Editing Totila (section)

==Aftermath==
For the Byzantines, the war officially ended in 554, which was followed by the broad promulgation of Justinian's [[Pragmatic Sanction]]. One of the stipulations Justinian made clear in this document was the validation of all edicts made by "legitimate" kings and those from the Roman people or Senate, while those from Totila—deemed a "most abominable tyrant"—were rendered void.{{sfn|Heydemann|2016|p=39}} The ''Justinian Code'' was also retroactively made applicable throughout Italy.{{sfn|Heydemann|2016|pp=39–40}} Socially, the country was disrupted by the actions of the Goths Witigis, Totila, and Teia, who had collectively fractured the Senate's social standing and the servant-based economy by liberating slaves and ''coloni''. Over the longer term, this also meant that western senators were seen as inferior to their eastern counterparts, which in some ways further contributed to the Byzantine's ascendancy.{{sfn|Radtki|2016|pp=143–144}}{{efn|As scholar Christine Radtki relates, "While the senatorial elite had been visible in so many aspects of public life and had upheld Roman traditions, the Gothic War deprived it of economic means, and thus of the foundation for its political and social engagement. So, with the end of the Ostrogothic reign on Italian soil, the oldest Roman institution was irreparably damaged."{{sfn|Radtki|2016|p=144}}}}

Nevertheless, the country was so ravaged by the war that any return to normal life proved impossible and Rome, having suffered through seventeen-years' worth of bitter fighting during the Gothic wars, had been besieged and captured multiple times.{{sfn|Lançon|2001|pp=42–43}} French historian Bertrand Lançon described this period of late antiquity as Rome's "darkest hours."{{sfn|Lançon|2001|p=43}} In 568, only three years after Justinian's death, most of the country was conquered by [[Alboin]] of the [[Lombards]], who absorbed the remaining Ostrogothic population,{{sfn|Hughes|2009|p=243}} becoming the heirs of the Ostrogoths in Italy itself.{{sfn|Wolfram|1988|p=323}}