(re)Claiming the West: Justinian’s Expedition in Italy

The year 533 marked the beginning of a series of military expeditions undertaken by Constantinople aimed at reconquering the “lost west”. After North Africa, Italy, with its powerful symbolism, became the main target of Justinian’s generals. According to Procopius’s history, the wars started as a series of almost unplanned events, while modern scholars tend to emphasize its military nature. This paper analyses the complexity of the reasons which led to the war and how they were used to support it from different ideological and practical points. We will see how these points reflected a crucial aspect of Justinian policy and how this was portrayed by the propaganda and perceived by contemporaries. In the end, the paper will discuss if we can consider Justinian’s operations in the West as a restauratio of the Empire or a war of expansion that created new provinces without changing the eastern-focused trends of Constantinopolitan policies.