Prehistory A crucial source on Gothic history is the
Getica of the 6th-century historian
Jordanes, who may have been of Gothic descent. Jordanes claims to have based the
Getica on an earlier lost work by
Cassiodorus, but also cites material from fifteen other classical sources, including an otherwise unknown writer,
Ablabius. Many scholars accept that Jordanes' account on Gothic origins is at least partially derived from Gothic tribal tradition and accurate on certain details, and as a result the Goths are often identified as originating from south-central Sweden. According to Jordanes, the Goths originated on an island called
Scandza (Scandinavia), from where they emigrated by sea to an area called
Gothiscandza under their king
Berig. Historians are not in agreement on the authenticity and accuracy of this account. Most scholars agree that Gothic migration from Scandinavia is reflected in the archaeological record, but the evidence is not entirely clear. Rather than a single mass migration of an entire people, scholars open to hypothetical Scandinavian origins envision a process of gradual migration in the 1st centuries BC and AD, which was probably preceded by long-term contacts and perhaps limited to a few elite clans from Scandinavia. Similarities between the
name of the Goths, some Swedish
place names and the names of the Gutes and Geats have been cited as evidence that the Goths originated in
Gotland or
Götaland. The Goths, Geats and Gutes may all have descended from an early community of seafarers active on both sides of the Baltic. Similarities and dissimilarities between the Gothic language and
Scandinavian languages (particularly
Gutnish) have been cited as evidence both for and against a Scandinavian origin. Scholars generally locate
Gothiscandza in the area of the
Wielbark culture. This culture emerged in the lower Vistula and along the
Pomeranian coast in the 1st century AD, replacing the preceding
Oksywie culture. It is primarily distinguished from the Oksywie by the practice of inhumation, the absence of weapons in graves, and the presence of
stone circles. This area had been intimately connected with Scandinavia since the time of the
Nordic Bronze Age and the
Lusatian culture. Its inhabitants in the Wielbark period are usually thought to have been Germanic peoples, such as the Goths and Rugii. Jordanes writes that the Goths, soon after settling
Gothiscandza, seized the lands of the
Ulmerugi (Rugii). in the area of northern
Poland occupied by the
Wielbark culture, which is associated with the Goths
Early history The Goths are generally believed to have been first attested by
Greco-Roman sources in the 1st century under the name
Gutones. The equation between Gutones and later Goths is disputed by several historians. Around 15 AD,
Strabo mentions the Butones,
Lugii, and
Semnones as part of a large group of peoples who came under the domination of the
Marcomannic king
Maroboduus. The "Butones" are generally equated with the Gutones. The Lugii have sometimes been considered the same people as the
Vandals, with whom they were certainly closely affiliated. The Vandals are associated with the
Przeworsk culture, which was located to the south of the Wielbark culture. Wolfram suggests that the Gutones were clients of the Lugii and Vandals in the 1st century AD. In 77 AD,
Pliny the Elder mentions the Gutones as one of the peoples of
Germania. He writes that the Gutones,
Burgundiones,
Varini, and Carini belong to the Vandili. Pliny classifies the Vandili as one of the five principal "German races", along with the coastal
Ingvaeones,
Istvaeones,
Irminones, and
Peucini. In an earlier chapter Pliny writes that the 4th century BC traveler
Pytheas encountered a people called the
Guiones. Some scholars have equated these
Guiones with the Gutones, but the authenticity of the Pytheas account is uncertain. In his work
Germania from around 98 AD,
Tacitus writes that the Gotones (or Gothones) and the neighbouring Rugii and
Lemovii were
Germani who carried round shields and short swords, and lived near the ocean, beyond the Vandals. He described them as "ruled by kings, a little more strictly than the other German tribes". In another notable work, the
Annals, Tacitus writes that the Gotones had assisted
Catualda, a young Marcomannic exile, in overthrowing the rule of Maroboduus. Prior to this, it is probable that both the Gutones and Vandals had been subjects of the Marcomanni. under
Hadrian, showing the location of the Gothones, then inhabiting the east bank of the
Vistula in modern-day Poland Sometime after settling
Gothiscandza, Jordanes writes that the Goths defeated the neighbouring Vandals. Wolfram believes the Gutones freed themselves from Vandalic domination at the beginning of the 2nd century AD. In his
Geography from around 150 AD,
Ptolemy mentions the Gythones (or Gutones) as living east of the Vistula in Sarmatia, between the
Veneti and the
Fenni. In an earlier chapter he mentions a people called the Gutae (or Gautae) as living in southern
Scandia. These Gutae are probably the same as the later
Gauti mentioned by Procopius. Wolfram suggests that there were close relations between the Gythones and Gutae, and that they might have been of common origin.
