Background Ostrogoths The
Ostrogoths were the eastern branch of the
Goths. They settled and established a powerful state in
Dacia, but during the late 4th century, they came under the dominion of the
Huns. After the collapse of the Hunnic empire in 454, large numbers of Ostrogoths were settled by Emperor
Marcian in the Roman province of
Pannonia as
foederati. Unlike most other foederati formations, the Goths were not absorbed into the structure and traditions of the Roman military but retained a strong identity and cohesion of their own. In 460, during the reign of
Leo I, because the payment of annual sums had ceased, they ravaged
Illyricum. Peace was concluded in 461, whereby the young
Theodoric Amal, son of
Theodemir of the
Amals, was sent as a hostage to Constantinople, where he received a Roman education. In previous years, a large number of Goths, first under
Aspar and then under
Theodoric Strabo, had entered service in the Roman army and were a significant political and military power in the court of Constantinople. The period 477–483 saw a complex three-way struggle among Theodoric the Amal, who had succeeded his father in 474, Theodoric Strabo, and the new Eastern Emperor
Zeno. In this conflict, alliances shifted regularly, and large parts of the
Balkans were devastated by it. In the end, after Strabo's death in 481, Zeno came to terms with Theodoric. Parts of
Moesia and
Dacia ripensis were ceded to the Goths, and Theodoric was named
magister militum praesentalis and
consul for 484. Barely a year later, Theodoric and Zeno fell out, and again Theodoric's Goths ravaged
Thrace. It was then that the thought occurred to Zeno and his advisors to direct Theodoric against another troublesome neighbour of the Empire – the Italian kingdom of
Odoacer. ====
Kingdom of Odoacer (476–493)==== In 476,
Odoacer, leader of the
foederati in the West, had staged a coup against the rebellious
magister militum Orestes, who was seeking to have his son
Romulus Augustulus recognized as Western Emperor in place of Emperor
Julius Nepos. Orestes had reneged on the promise of land in Italy for Odoacer's troops, a pledge made to ensure their neutrality in his attack on Nepos. After executing Orestes and putting the teenage usurper in internal exile, Odoacer paid nominal allegiance to Nepos (now in Dalmatia) while effectively operating autonomously, having been raised to the rank of
patrician by Zeno. Odoacer retained the Roman administrative system, cooperated actively with the
Roman Senate, and his rule was efficient and successful. He evicted the
Vandals from
Sicily in 477, and in 480 he occupied
Dalmatia after the murder of
Julius Nepos.
Conquest of Italy by the Goths (488–493) An agreement was reached between Zeno and Theodoric, stipulating that Theodoric, if victorious, was to rule in Italy as the emperor's representative. Theodoric with his people set out from Moesia in the autumn of 488, passed through Dalmatia and crossed the Julian Alps into Italy in late August 489. The first confrontation with the army of Odoacer was at the river Isonzo (the
battle of Isonzo) on August 28. Odoacer was defeated and withdrew towards
Verona, where a month later another battle was fought, resulting in a bloody, but crushing, Gothic victory. Odoacer fled to his capital at
Ravenna, while the larger part of his army under
Tufa surrendered to the Goths. Theodoric then sent Tufa and his men against Odoacer, but he changed his allegiance again and returned to Odoacer. In 490, Odoacer was thus able to campaign against Theodoric, take
Milan and
Cremona and besiege the main Gothic base at Ticinum (
Pavia). At that point, however, the
Visigoths intervened, the siege of Ticinum was lifted, and Odoacer was decisively defeated at the river
Adda on 11 August 490. Odoacer fled again to Ravenna, while the Senate and many Italian cities declared themselves for Theodoric.
Theodoric kills Odoacer (493) The Goths now turned to besiege Ravenna, but since they lacked a fleet and the city could be resupplied by sea, the siege could be endured almost indefinitely, despite privations. It was not until 492 that Theodoric was able to procure a fleet and capture Ravenna's harbours, thus entirely cutting off communication with the outside world. The effects of this appeared six months later, when, with the mediation of the city's bishop, negotiations started between the two parties. An agreement was reached on 25 February 493, whereby the two should divide Italy between them. A banquet was organised in order to celebrate this treaty. It was at this banquet, on March 15, that Theodoric, after making a toast, killed Odoacer with his own hands. A general massacre of Odoacer's soldiers and supporters followed. Theodoric and his Goths were now masters of Italy.
