Authari

Authari (c. 540 – 5 September 590, Pavia) also known as Agilolf, was king of the Lombards from 584 to his death. After his father, Cleph, died in 574, the Lombardic nobility refused to appoint a successor, resulting in ten years interregnum known as the Rule of the Dukes.

In 574 and 575 the Lombards made the blunder of invading Provence, then part of the kingdom of Burgundy of the Merovingian Guntram. Guntram, allied with his nephew, the king of Austrasia, Childebert II, invaded Lombardy. The Austrasian army descended the valley of the Adige and took Trent. The Byzantine emperor, Tiberius II, began to negotiate an alliance with the Franks and the Lombards, fearful of a pincer movement, elected another king.

In 584, they elected Duke Authari and ceded him not only the capital of Pavia, but half of their ducal domains as a demesne. He spent his entire reign in wars with Franks, Greeks, and rebels. His first major test was the quashing of the rebel duke Droctulf of Brescello, who had allied with the Romans and was ruling the Po valley. Having expelled him, he spent most of the rest of his six years on the throne fighting the exarch of Ravenna, Smaragdus, or the Merovingian kings.