Movement towards the Black Sea Beginning in the middle of the 2nd century, the Wielbark culture shifted southeast towards the
Black Sea. During this time the Wielbark culture is believed to have ejected and partially absorbed peoples of the Przeworsk culture. This was part of a wider southward movement of eastern Germanic tribes, which was probably caused by massive population growth. As a result, other tribes were pushed towards the
Roman Empire, contributing to the beginning of the
Marcomannic Wars. By 200 AD, Wielbark Goths were probably being recruited into the
Roman army. According to Jordanes, the Goths entered
Oium, part of Scythia, under the king
Filimer, where they defeated the
Spali. This migration account partly corresponds with the archaeological evidence. The name
Spali may mean "the giants" in
Slavic, and the Spali were thus probably not
Slavs. In the early 3rd century AD, western Scythia was inhabited by the agricultural
Zarubintsy culture and the nomadic
Sarmatians. Prior to the Sarmatians, the area had been settled by the
Bastarnae, who are believed to have carried out a migration similar to the Goths in the 3rd century BC.
Peter Heather considers the Filimer story to be at least partially derived from Gothic oral tradition. The fact that the expanding Goths appear to have preserved their Gothic language during their migration suggests that their movement involved a fairly large number of people. By the mid-3rd century AD, the Wielbark culture had contributed to the formation of the
Chernyakhov culture in Scythia. This strikingly uniform culture came to stretch from the
Danube in the west to the
Don in the east. It is believed to have been dominated by the Goths and other Germanic groups such as the
Heruli. It nevertheless also included
Iranian,
Dacian, Roman and probably
Slavic elements as well.
3rd century raids on the Roman Empire The first incursion into the Roman Empire attributable to Goths involved the sack of
Histria (near the then mouth of the Danube) in 238. The first documentary references to the Goths in the 3rd century call them
Scythians, as their base, known as Scythia, had historically been occupied by an unrelated people of that name. In the late 3rd century the name
Goths () is first mentioned. Ancient authors do not identify the Goths with the earlier Gutones. On the
Pontic steppe the Goths quickly adopted several nomadic customs from the Sarmatians. They excelled at
horsemanship,
archery and
falconry, and also became accomplished
agriculturalists and
seafarers.
J. B. Bury describes the Gothic period as "the only non-nomadic episode in the history of the steppe". Liebeschuetz sees the Goths of this period as "nomadic or semi-nomadic".
William H. McNeill compares the migration of the Goths to that of the early
Mongols, who migrated southward from the forests and came to dominate the eastern
Eurasian steppe around the same time as the Goths predominated in the west. From the 240s at the earliest, Goths were heavily recruited into the
Roman Army to fight in the
Roman–Persian Wars, notably participating in the
Battle of Misiche in 244. An
inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht in
Parthian,
Persian and Greek commemorates the Persian victory over the Romans and the troops drawn from ''gwt W g'rmny xštr
, the Gothic and German kingdoms, which is probably a Parthian gloss for the Danubian (Gothic) limes
and the Germanic limes''. Meanwhile, Gothic raids on the Roman Empire continued, In 250–51, the Gothic king
Cniva captured the city of Philippopolis and inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Romans at the
Battle of Abrittus, killing the Roman Emperor
Decius. This was one of the most disastrous defeats in the history of the Roman army. The first Gothic seaborne raids took place in the 250s. The first two incursions into
Asia Minor occurred between 253 and 256;
Zosimus attributes them to
Boranoi. This may not be an ethnic term but may just mean "people from the north". It is unknown if Goths were involved in these first raids.
