The New International Encyclopædia/Narses

​NARSES, när′sē̇s (?–568). A celebrated eunuch statesman and general of the Byzantine Empire. He was an Armenian by birth, and was probably sold as a slave in childhood. He rose by successive steps to the post of grand chamberlain to the Emperor Justinian. In 532 he aided in suppressing the ‘Nika’ rebellion. In 538 he was sent to Italy to act in concert with Belisarius (q.v.) in the war against the Goths. After gaining some successes, Narses came into conflict with Belisarius and was recalled to Constantinople in 539. After Belisarius had been recalled, Narses was appointed to the chief command in Italy. Near Tagina in 552, after a desperate engagement, the Goths were totally defeated, and their King, Totila, slain. In the following year Teja (q.v.) was defeated near Sorrento. Narses took possession of Rome, and completely extinguished the Gothic power in Italy. He was appointed exarch of Italy in 553. He fixed his court at Ravenna, and continued till the death of Justinian in 565 to administer the affairs of Italy with vigor and ability. The only blot on the character of his administration is the avarice with which he is charged by his contemporaries. His exactions pressed heavily on the exhausted resources of the population, though their severity may be in some degree palliated by the splendor and utility of the public works on which he partly expended the public resources. The Romans, on the accession of Justin, complained of the exactions of Narses, and that Emperor is said to have deprived him of his office. He is accused of secretly intriguing with Alboin, King of the Lombards, to incite a new invasion of Italy, at the same time submissively offering his services to the Emperor for the purpose of repelling the invasion. This account, however, seems improbable; and as Narses died at Rome in 568, just on the eve of the Lombard invasion, no light is thrown upon this story by the actual events of the war. Consult: Bury, Later Roman Empire, vol. i. (London and New York, 1889); Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, vols. iv. and v. (Oxford, 1885 and 1895); Gibbon, Decline and Fall, edited by Bury (London, 1896–1900). See Goths; Justinian.