BUCKHANNON, WEST VIRGINIA, December 9th, 2025
On December 9th, 536, the eastern Roman general Flavius Belisarius rode through the Asinarian Gate of Rome at the head of a relatively small imperial army, taking the city without a street-by-street fight and restoring it to direct Roman rule for the first time in about sixty years. Our earliest narrative of that day comes from Procopius of Caesarea, an adviser on Belisarius’s staff, who records that on the ninth day of the twelfth month of Emperor Justinian’s eleventh year, imperial troops entered Rome as the Ostrogothic garrison slipped out the opposite side of the city.
According to Procopius, the political situation in Italy had been crumbling for some time. The Ostrogothic kingdom that had ruled the peninsula since the late fifth century was divided, and the fall of Naples to Belisarius’s forces sent a clear signal that the empire based in Constantinople was serious about retaking its old western heartlands. In the wake of that siege, Roman citizens and church leaders in the city, including Pope Silverius, quietly decided that a negotiated handover to Justinian’s general was safer than waiting for a brutal siege on the Tiber, and they sent envoys to invite Belisarius in.
At the same time, the Ostrogothic king Witiges had already withdrawn north toward Ravenna, leaving a garrison of roughly four thousand men under the commander Leuderis to hold Rome. Procopius and later historians drawing from him describe how Gothic soldiers, realizing that the population did not support them and that a better supplied imperial army was closing in, chose to abandon their post. They marched quietly out through the Flaminian Gate on the north side of the walls while Belisarius’s own force, about five thousand strong with cavalry and allied Hunnic and Moorish troops, entered on the south side by the Asinarian Gate near the Lateran.
Leuderis himself refused to flee. In the account preserved by William Gordon Holmes from Procopius’s text, the old Gothic commander stayed at his assigned post and was captured when Belisarius’s men came in. The keys to the city were taken, and both Leuderis and the keys were sent on to Emperor Justinian in Constantinople as the formal sign that Rome, at least on that day, was again an imperial possession.
The Asinarian Gate where Belisarius entered still stands in Rome’s Aurelian Wall. Modern topographical studies of the gate and surrounding fortifications confirm the basic outline given in the sixth-century sources: an older gate flanked by towers near the later Porta San Giovanni, on the southeastern stretch of the circuit. These works show why taking that entry point quietly, instead of battering at multiple gates, mattered so much to the small imperial force now responsible for defending twelve or thirteen miles of wall.
For contemporary observers, the symbolism was just as important as the tactics. When Holmes summarizes the scene from Procopius, he notes that the ninth of December in the year 536 fell almost exactly sixty years after Rome had first fallen under the control of “barbarians led by Odovacar.” Justinian’s government, ruling from Constantinople, could now claim that the old capital of the West once more answered directly to a Roman emperor. Procopius underlines the point by remarking that the city had not seen imperial troops inside its walls since the late fifth century, and that after this entry it would again be defended in the emperor’s name.
Belisarius did not treat the capture as a finished victory. The same first-hand tradition reports that he immediately set about repairing the walls, strengthening towers, digging ditches in front of vulnerable sectors and arranging supply lines, knowing that a much larger Ostrogothic army would soon be back. Within a few months, that fear was justified when Witiges returned and the long siege of Rome in 537 and 538 began. By then, however, the quiet entry on December 9th had already done its work. Without a devastating sack or a day of mass bloodshed inside the city, imperial authority had been formally restored, and both sides were committed to a much larger struggle over the future of Italy.
In other words, this day in history is remembered not because of a dramatic battlefield clash at the gates of Rome but because of what the written sources insist upon again and again. A single coordinated movement through two gates, a captured commander, a packet of keys on their way to Constantinople and a simple line in Procopius’s narrative marked the moment when Rome changed hands and Justinian’s campaign to “return Rome to Rome” became a reality rather than a theory.
At the Appalachian Post, every history article is built on one standard: what can be proven through verifiable first-hand sources. We rely on original documents, eyewitness accounts, military records, government archives, and contemporary writings from the period being studied. We do not rely on legend, hearsay, or modern reinterpretations unless clearly identified as secondary commentary. Our goal is to present the past as it actually appears in the surviving evidence: clearly, accurately, and without speculative narrative, so readers can engage history based on authentic documentation rather than modern assumptions.
Primary First Hand Sources
• Procopius of Caesarea, History of the Wars, Gothic War books, including the passages describing Belisarius entering Rome through the Asinarian Gate, the Ostrogoths departing through the Flaminian Gate, the date of entry, and the surrender of Leuderis with the keys of the city.
• Liber Pontificalis, Life of Pope Silverius, drawn from papal archival material describing Silverius’s forced elevation by Theodahad, Justinian’s order to send Belisarius into Italy, and the circumstances surrounding Belisarius’s entry into Rome.
• Archaeological and topographical surveys of the Porta Asinaria within the Aurelian Walls, used by modern historians but based on direct physical examination of the ancient Roman gate identified in Procopius’s report.
Secondary Attribution Based Sources
• William Gordon Holmes, The Age of Justinian and Theodora, vol. 1, pages 310 to 314, which summarizes Procopius and quotes his account of the December 9th entry, the gates involved, and the surrender of Leuderis.
• Catholic Encyclopedia entries on Silverius and Theodahad, summarizing papal documents and the early sixth century political context.
• Modern historical analyses of the Gothic War based explicitly on Procopius and the Liber Pontificalis for troop estimates, gate identification and campaign chronology.
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