Gregory Thaumaturgus attributes a third attack to Goths and Boradoi, and claims that some, "forgetting that they were men of Pontus and Christians", joined the invaders. An unsuccessful attack on
Pityus was followed in the second year by another, which sacked Pityus and
Trabzon and ravaged large areas in the
Pontus. In the third year, a much larger force devastated large areas of
Bithynia and the
Propontis, including the cities of
Chalcedon,
Nicomedia,
Nicaea,
Apamea Myrlea,
Cius and
Bursa. By the end of the raids, the Goths had seized control over
Crimea and the
Bosporus and captured several cities on the
Euxine coast, including
Olbia and
Tyras, which enabled them to engage in widespread naval activities. After a 10-year hiatus, the Goths and the
Heruli, with a raiding fleet of 500 ships, sacked
Heraclea Pontica,
Cyzicus and
Byzantium. They were defeated by the
Roman navy but managed to escape into the
Aegean Sea, where they ravaged the islands of
Lemnos and
Scyros,
broke through Thermopylae and sacked several cities of southern Greece (
province of Achaea) including
Athens,
Corinth,
Argos,
Olympia and
Sparta. Then an Athenian militia, led by the historian
Dexippus, pushed the invaders to the north where they were intercepted by the Roman army under
Gallienus. He won an important victory near the Nessos (
Nestos) river, on the boundary between
Macedonia and
Thrace, the Dalmatian cavalry of the Roman army earning a reputation as good fighters. Reported barbarian casualties were 3,000 men. Subsequently, the Heruli leader
Naulobatus came to terms with the Romans. After
Gallienus was assassinated outside
Milan in the summer of 268 in a plot led by high officers in his army,
Claudius was proclaimed emperor and headed to Rome to establish his rule. Claudius' immediate concerns were with the
Alamanni, who had invaded
Raetia and Italy. After he defeated them in the
Battle of Lake Benacus, he was finally able to take care of the invasions in the
Balkan provinces. In the meantime, a second and larger sea-borne invasion had started. An enormous coalition consisting of Goths (Greuthungi and Thervingi), Gepids and Peucini, led again by the Heruli, assembled at the mouth of river Tyras (Dniester). The
Augustan History and Zosimus claim a total number of 2,000–6,000 ships and 325,000 men. This is probably a gross exaggeration but remains indicative of the scale of the invasion. After failing to storm some towns on the coasts of the western
Black Sea and the
Danube (
Tomi,
Marcianopolis), the invaders attacked
Byzantium and
Chrysopolis. Part of their fleet was wrecked, either because of the Goth's inexperience in sailing through the violent currents of the
Propontis The fleet probably also sacked
Troy and
Ephesus, damaging the
Temple of Artemis, though the temple was repaired and then later torn down by Christians a century later, one of the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. While their main force had constructed siege works and was close to taking the cities of
Thessalonica and
Cassandreia, it retreated to the Balkan interior at the news that the emperor was advancing. Learning of the approach of Claudius, the Goths first attempted to directly invade Italy. They were
engaged near Naissus by a Roman army led by Claudius advancing from the north. The battle most likely took place in 269, and was fiercely contested. Large numbers on both sides were killed but, at the critical point, the Romans tricked the Goths into an ambush by pretending to retreat. Some 50,000 Goths were allegedly killed or taken captive and their base at
Thessalonika destroyed. Having been driven from the Danube by the Romans, the Thervingi invaded the territory of the Sarmatians of the
Tisza. In this conflict, the Thervingi were led by
Vidigoia, "the bravest of the Goths" and were victorious, although Vidigoia was killed. Jordanes states that Aoric was succeeded by
Geberic, "a man renowned for his valor and noble birth", who waged war on the
Hasdingi Vandals and their king
Visimar, forcing them to settle in Pannonia under Roman protection. Both the Greuthungi and Thervingi became heavily
Romanized during the 4th century. This came about through trade with the Romans, as well as through Gothic membership of a military covenant, which was based in Byzantium and involved pledges of military assistance. Reportedly, 40,000 Goths were brought by Constantine to defend
Constantinople in his later reign, and the Palace Guard was thereafter mostly composed of Germanic warriors, as Roman soldiers by this time had largely lost military value. The Goths increasingly became soldiers in the Roman armies in the 4th century leading to a significant
Germanization of the Roman Army. Without the recruitment of Germanic warriors in the Roman Army, the Roman Empire would not have survived for as long as it did. Goths who gained prominent positions in the Roman military include
Gainas,
Tribigild,
Fravitta and
Aspar.
