Explanation: The Emperor Justinian was ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. He embarked (not personally) on a campaign to reconquer Italy, amongst other holdings of the Western Empire. In doing so, he waged a years-long war that contributed greatly to Italy’s population halving and the urban culture of Italy being utterly demolished by constant sieges and starvation, the same culture the Gothic barbarians he ‘liberated’ them from had allow to persevere. Rome itself had its population drop to a tenth of what it was immediately prior to the war.

Surely this is for the good of the Res Publica and the people of Rome, right?