People mark Justinian's reconquest as one of the catalysts

>>2176437
Justinian's wars destroyed the illusion and compromise of the various barbarian kingdoms around the Mediterranean acting as Roman governors of a still existing Roman state. It wasn't about stretching his armies too thin, it was about making it clear that the barbarians couldn't be Rome because they were fighting for survival against Rome.

>>2176453
You're right, but it's not like those people were paying him taxes. Also, in the end, this might not have been a problem had Justin not been a shit.

Justin could have been a prodigy and that still wouldn't have repaired the damage. What was once Roman shipping and communications and correspondence darting across all sides of the Mediterranean was now either Byzantine or not. The plague ruined any chance to reverse this as well.

Justinian wasted countless resources and Belisarius's genius on reconquering Roman lands even though those lands never gave anything to the Byzantine empire.

>>2176437
No. The plague was far more damaging than anything he did, and nothing he could have done would have mattered in the face of it.

>>2176453
It was inevitable anyway. The imperial government in Constantinople exerted no real authority regarding even the neighboring Ostrogoths, much less anything further west.

Justinian was as ambitious as a Roman should have been but the stars weren't aligned for it this time.

>>2176962
/thread
It literally took hundreds of years to recover from the plague.