Mardonius, a Gothic eunuch, was the childhood tutor and later adviser of Roman emperor
Julian, on whom he had an immense influence. The Gothic penchant for wearing
skins became fashionable in Constantinople, a fashion which was loudly denounced by conservatives. The 4th-century Greek bishop
Synesius compared the Goths to wolves among sheep, mocked them for wearing skins and questioned their loyalty towards Rome: A man in skins leading warriors who wear the
chlamys, exchanging his sheepskins for the
toga to debate with
Roman magistrates and perhaps even sit next to a
Roman consul, while law-abiding men sit behind. Then these same men, once they have gone a little way from the senate house, put on their sheepskins again, and when they have rejoined their fellows they mock the toga, saying that they cannot comfortably draw their swords in it. and
Valens on the Danube'',
Eduard Bendemann, 1860 In the 4th century, Geberic was succeeded by the Greuthungian king
Ermanaric, who embarked on a large-scale expansion. Jordanes states that Ermanaric conquered a large number of warlike tribes, including the Heruli (who were led by Alaric), the
Aesti and the
Vistula Veneti, who, although militarily weak, were very numerous, and put up a strong resistance. Jordanes compares the conquests of Ermanaric to those of
Alexander the Great, and states that he "ruled all the nations of Scythia and Germany by his own prowess alone." Interpreting Jordanes, Herwig Wolfram estimates that Ermanaric dominated a vast area of the Pontic Steppe stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea as far eastwards as the
Ural Mountains, encompassing not only the Greuthungi, but also
Baltic Finnic peoples, Slavs (such as the
Antes),
Rosomoni (Roxolani), Alans,
Huns,
Sarmatians and probably
Aestii (
Balts). According to Wolfram, it is certainly possible that the sphere of influence of the Chernyakhov culture could have extended well beyond its archaeological extent. Chernyakhov archaeological finds have been found far to the north in the
forest steppe, suggesting Gothic domination of this area.
Peter Heather on the other hand, contends that the extent of Ermanaric's power is exaggerated. Ermanaric's possible dominance of the
Volga-
Don trade routes has led historian
Gottfried Schramm to consider his realm a forerunner of the
Viking-founded state of
Kievan Rus'. In the western part of Gothic territories, dominated by the Thervingi, there were also populations of
Taifali, Sarmatians and other Iranian peoples,
Dacians,
Daco-Romans and other Romanized populations. According to
Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (The Saga of Hervör and Heidrek), a 13th-century
legendary saga,
Árheimar was the capital of
Reidgotaland, the land of the Goths. The saga states that it was located on the Dnieper river. Jordanes refers to the region as Oium. In the 360s,
Athanaric, son of Aoric and leader of the Thervingi, supported the usurper
Procopius against the
Eastern Roman Emperor Valens. In retaliation, Valens invaded the territories of Athanaric and
defeated him, but was unable to achieve a decisive victory. Athanaric and Valens thereupon negotiated a peace treaty, favorable to the Thervingi, on a boat in the Danube river, as Athanaric refused to set his feet within the Roman Empire. Soon afterwards,
Fritigern, a rival of Athanaric, converted to Arianism, gaining the favor of Valens. Athanaric and Fritigern thereafter fought a civil war in which Athanaric appears to have been victorious. Athanaric thereafter carried out
a crackdown on Christianity in his realm.
Arrival of the Huns (about 375) challenges the Huns'' by
Peter Nicolai Arbo, 1886 Around 375 the Huns overran the
Alans, an
Iranian people living to the east of the Goths, and then, along with Alans, invaded the territory of the Goths. A source for this period is the Roman historian
Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote that Hunnic domination of the Gothic kingdoms in Scythia began in the 370s. It is possible that the Hunnic attack came as a response to the Gothic expansion eastwards. Upon the suicide of Ermanaric (died 376), the Greuthungi gradually fell under Hunnic domination.
Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Hunnic thrust into
Europe and the Roman Empire was an attempt to subdue the independent Goths in the west. The Huns fell upon the Thervingi, and Athanaric sought refuge in the mountains (referred to as
Caucaland in the sagas).
