Exarchate of Ravenna

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Exarchate of Ravenna Exarchatus Ravennatis Εξαρχάτον της Ραβέννας
Exarchate of the Byzantine Empire
584–751
Map of the Exarchate of Ravenna within the Byzantine Empire in 600 AD.
Capital	Ravenna
Government
Exarch
• 584–585	Decius (first)
• 726–751	Eutychius (last)
Historical era	Early Middle Ages
• Lombard invasion of Italy	568
• Foundation of Exarchate	584
• Death of Eutychius	751
Preceded by Succeeded by Praetorian prefecture of Italy Republic of Venice Kingdom of the Lombards Papal States Longobardia

The Exarchate of Ravenna (Latin: Exarchatus Ravennatis; Greek: Εξαρχάτον τής Ραβέννας), also known as the Exarchate of Italy, was an administrative district of the Byzantine Empire comprising, between the 6th and 8th centuries, the territories under the jurisdiction of the exarch of Italy (exarchus Italiae) resident in Ravenna. The term is used in historiography in a double sense: "exarchate" in the strict sense denotes the territory under the direct jurisdiction of the exarch, i.e. the area of the capital Ravenna, but the term is mainly used to designate all the Byzantine territories in continental and peninsular Italy. According to the legal sources of the time, these territories constituted the so-called Provincia Italiae, on the basis of the fact that they too, until at least the end of the 7th century, fell under the jurisdiction of the exarch and were governed by duces or magistri militum under him.

The exarchate was established around 584, the year in which the presence of an exarch in Ravenna is attested for the first time, as a consequence of the perpetual state of war with the Lombards (who in the meantime had stolen approximately two thirds of the Byzantines of continental and peninsular Italy), which necessarily entailed the militarization of Byzantine Italy. The necessities of war pushed military commanders to centralize powers, thus depriving the civil authorities which are no longer attested by sources starting from the second half of the 7th century. Thus the separation of civil and military powers introduced by Diocletian and Constantine disappeared. Byzantine Italy was divided into various military districts governed by duces or magistri militum dependent on the exarch of Italy, the military governor with full powers chosen by the emperor from among his generals or trusted officials to govern and defend the remaining territories italics. These districts gradually evolved into increasingly autonomous duchies.

Starting from the second half of the 7th century, the autonomist tendencies of the local aristocracies and the ever-increasing temporal political role of the Church of Rome led to a progressive weakening of imperial authority in Italy. Byzantine Italy had now fragmented into a series of autonomous duchies outside the effective control of the exarch, whose authority no longer extended beyond the Ravenna area. Fiscal and religious conflicts between the Papacy and Byzantium accelerated the disintegration of the exarchate. The armies, recruited from the local population, tended to take the pontiff's defense, and did not hesitate to turn on the exarch if he plotted against the Papacy. The Lombards took advantage of this to extend their conquests in an attempt to unify Italy under their domination. The exarchate fell in 751 with the Lombard conquest of Ravenna at the hands of the Lombard king Aistulf.^[1]