de guerre of a man whose real name was Baduila, as can be seen from the coinage he issued. "Totila" is the name used by the Byzantine historian Procopius, who accompanied the Byzantine general Belisarius during the Gothic War, and whose chronicles are the main source of information for Totila. According to Henry Bradley, 'Totila' and 'Baduila' are diminutives of Totabadws. Born in Treviso, Totila was a relative of Theudis, king of the Visigoths, and a sword-bearer; a role that made for a good career among his kin. Totila was elected king of the Ostrogoths in 541 after the assassination of his uncle Ildibad and having surreptitiously engineered the assassination of Ildibad's short-lived successor, his cousin Eraric, in 541. Like Alaric I, Totila was quite young when he became king and was declared such by the Goths to recover dominion over the Italians. The official Byzantine position, adopted by Procopius and even by the Romanized Goth, Jordanes—writing just before the conclusion of the Gothic Wars—was that Totila was a usurper. According to historian Peter Heather, as Ildebadus's nephew, Totila nonetheless hailed from a prominent Gothic family, one that surrounded and "even occasionally challenged Theodoric's Amal dynasty". Initial victories Eraric's murder and replacement with Totila suggested to the Byzantines—since Eraric favored negotiation with Imperial power—that this Gothic successor likely preferred war and so a Byzantine expeditionary force of twelve-thousand men was sent north from Ravenna to Verona to stave off any possible impending attack. At Verona, a local sympathizer allowed a contingent of Roman soldiers into the city and while the Goths panicked at first, they soon realized that the main army was stopped some distance from the city. They promptly shut the gates and the Roman soldiers who had made it into the city escaped by leaping from the walls. Meanwhile the Roman forces retreated back to Faenza (Battle of Faventia), where Totila met them with 5,000 men to give battle, while another 300 Gothic archers surprised them from the rear, resulting in a rout, whereby the Goths acquired both prisoners and battle standards. Correspondingly, historian Thomas Burns claims that Totila was a gifted warrior and governor, and as an Ostrogoth ranks only second to Theodoric the Great himself. After securing victory in 542 at Faenza, Totila's Goths besieged the stoutly-defended Florence in an effort to open the Via Cassia to Rome but when Imperial forces arrived to relieve the