Ambrose makes a passing reference to Athanaric's royal titles before 376 in his
De Spiritu Sancto (On the Holy Spirit). Battles between the Goths and the Huns are described in the "
Hlöðskviða" (The Battle of the Goths and Huns), a medieval Icelandic saga. The sagas recall that
Gizur, king of the
Geats, came to the aid of the Goths in an epic conflict with the Huns, although this saga might derive from a later Gothic-Hunnic conflict. Although the Huns successfully subdued many of the Goths who subsequently joined their ranks, Fritigern approached the
Eastern Roman emperor
Valens in 376 with a portion of his people and asked to be allowed to settle on the south bank of the Danube. Valens permitted this, and even assisted the Goths in their crossing of the river (probably at the fortress of
Durostorum). The Gothic evacuation across the Danube was probably not spontaneous, but rather a carefully planned operation initiated after long debate among leading members of the community. Upon arrival, the Goths were to be disarmed according to their agreement with the Romans, although many of them still managed to keep their arms. The
Moesogoths settled in Thrace and
Moesia.
The Gothic War of 376–382 invasion Mistreated by corrupt local Roman officials, the Gothic refugees were soon experiencing a famine; some are recorded as having been forced to sell their children to Roman slave traders in return for rotten dog meat. Enraged by this treachery, Fritigern unleashed a widescale rebellion in Thrace, in which he was joined not only by Gothic refugees and slaves, but also by disgruntled Roman workers and peasants, and Gothic deserters from the Roman Army. The ensuing conflict, known as the
Gothic War, lasted for several years. Meanwhile, a group of Greuthungi, led by the chieftains
Alatheus and Saphrax, who were co-regents with Vithericus, son and heir of the Greuthungi king
Vithimiris, crossed the Danube without Roman permission. The Gothic War culminated in the
Battle of Adrianople in 378, in which the Romans were badly defeated and Valens was killed. Following the decisive Gothic victory at Adrianople, Julius, the
magister militum of the
Eastern Roman Empire, organized a wholesale massacre of Goths in
Asia Minor,
Syria and other parts of the Roman East. Fearing rebellion, Julian lured the Goths into the confines of urban streets from which they could not escape and massacred soldiers and civilians alike. As word spread, the Goths rioted throughout the region, and large numbers were killed. Survivors may have settled in
Phrygia. With the rise of
Theodosius I in 379, the Romans launched a renewed offensive to subdue Fritigern and his followers. Around the same time, Athanaric arrived in Constantinople, having fled Caucaland through the scheming of Fritigern. Athanaric received a warm reception by Theodosius, praised the Roman Emperor in return, and was honoured with a magnificent funeral by the emperor following his death shortly after his arrival. In 382, Theodosius decided to enter peace negotiations with the Thervingi, which were concluded on 3 October 382. The Thervingi were subsequently made
foederati of the Romans in Thrace and obliged to provide troops to the Roman army.
Later division and spread of the Goths In the aftermath of the Hunnic onslaught, two major groups of the Goths would eventually emerge, the
Visigoths and
Ostrogoths. Visigoths means the "Goths of the west", while Ostrogoths means "Goths of the east". The Visigoths, led by the
Balti dynasty, claimed descent from the Thervingi and lived as
foederati inside Roman territory, while the Ostrogoths, led by the
Amali dynasty, claimed descent from the Greuthungi and were subjects of the Huns. A people closely related to the Goths, the Gepids, were also living under Hunnic domination. A smaller group of Goths were the
Crimean Goths, who remained in Crimea and maintained their Gothic identity well into the
18th century. In his biography of the
West Saxon monarch
Alfred the Great, the
Welsh historian
Asser states that Alfred's mother
Osburh was of partial Goth ancestry through her father Oslac.
