What was the ultimate impact of Justinian's constant wars to rebuild the Byzantine Empire? Re-institution of Rome as the empire's capital Army spread thin and open to attack Sustained occupation of the old Western Roman provinces Growth and stability in the Byzantine Empire

Re-institution of Rome as the empire's capital

Explanation:

The Gothic war was a warlike conflict that took place between 535 and 554 in the territory of the Ostrogothic kingdom. It was the result of the decision of the Byzantine Roman Emperor Justinian I to reverse the events of a century ago, when the Eastern Roman Empire had lost its provinces in Italy first before Odoacer and then with Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths.

The Pyrrhic victory of the Gothic War absorbed the resources of the Byzantine Empire, which would have been much more necessary to be used against more immediate threats in the East. In Italy, the war devastated the urban society, which was sustained by the rural interior lands. Large Roman cities and allies would be abandoned, and Italy would fall into a long period of stagnation. The impoverishment of Italy and the scarcity of resources in the Empire made it impossible for the Eastern Romans to conserve Italy. The economic destruction of Italy was so complete that it took several centuries for the communes to recover. The imperial triumphs were fleeting: only three years after the death of Justinian, the continental Italian territories fell into the hands of a less civilized Germanic people, the Lombards, leaving from the exarcado of Ravenna a band of territory that extended through central Italy to the Tyrrhenian Sea and south to Naples, together with southern Italy, as the only imperial bastion. Justiniano also managed to preserve outside Italy an imperial dominion over southern Spain, but it would also be conquered by Germanic tribes a few decades later. After the Gothic War, the Empire would not harbor more serious expectations in the West. Rome itself would remain under imperial control until the exarchate of Ravenna was finally abolished by the Lombards in 751. Southern Italy would be under the control of the Roman Empire of the East (administered directly by Constantinople) until the late eleventh century.

I believe the answer is C, "Sustained occupation of the old Western Roman provinces."