Romanus was Exarch of Ravenna (589-596/7).

In 589 he became Exarch in place of the discredited Smaragdus

Smaragdus

Smaragdus was Exarch of Ravenna twice .During his first tenure, Smaragdus made an alliance with the Franks and Avars against the perennial foes of the Exarchate, the Lombards, and appeared poised to extinguish the Lombard power before it had been fully established...

. In his first year Romanus recovered the cities of Modena

Modena

Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....

, Reggio

Reggio Emilia

Reggio Emilia is an affluent city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 170,000 inhabitants and is the main comune of the Province of Reggio Emilia....

, Parma

Parma

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

, Piacenza

Piacenza

Piacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza...

, Altinum

Altinum

260px|thumb|Remains of the Roman [[decumanus]].Altinum is the name of an ancient coastal town of the Veneti 15 km SE of the modern Treviso, northern Italy, on the edge of the lagoons...

, and Mantua

Mantua

Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...

 from the Lombards

Lombards

The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

.

In 592 Pope Gregory I

Pope Gregory I

Pope Gregory I , better known in English as Gregory the Great, was pope from 3 September 590 until his death...

 appealed to the Exarch for help in assisting Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, then under Lombard attack, but Romanus thought it more prudent to remain in central Italy. The Pope was forced to make peace with the Duchy of Spoleto

Duchy of Spoleto

The independent Duchy of Spoleto was a Lombard territory founded about 570 in central Italy by the Lombard dux Faroald.- Lombards :The Lombards, a Germanic people, had invaded Italy in 568 and conquered much of it, establishing a Kingdom divided between several dukes dependent on the King, who had...

 to save Naples. Shortly afterwards, the Lombards occupied Perugia

Perugia

Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area....

, causing Romanus to send an army to retake Umbria

Umbria

Umbria is a region of modern central Italy. It is one of the smallest Italian regions and the only peninsular region that is landlocked.Its capital is Perugia.Assisi and Norcia are historical towns associated with St. Francis of Assisi, and St...

. The Lombard King Agilulf

Agilulf

Agilulf called the Thuringian, was a duke of Turin and king of the Lombards from 591 until his death.-Biography:A relative of his predecessor Authari, he was selected king on the advice of the Christian queen and widow of Authari, Theodelinda, whom he then married...

, noticing this, crossed into central Italy and even threatened Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. Frustrated with the lack of support he received from the Exarch (R.A. Markus describes him as a "large thorn in Gregory's side"), the Pope tried to circumvent Romanus' authority by appealing to the Byzantine Emperor Maurice

Maurice

Maurice is a given name used as a name or surname. It originates as a French name derived from the Roman Mauritius and was subsequently used in English speaking countries as well. It is of Latin origin, meaning "dark-skinned, Moorish", and might refer to:...

 in 595, but this proved fruitless, given the fact that Maurice saw more emphasis in maintaining a link between Ravenna and the Balkans, where he kept the Avars and Slavs at bay

Maurice's Balkan campaigns

Maurice's Illyricum campaigns were a series of military expeditions conducted by emperor of Constantinopolis Maurice in an attempt to defend the Illyrian provinces of the East Roman Empire from Avars and Slavs...

.

Romanus died soon after this, and was succeeded by Callinicus, who proved to be more conciliatory to Pope Gregory.