Byzantine Ravenna

After the devastating Gothic War (535-554 AD), the Roman armies of the east regained the imperial heartland of Italy for the empire, and so began the era of Byzantine Italy. Under the Western Romans, during Odoacer's rule, and Ostrogothic domination, the city of Ravenna (in the northeast part of the peninsula) had served as the administrative capital of Italy, and this remained so under Byzantine rule. Rome had ceased to be the capital of the empire more than two centuries earlier, but the city still maintained a historical and spiritual importance in the eyes of many Romans during that time; it was the mother city of the Roman Empire and the seat of the Papacy.

Ravenna itself had more recently been refurbished and improved under King Theodoric the Great, was more defensible than Rome, didn't have a Pope that could go against the emperor, and was closer to the imperial capital Constantinople, so it made a perfect provincial capital for the Byzantine governor. Even though the reconquest had brought Italy back into the Roman imperial orbit, the region remained a relative backwater ruined by decades of war, a war that proved more damaging than any of the barbarian invasions in the previous centuries.

Byzantine Roman rule over the whole peninsula was shattered when the Germanic Lombards invaded Italy in 568 AD and took much of the region away from the Romans. The disconnected Italian territories still under Roman rule were reorganized into the Exarchate of Ravenna.

Italy would not be politically united again for another 1,300 years.

These two coins, of Justinian and Tiberius Constantine, were struck in Ravenna during this time period.