Visigoths entering
Athens in 395. The depiction, including
Bronze Age armour, is anachronistic. The Visigoths were a new Gothic political unit brought together during the career of their first leader, Alaric I. Following a major settlement of Goths in the Balkans made by Theodosius in 382, Goths received prominent positions in the Roman army. Relations with Roman civilians were sometimes uneasy. In 391, Gothic soldiers, with the blessing of Theodosius I,
massacred thousands of Roman spectators at the Hippodrome in
Thessalonica as vengeance for the lynching of the Gothic general
Butheric. The Goths suffered heavy losses while serving Theodosius in the civil war of 394 against
Eugenius and
Arbogast. In 395, following the death of Theodosius I, Alaric and his Balkan Goths invaded Greece, where they sacked
Piraeus (the port of
Athens) and destroyed
Corinth,
Megara,
Argos, and
Sparta. Athens itself was spared by paying a large bribe, and the Eastern emperor
Flavius Arcadius subsequently appointed Alaric
magister militum ("master of the soldiers") in
Illyricum in 397. After failing to gain recognition from the Romans, Athaulf retreated into
Hispania in early 415, and was assassinated in
Barcelona shortly afterwards. He was succeeded by
Sigeric and then
Wallia, who succeeded in having the Visigoths accepted by Honorius as foederati in southern Gaul, with their capital at
Toulouse. Wallia subsequently inflicted severe defeats upon the
Silingi Vandals and the Alans in Hispania. Wallia was succeeded by
Theodoric I who completed the settlement of the Goths in
Aquitania. Periodically they marched on
Arles, the seat of the
praetorian prefect but were always pushed back. In 439 the Visigoths signed a treaty with the Romans which they kept. in 523 Under
Theodoric II the Visigoths allied with the Romans and fought
Attila to a stalemate in the
Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, although Theodoric was killed in the battle. Under
Euric, the Visigoths established an independent
Visigothic Kingdom and succeeded in driving the
Suebi out of Hispania proper and back into
Galicia. Although they controlled Spain, they still formed a tiny minority among a much larger
Hispano-Roman population, approximately 200,000 out of 6,000,000. In 507, the Visigoths were pushed out of most of Gaul by the
Frankish king
Clovis I at the
Battle of Vouillé. They were able to retain
Narbonensis and
Provence after the timely arrival of an Ostrogoth detachment sent by
Theodoric the Great. The defeat at Vouillé resulted in their penetrating further into Hispania and establishing a new capital at
Toledo. Under
Liuvigild in the latter part of the 6th century, the Visigoths succeeded in subduing the Suebi in Galicia and the Byzantines in the south-west, and thus achieved dominance over most of the
Iberian peninsula. Liuvigild also abolished the law that prevented intermarriage between Hispano-Romans and Goths, and he remained an Arian Christian. The conversion of
Reccared I to
Roman Catholicism in the late 6th century prompted the assimilation of Goths with the Hispano-Romans. At the end of the 7th century, the Visigothic Kingdom began to suffer from internal troubles. Their kingdom fell and was progressively
conquered by the
Umayyad Caliphate from 711 after the defeat of their last king
Roderic at the
Battle of Guadalete. Some Visigothic nobles found refuge in the mountain areas of the
Asturias,
Pyrenees and
Cantabria. According to Joseph F. O'Callaghan, the remnants of the Hispano-Gothic aristocracy still played an important role in the society of Hispania. At the end of Visigothic rule, the assimilation of Hispano-Romans and Visigoths was occurring at a fast pace. Their nobility had begun to think of themselves as constituting one people, the
gens Gothorum or the
Hispani. An unknown number of them fled and took refuge in Asturias or Septimania. In Asturias they supported Pelagius's uprising, and joining with the indigenous leaders, formed a new aristocracy. The population of the mountain region consisted of native
Astures,
Galicians,
Cantabri,
Basques and other groups unassimilated into Hispano-Gothic society. The Christians began to regain control under the leadership of the nobleman
Pelagius of Asturias, who founded the
Kingdom of Asturias in 718 and defeated the Muslims at the
Battle of Covadonga in c. 722, in what is taken by historians to be the beginning of the
Reconquista. It was from the Asturian kingdom that modern
Spain and
Portugal evolved. The Visigoths were never completely
Romanized; rather, they were 'Hispanicized' as they spread widely over a large territory and population. They progressively adopted a new culture, retaining little of their original culture except for practical military customs, some artistic modalities, family traditions such as heroic songs and folklore, as well as select conventions to include Germanic names still in use in present-day Spain. It is these artifacts of the original Visigothic culture that give ample evidence of its contributing foundation for the present regional culture. Portraying themselves heirs of the Visigoths, the subsequent Christian Spanish monarchs declared their responsibility for the Reconquista of Muslim Spain, which was completed with the
Fall of Granada in 1492.
Ostrogoths in
Ravenna,
Italy. The
frieze includes a motif found in Scandinavian metal jewellery. After the Hunnic invasion, many Goths became subjects of the Huns. A section of these Goths under the leadership of the Amali dynasty came to be known as the
Ostrogoths. Others sought refuge in the Roman Empire, where many of them were recruited into the Roman army. In the spring of 399,
Tribigild, a Gothic leader in charge of troops in
Nakoleia, rose up in rebellion and defeated the first imperial army sent against him, possibly seeking to emulate Alaric's successes in the west.
