Duke of Rome
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Ducatus Romanus Δουκάτον Ῥώμης |
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| Duchy of the Byzantine Empire | |||||
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| Capital | Rome | ||||
| History | |||||
| • | Conquest by Emperor Justinian I | 533 | |||
| • | Establishment of the Papal States | 751 | |||
| Today part of |
 Italy Vatican City
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The Duchy of Rome (Latin: Ducatus Romanus) was a state within the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna. Like other Byzantine states in Italy, it was ruled by an imperial functionary with the title dux. The duchy often came into conflict with the Papacy over supremacy within Rome. The duchy was founded by the conquest of Emperor Justinian I in 533 AD. After the founding of the Papal States in 751, the title of Duke of Rome fell into disuse.
The Duchy of Rome was founded by Justinian in approximately 533 AD as part of the Byzantine conquest of Italy. The Duchy was secured in the outcome of the Gothic War. The city of Rome itself was the subject of multiple battles before the campaign ended in Byzantine victory and possession of most of the Italian peninsula.
Within the exarchate, the two chief districts were the country about Ravenna where the exarch was the centre of Byzantine opposition to the Lombards, and the Duchy of Rome, which embraced the lands of Latium north of the Tiber and of Campania to the south as far as the Garigliano. There the Pope led the opposition to the Lombards.
Because of his restoration activities, Justinian has sometimes been called the "last Roman" in modern historiography. This ambition was expressed by the partial recovery of the territories of the defunct western Roman empire. His general, Belisarius, swiftly conquered the Vandal kingdom in North Africa, extending Roman control to the Atlantic Ocean in 533. Subsequently Belisarius, Narses, and other generals conquered the Ostrogothic kingdom, restoring Dalmatia, Sicily, Italy, and Rome to the empire after more than half a century of rule by the Ostrogoths.
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