4. Foreign Wars.—Justinian was engaged in three great foreign wars, two of them of his own seeking, the third a legacy which nearly every emperor had come into for three centuries, the secular strife of Rome and Persia. When Justinian came to the throne, his troops were maintaining an unequal struggle on the Euphrates against the armies of Kavadh I. (q.v.). After some campaigns, in which the skill of Belisarius obtained considerable successes, a peace was concluded in 533 with Chosroes I. (q.v.). This lasted till 539, when Chosroes declared war. The emperor was too much occupied in the West to be able adequately to defend his eastern frontier. Chosroes advanced into Syria with little resistance, and in 540 captured Antioch. The war continued with varying for tunes for four years more in this quarter ; while in the meantime an even fiercer struggle had begun in the mountainous region in habited by the Lazi at the south-eastern corner of the Black Sea. (See CoLcHis.) When after two-and-twenty years of fighting no substantial advantage had been gained by either party, Chosroes agreed in 562 to a peace which left Lazica to the Romans, but under the dishonourable condition of their paying 30,000 pieces of gold an nually to the Persian king. Thus no result of permanent impor
tance flowed from these Persian wars, except that they greatly weakened the Roman Empire, increased Justinian's financial em barrassments, and prevented him from prosecuting with sufficient vigour his enterprises in the West (See further PERSIA: Ancient History, "The Sassanid Dynasty.") These enterprises had begun in 533 with an attack on the Vandals, in Africa. Belisarius landed without opposition, and de stroyed the barbarian power in two engagements. North Africa from beyond the strait of Gibraltar to the Syrtes became again a Roman province, although the Moorish tribes of the interior maintained a species of independence; and part of southern Spain was also recovered for the empire. The ease with which so im portant a conquest had been effected encouraged Justinian to attack the Ostrogoths of Italy. Justinian began the war in 535, taking as his pretext the murder of Queen Amalasuntha, daughter of Theodoric, who had placed herself under his protection, and alleging that the Ostrogothic kingdom had always owned a species of allegiance to the emperor at Constantinople, a claim for which there was some foundation. For the Italian campaign see