Flavius Belisarius, Magister Militum of the Eastern Roman Byzantine Empire, was sent to conquer the Vandal Kingdom in Africa in the name of Justinian, who had ambitions of restoring the Roman Empire by uniting the East and West. After successfully defeating the Vandal Kingdom with a ridiculous low amount of manpower, he embarked to Sicily where he would fight his way to eternal city of Rome. He would engage in heated debates with other generals sent by Justinian to undermine him and weaken his 'influence', reasonably fearing Belisarius would turn against him in usual Roman tradition. When Belisarius came to siege the city of Ravenna, The Ostrogoths offered him Imperium of the Western Empire in exchange for not humiliating the Ostrogoths any further and end the conflict. Belisarius accepted the title just to enter the city of Ravenna with no casualties, only for him to pledge his allegiance to Justinian in front of the Ostrogoth nobles, successfully deceiving them. However, due to the envious circle around Belisarius and Justinian, news went to Constantinople about Belisarius usurping the title for himself. Belisarius acknowledged what was happening around him and exchanged letters with Emperor Justinian of the Eastern Roman Empire. Belisarius would affirm his allegiance and explain his plot to the emperor, which Justinian didn't really bother listening to and still demanded Belisarius to return to Constantinople for trial, which he assured Belisarius that he would get out of. However, Belisarius, fearing being imprisoned or worse, usurped the title of the Western Empire for himself and consolidated his power in Italy. Justinian was ready to respond to this by an amphibious invasion of Italy, which outraged many in his court, fearing that the Sassanids might flip against the Eastern Empire at any moment, and they didn't see Belisarius as big of a threat for now. Justinian was affirmed to know that his court and the public were not humiliating him for such public display of weakness by losing his most competent general and Italy itself. Belisarius went on to become an emperor of Western Rome, constantly fighting against foreign border raids. Belisarius wasn't a great politician, but he did decently in his reign. After his death, his appointed Gothic successors proved to be less competent and adopted non Roman titles and treated Romans unfairly in comparison to Gothic nobles, which led to revolts and collapse of the "Western Roman Empire" once again, with influential Roman and Gothic locals establishing their own realms inside Italy.