565 Narses recalled to Constantinople by an insulting message from the empress. It is said that on account of this he invites the Lombard chief, Alboin, to seize Italy. Longinus succeeds him.
568 Invasion of Alboin, the king of the Lombards, assisted by the Gepids. He wrests northern and central Italy as far as the Tiber from the Byzantines. Venice, Ravenna, Genoa and the Liguria, Naples, and southern Italy except Beneventum, continue to form the exarchate, and their history is part of the eastern division of the empire. We must now distinguish three centres of rule in Italy—Pavia, the Lombard capital; Ravenna, the strong seat of the Byzantine exarchate, while at Rome, to which the Lombard power is only feebly extended, the pope is fast acquiring strength and influence.
THE LOMBARD KINGDOM OF ITALY (568-774 A.D.)
Alboin, before his invasion of Italy, had conquered the Gepids with the aid of the Avars (567). Then together with the Gepids he sweeps down upon Italy in 568.
571 Capture of Pavia after a three years’ resistance. Alboin makes it his capital.
573 Murder of Alboin by his wife, Rosamund, because, it is said, he attempts to make her drink from the skull of her father, the Gepid king. Cleph succeeds. He extends the Lombard conquests into southern Italy.
575 Cleph is assassinated, and the dukes do not elect another sovereign for ten years. No central power.
584 Election of Authari, son of Cleph, to the throne.
588 Smaragdus, the Byzantine exarch, forms a coalition of the Franks, Romans, and Avars to destroy the Lombards. It comes to nothing. The Lombards begin to be converted to orthodoxy.