In the 6th century AD, during the reign of Emperor Justinian, the Roman Empire experienced an extraordinary revival, reconquering territories—including Italy, North Africa, and Rome itself—that had been lost to the "barbarians" a century earlier. Leading these campaigns was a brilliant Roman general named Flavius Belisarius, a skilled strategist, inspirational leader, pragmatist, and humane. This is the story of those campaigns, as recorded by Procopius, an eyewitness to many of them, as well as by other ancient historians, texts, and archaeological remains.