Gainas, a Goth who along with Stilicho and
Eutropius had deposed
Rufinus in 395, was sent to suppress Tribigild's rebellion, but instead plotted to use the situation to seize power in the Eastern Roman Empire. This attempt was however thwarted by the pro-Roman Goth
Fravitta, and in the aftermath, thousands of Gothic civilians were massacred in Constantinople, many being burned alive in the local Arian church where they had taken shelter. As late as the 6th century Goths were settled as
foederati in parts of
Asia Minor. Their descendants, who formed the elite
Optimatoi regiment, still lived there in the early 8th century. While they were largely assimilated, their Gothic origin was still well–known: the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor calls them
Gothograeci. The Ostrogoths fought together with the Huns at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451. Following the death of Attila and the defeat of the Huns at the
Battle of Nedao in 454, the Ostrogoths broke away from Hunnic rule under their king
Valamir. Mentions of this event were probably preserved in Slavic epic songs. Under his successor,
Theodemir, they utterly defeated the Huns at the
Bassianae in 468, and then defeated a coalition of Roman–supported Germanic tribes at the
Battle of Bolia in 469, which gained them supremacy in
Pannonia. Theodemir was succeeded by his son
Theodoric in 471, who was forced to compete with
Theodoric Strabo, leader of the
Thracian Goths, for the leadership of his people. Fearing the threat posed by Theodoric to Constantinople, the Eastern Roman emperor
Zeno ordered Theodoric to invade Italy in 488. By 493, Theodoric had conquered all of Italy from the
Scirian
Odoacer, whom he killed with his own hands; he subsequently formed the
Ostrogothic Kingdom. Theodoric settled his entire people in Italy, estimated at 100,000–200,000, mostly in the northern part of the country, and ruled the country very efficiently. The Goths in Italy constituted a small minority of the population in the country. Intermarriage between Goths and Romans were forbidden, and Romans were also forbidden from carrying arms. Nevertheless, the Roman majority was treated fairly. The Goths were briefly reunited under one crown in the early 6th century under Theodoric, who became regent of the Visigothic kingdom following the death of
Alaric II at the Battle of Vouillé in 507. Shortly after Theodoric's death, the country was invaded by the Eastern Roman Empire in the
Gothic War, which severely devastated and depopulated the Italian peninsula. The Ostrogoths made a brief resurgence under their king
Totila, who was, however, killed at the
Battle of Taginae in 552. After the last stand of the Ostrogothic king
Teia at the
Battle of Mons Lactarius in 553, Ostrogothic resistance ended, and the remaining Goths in Italy were assimilated by the
Lombards, another Germanic tribe, who invaded Italy and founded the
Kingdom of the Lombards in 567.
Crimean Goths , capital of the Crimean Goths Gothic tribes who remained in the lands around the Black Sea, especially in
Crimea, were known as the
Crimean Goths. During the late 5th and early 6th century, the Crimean Goths had to fend off hordes of Huns who were migrating back eastward after losing control of their European empire. In the 5th century,
Theodoric the Great tried to recruit Crimean Goths for his campaigns in Italy, but few showed interest in joining him. They affiliated with the
Eastern Orthodox Church through the
Metropolitanate of Gothia, and were then closely associated with the
Byzantine Empire. During the Middle Ages, the Crimean Goths were in perpetual conflict with the
Khazars.
John of Gothia, the
metropolitan bishop of
Doros, capital of the Crimean Goths, briefly expelled the Khazars from Crimea in the late 8th century, and was subsequently
canonized as an
Eastern Orthodox saint. In the 10th century, the lands of the Crimean Goths were once again raided by the Khazars. As a response, the leaders of the Crimean Goths made an alliance with
Sviatoslav I of Kiev, who subsequently waged war upon and utterly destroyed the
Khazar Khaganate. In the late Middle Ages the Crimean Goths were part of the
Principality of Theodoro, which was conquered by the
Ottoman Empire in the late 15th century. As late as the 18th century a small number of people in Crimea may still have spoken
Crimean Gothic. ==Language==