighth day before the Kalends of February. Totila, by the treachery of the Isaurians, enters Rome on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of January, and overthrows the walls, burning some houses with fire, and took all the goods of the Romans as plunder; these same Romans he led away captive into Campania. After which devastation, for forty days or more Rome was so desolate that no human being remained there, but only beasts.

Thence coming, Belisarius restores part of the walls, and when Totila came to battle, he resists. And in the same year the emperor's niece returns from Africa a widow, Areobindus having been slain by the tyrant Gontharius, who, scheming with the younger Stotzas, had killed him. But Artabanes, having seized both, kills Gontharius, and sends the same John, the younger Stotzas, bound to the prince. After a few days John is sent into Africa, and Artabanes, being summoned, received the presidial mastership. (A.D. 548.) In the eleventh indiction, after the seventh consulship of Basilius. John the Master of the Soldiers, plundering the Goths in Campania, frees not a few senators: who afterwards suffers a nocturnal attack of Totila through the treachery of his own Bulgars... (A.D....

...549.) In the twelfth indiction, after the eighth consulship of Basilius. (A.D. 550.) In the thirteenth indiction, after the ninth consulship of Basilius. (A.D. 551.) In the fourteenth indiction, after the tenth consulship of Basilius. In these times in Africa the Moors were subdued through John the patrician. (A.D. 552.) In the fifteenth indiction, after the eleventh consulship of Basilius. At this time Justinian Augustus made Narses, his eunuch chartularius and cubicularius, commander of the soldiery, and sent him into Italy. Who, having engaged in battle, victor by the grace of God, slew Totila, and, with the Lombards also aiding, exterminated the nation of the Goths in Italy.

In these times, when the count Bucelinus, long since sent with his companions by Theudebert king of the Franks, had for some years infested Italy and Sicily, and had often overcome the Roman army, at last his army, worn down by a flux of the bowels, was conquered and routed in battle by Narses, and he himself, the commander, was slain. And not long after, his companion the commander Omnirugus, with the rest of the Goths to whom he had joined himself, was destroyed. (A.D. 553.) In the first indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, for the twelfth year. Theodebald, king of the Franks, dies, and king Chlothar, paternal uncle of his father Theudebert, who had now reigned forty-four years, received his kingdom and his wife Vanderada.

In that same year Chlothar himself subdued with great slaughter the Saxons rebelling beside the river Weser, and laid waste Thuringia which he had overrun. (A.D. 554.) In the second indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, for the thirteenth year. Pope Vigilius, at last released from exile by the Roman emperors and by Narses, when he had begun to return to Rome, being stricken in Sicily by the disease of the stone, died: and soon, conveyed to Rome, he was buried at St Marcellus on the Salarian Way. In his stead was ordained pope Pelagius, the sixty-second [perhaps sixty-first], who sat eleven years, ten months. Who, being accused by the Roman people of faction against Vigilius, having celebrated litanies together with Narses, ascending the ambo at St Peter's, and the Gospel having been placed upon his head, purged himself of the charge by oath. (A.D. 555.) Indiction...

...the third, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, for the fourteenth year. At this time the Saxons, again rebelling against Chlothar, when they were attacked by him in hostile fashion, and offered him half of their possessions in satisfaction; but the army of the Franks, refusing this and fighting against his will, was, with great slaughter from them, beaten down and sought the safety of flight. (A.D. 556.) In the fourth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, for the fifteenth year. In these days Chramnus, rebelling against his father Chlothar with the consent of his uncle Childebert, disturbs the kingdom of the Franks with sedition. The Saxons, by the faction of Childebert, made plunderings in Francia. Childebert lays waste the Champagne of Rheims. (A.D. 557.) In the fifth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, for the sixteenth year. In Britain Bridus is made king of the Picts.

Childebert, king of the Franks, dies about these times, and is buried at Paris in the Basilica of St Vincent which he had built; and his brother Chlothar, taking up his kingdom, obtained the whole monarchy of his father's realm. (A.D. 558.) In the sixth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, for the seventeenth year. Chramnus, fleeing at this time into Britain from his father Chlothar, whom he had offended with many evils, and his father pursuing him there, was conquered and captured in battle alongside king Conobor, and was burned alive together with his wife and daughters. At which time too the basilica of St Martin at Tours, the rebels fleeing to it, was burned with fire. (A.D. 559.) In the seventh indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, for the eighteenth year. (A.D. 560.) In the eighth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, for the nineteenth year. (A.D. 561.) Indiction...

In the ninth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, the twentieth year (A.D. 562). In the tenth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, the twenty-first year (A.D. 563). In the eleventh indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir illustris, the twenty-second year (A.D. 564). In the twelfth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, the twenty-third year (A.D. 565). In the thirteenth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, the twenty-fourth year (A.D. 566). In the fourteenth indiction, after the consulship of Basilius, vir clarissimus, the twenty-fifth year.