Buccelin marches north in the spring of 554, by which time the Frankish army, infected by dysentery, has been reduced to about thirty thousand men.
The imperial army, with eighteen thousand men (including a contingent of Goths under Aligern), marches south to meet them at Casilinum on the banks of the River Volturno.
Narses sends a cavalry force under Chanaranges to destroy the supply wagons of the Franks.
Outmaneuvering Buccelin, he chooses a disposition similar to that at Taginae.
After a frontal assault on the Imperial center, the Franks and the Alamanni are annihilated.
Butelinus and most of his men perish, while Roman casualties are small.
Agathias gives the impossibly low number of eighty dead Romans, while claiming that only five barbarians survived.
Whatever the true numbers, it is a magnificent victory for Narses, and signals the final triumph of the Empire in Italy.
Meanwhile, in the north, Lothair and his army are struck by an epidemic.
