Origins and family edit

John was the nephew of Vitalian, consul for 520 and magister militum praesentalis of Emperor Justin I, who was assassinated, probably at the instigation of Justinian, the powerful nephew and later successor of Justin.^[1]

Gothic War edit

In 537 John sailed from Constantinople to Italy with 8,000 Thracian troops to reinforce the army of Belisarius who engaged in the Gothic War against the Ostrogoths of King Vitiges. Aftering landing in Taranto, he reached Rome and was besieged by the Goths in December 537. He had brought with him men and supplies essential to continue to resist the siege for a long time.^[2]

When the Siege of Rome was in its final stages, Belisarius sent John to occupy Picenum.^[3] The Roman population of Ariminum (present-day Rimini) invited John to take the town; John estimated that the position of Ariminum between Rome and the Gothic capital of Ravenna would cause Vitiges to lift Rome's siege and retreat if it were occupied.^[3][4] Therefore, John took Ariminum,^[3] ignoring other Gothic garrisons in the region.^[5] According to Procopicus, the Goths retreated from Ariminum to Ravenna "as soon as they learned that [John's] army was approaching",^[4] and Mataswintha, Vitiges' wife, opened negotiations to betray Ariminium and marry John, whose reputation was bolstered by the town's capture.^[6] As expected, the Goths retreated from Rome. Predicting that the Goths would attempt to besiege John at Ariminum,^[3] Belisarius sent Ildiger and Martinus to replace John,^[3][7] but once they arrived, John refused to leave, staying in Ariminum with the infantry reinforcement. Shortly afterwards, Vitiges besieged the town, in an encounter known as the Siege of Ariminum.^[3][8] After unsuccessfully attempting to use a siege ladder, Vitiges began to starve the town.^[3][9] John sent a letter to Belisarius informing him that his army would need to surrender in seven days.^[5] Belisarius split his army into four groups,^[3] three of which^[10][3] were sent to the vicinity of Ariminum, approaching from different angles.^[3] Deceived into believing the size of the Byzantine army was much larger han it actually was, the Goths lifted their siege on 24 July 358.^[5] After the siege, John said that his gratitude laid solely with Narses as he supposedly forced Belisarius to relieve him:^[3] whereas Belisarius wanted to besiege Osimo and Ancon, leaving John to defend Ariminum alone, Narses insisted that it would be a mistake to lose Ariminum simply to punish John.^[5] The Byzantine leadership would grow more divided and ineffective as a result.^[3]

When the rivalry between Narses and Belisarius and their disagreement on how to wage the war generated divisions in the army, John sided with Narses, following him in Emilia, which the eunuch intended to conquer even without Belisarius's authorization. John contributed to the conquest of Emilia along with other supporters of Narses, but the divisions of the army that had formed due to the discord between Belisarius and Narses contributed to the fall of Milan to the Goths, persuading Justinian to recall Narses and give back the unitary command to Belisarius (539).

After the conquest of Ravenna and the recall of Belisarius to Constantinople (540), John remained in Italy. Due to a unitary command after the recall of Belisarius, the Goths were able to recover under the leadership of their new king Totila. When the latter arrived to besiege Florence, the general at the head of the garrison of Florence, Justinus, asked for help from the imperial commanders in Ravenna, who intervened in force forcing Totila to lift the siege by retreating in the direction of Mugello, where he routed the imperial army due to the false news of the killing by one of its bodyguards of John, which panicked the Byzantine army. John fled to Rome, where he took refuge and remained for the next two years, until 544, when he was replaced by Bessas by order of Belisarius, who had returned to Italy. While in Rome, John expelled the Arian priests, fearing that they might conspire something for the benefit of the Goths.

In 545 he was sent by Belisarius to Constantinople to ask for reinforcements, but John lingered a long time, marrying Justina, the daughter of Germanus. According to the Secret History of Procopius, Theodora did not want Justina to marry so John, by marrying her, would have attracted the hatred of the empress, to the point that John, fearing that Theodora could order Antonina (Belisarius's wife) to kill him, when he returned to Italy he was careful not to reach Belisarius and his wife in Rome.^[11] On the other hand, John managed to recover Lucania and Bruzio for the Empire.

In 550, when Narses obtained the command of the Roman troops, John joined him to balance the elderly eunuch's lack of experience. Narses reached Ravenna in the summer of 552, and within a year was able to break the resistance of the last Ostrogothic king, Teia, and to put an end to the war (late 552 or early 553).^[12]

John appears as a character in the time travel novel Lest Darkness Fall, by L. Sprague de Camp.

• Bury, John Bagnell (1958). History of the Later Roman Empire: From the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian, Volume 2. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-486-20399-9.
• Martindale, John R., ed. (1992). The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire: Volume III, AD 527–641. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 652–661. ISBN 0-521-20160-8.
• Hughes, Ian. (2009). Belisarius: The Last Roman General. Westholme Publishing
• Heather, Peter. (2018). Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian. Oxford University Press
• Hodgkin, Thomas. Italy and her invaders: imperial restoration. Forgotten Books
• Procopicus (1919). Procopicus: History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. Translated by Bronson Dewing, Henry. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press – via Project Gutenberg.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)