Theodahad's reign lasted barely two years before he was murdered on the orders of his own generals in 536 AD, following a catastrophic series of military reversals against Justinian's forces under Belisarius. He had seized the Ostrogothic throne after engineering the death of his co-ruler Amalasuntha, the daughter of Theoderic the Great — a move that handed Justinian the diplomatic pretext he needed to launch the Gothic War. These folles were struck during the opening phase of that conflict, which would ultimately consume the Italian peninsula for nearly twenty years.
Theodahad's reign lasted barely two years before he was murdered on the orders of his own generals in 536 AD, following a catastrophic series of military reversals against Justinian's forces under Belisarius. He had seized the Ostrogothic throne after engineering the death of his co-ruler Amalasuntha, the daughter of Theoderic the Great — a move that handed Justinian the diplomatic pretext he needed to launch the Gothic War. These folles were struck during the opening phase of that conflict, which would ultimately consume the Italian peninsula for nearly twenty years.