In this period Rome was
occupied and reoccupied no less than four times, and, as I have said,
in 546 was left utterly desolate. Nevertheless, when for the second
time Belisarius was recalled, in 548, he left things much as he had
found them. He had at least--and with what scarcity of men and money
we may see in his letters to the emperor--opposed and perhaps stemmed
the overwhelming Gothic advance. At his departure the imperialists
held Ravenna, Rome (but after the sack of 546), Rimini, Spoleto,
Ancona, and Perugia. But before he arrived in Constantinople, Perugia
had fallen; in the same year, 549, a mutiny in Rome gave the City to
the Goths and Rimini was betrayed. In the year 551, the year of
Narses' appointment as general-in-chief in Italy and the opening of
the third period, only Ravenna and Ancona, with Hydruntum (Otranto)
and Crotona in southern Italy, remained to the empire.
In that year, 551, however, everywhere the Gothic cause began to fail.
In a sea-fight off Sinigaglia the imperial forces disposed of the
Gothic sea power and relieved Ancona, which was in grave danger.
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