Theodoric the Great with Retainer and Bodyguard
One of the great imponderables of late Roman history is the counter-factual scenario under which Justinian did not launch an attack on Ostrogothic Italy in order to “reconquer” the territory for the empire, the course of which destroyed the carefully curated Western Roman state maintained by the Ostrogoth Theodoric the Great after he had overthrown the military coup-leader Odoacer, at the behest of Justinian’s predecessor, the Emperor Zeno.
If the Ostrogothic Kingdom had survived, it is probable that not only would the Italian economy have prospered, but the Roman Senate would have continued along with its landowning class, the Lombard invasions would in likelihood have been turned back, and Italy could have continued as a recognisable Roman state, owing allegiance to the Emperor in Constantinople and maintained the territorial integrity of the province. Ostrogothic Italy could indeed have become a strong ally of the Eastern Empire, supporting continued imperial influence in the West, far more effectively than the weak military garrison that Italy became under the Byzantines.
There are many candidates for the date that marks the point at which the Western Roman Empire fell, the deposition of the boy-Emperor Romulus Augustulus by the general Odoacer in 476, being the most commonly accepted, but my favourite is the point at which the last Ostrogoths were expelled from Italy by the Eastern Roman general, Narses in 551, which saw a final end to the genuine attempts of Ricimer, Odoacer and Theodoric to maintain Italy as a viable unified Western Roman entity. The ultimate defeat of the Goths saw the beginning of the slide of Italy into early medieval impoverishment and division not fully rectified for another 1400 years.
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