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Justinian believed that his efforts to reconquer the territories of the former Western Roman Empire was an almost religious duty. He was determined as a Christian Emperor to restore the Roman Empire as he believed that it was ordained by God to achieve the ultimate Christianization of the world .<ref>Evans, p 87</ref>. He was himself a Latin speaker and was born shortly after the Fall of the Roman Empire. His campaigns in Italy, Spain and North Africa looked to have at least partially restored the Empire, of Augustus and Marcus Aurelius. <ref>George, p 201</ref>

While impressive, his conquests proved fleeting. Most of Italy was lost in the reign of his successor Justin I. The Lombards, a German tribe, occupied most of Italy by the 570 AD and only the extreme south of Italy and Sicily remained in Byzantine hands. The territories that were taken in the south-west of Spain were lost to the Visigoths within 50 years. While the new North African province was to prosper for another century and it was eventually captured by the Muslims and became part of the Umayyad Empire. The conquests of Justinian were mostly ephemeral and apart from some possession in Italy, and he failed in his efforts to restore the Roman Empire, to its former extent and power. This failure was mainly because caused by his aims did not consider inability to understand the new political realities of the 6th century AD in the Mediterraneanregion.