Reign of Theodoric the Great (493–526) Theodoric's rule Like Odoacer, Theodoric was ostensibly a
patricius and subject of the emperor in Constantinople, acting as his viceroy for Italy, a position recognized by the new Emperor
Anastasius in 497. At the same time, he was the king of his own people, who were not Roman citizens. In reality, he acted as an independent ruler, although unlike Odoacer, he meticulously preserved the outward forms of his subordinate position. The administrative machinery of Odoacer's kingdom, in essence that of the former Empire, was more or less retained by the Ostrogoths. According to the analysis of Jonathan J. Arnold, Theodoric presented himself – and was more or less accepted as – a
Roman emperor. But despite this rhetoric, Italy had undergone significant structural changes in the fifth century, which required that Roman administrative traditions had to be adapted by Theodoric's court. The Senate continued to function normally and was consulted on civil appointments, and the laws of the Empire were still recognized as ruling the Roman population, though Goths were ruled under their own traditional laws. Indeed, as a subordinate ruler, Theodoric did not possess the right to issue his own laws (
leges) in the system of
Roman law, but merely edicts (
edicta), or clarifications on certain details. The continuity in administration is illustrated by the fact that several senior ministers of Odoacer, like
Liberius and Cassiodorus the Elder, were retained in the new kingdom's top positions. The close cooperation between Theodoric and the Roman elite began to break down in later years, especially after the healing of the ecclesiastical rift between Rome and Constantinople (see below), as leading senators conspired with the Emperor. This resulted in the arrest and execution of the
magister officiorum Boethius and his father-in-law, Symmachus, in 524. On the other hand, the army and all military offices remained the exclusive preserve of the Goths. The Goths were settled mostly in northern Italy, and kept themselves largely apart from the Roman population, a tendency reinforced by their different faiths: the Goths were mostly Homoian Christians ('
'Arians"), while the people they ruled over were adherents of
Chalcedonian Christianity. Despite this fact, Theoderic enjoyed good relations with the Roman church, although questions of relative jurisdiction, especially in controversies involving clerics, remained potentially fraught. Jews in Theoderic's kingdom were both disadvantaged and protected as they had been under Roman law, which among other things, provided legal protections for their places of worship. Theodoric's view was clearly expressed in his letters to the Jews of
Genoa: "The true mark of
civilitas is the observance of law. It is this which makes life in communities possible, and which separates man from the brutes. We therefore gladly accede to your request that all the privileges which the foresight of antiquity conferred upon the Jewish customs shall be renewed to you..." and "We cannot order a religion, because no one can be forced to believe against his will."
Relations with the Germanic states of the West It is in his foreign policy rather than domestic affairs that Theodoric appeared and acted as an independent ruler. By means of marriage alliances, he sought to establish a central position among the barbarian states of the West. As Jordanes states: "...there was no race left in the western realms which Theodoric had not befriended or brought into subjection during his lifetime." This was in part meant as a defensive measure, and in part as a counterbalance to the influence of the Empire. His daughters were wedded to the Visigothic king
Alaric II and the Burgundian prince
Sigismund, his sister Amalfrida married the Vandal king
Thrasamund, while he himself married Audofleda, sister of the Frankish king
Clovis I. These policies were not always successful in maintaining peace: Theodoric found himself at war with Clovis when the latter attacked the Visigoth dominions in
Gaul in 506. The Franks were rapidly successful, killing Alaric in the
Battle of Vouillé and subduing
Aquitania by 507. However, starting in 508, Theodoric's generals campaigned in Gaul, and were successful in saving
Septimania for the Visigoths, as well as extending Ostrogothic rule into southern Gaul (
Provence) at the expense of the Burgundians. There in 510 Theodoric reestablished the defunct
praetorian prefecture of Gaul. Now Theodoric had a common border with the Visigothic kingdom, where, after Alaric's death, he also ruled as regent of his infant grandson
Amalaric. Family bonds also served little with Sigismund, who as a staunch Chalcedonian Christian cultivated close ties to Constantinople. Theodoric perceived this as a threat and intended to campaign against him, but the Franks acted first and invaded Burgundy in 523, quickly subduing it. Theodoric could only react by expanding his domains in the Provence north of the river
Durance up to the
Isère. The peace with the Vandals, secured in 500 with the marriage alliance with Thrasamund, and their common interests as Arian powers against Constantinople, collapsed after Thrasamund's death in 523. His successor
Hilderic showed favour to the Nicaean Christians, and when Amalfrida protested, he had her and her entourage murdered. Theodoric was preparing an expedition against him when he died.
Relations with the Empire Theodoric's relations with his nominal suzerain, the Eastern Roman Emperor, were always strained, for political as well as for religious reasons. Especially during the reign of Anastasius, these led to several collisions, none of which however escalated into general warfare. In 504–505, Theodoric's forces launched a campaign to recover
Pannonia and the strategically important town of
Sirmium, formerly parts of the
praetorian prefecture of Italy, which were now occupied by the
Gepids. The campaign was successful, but it also led to a brief conflict with imperial troops, where the Goths and their allies were victorious. Domestically, the
Acacian schism between the patriarchates of Rome and Constantinople, caused by imperial support for the
Henotikon, as well as Anastasius'
Monophysite beliefs, played into Theodoric's hands, since the clergy and the Roman aristocracy of Italy, headed by
Pope Symmachus, vigorously opposed them. Thus, for a time, Theodoric could count on their support. The war between the Franks and Visigoths led to renewed friction between Theodoric and the Emperor, as Clovis successfully portrayed himself as the champion of the Western Church against the "heretical" Arian Goths, gaining the Emperor's support. This even led to the dispatch of a fleet by Anastasius in 508, which ravaged the coasts of
Apulia. With the accession of
Justin I in 518, a more harmonious relationship seemed to be restored.
Eutharic, Theodoric's son-in-law and designated successor, was appointed
consul for the year 519, while in 522, to celebrate the healing of the Acacian schism, Justin allowed both consuls to be appointed by Theodoric. Soon, however, renewed tension would result from Justin's anti-Arian legislation, and tensions grew between the Goths and the Senate, whose members, as Chalcedonians, now shifted their support to the Emperor. The suspicions of Theodoric were confirmed by the interception of compromising letters between leading senators and Constantinople, which led to the imprisonment and execution of Boethius in 524.
Pope John I was sent to Constantinople to mediate on the Arians' behalf, and, although he achieved his mission, on his return he was imprisoned and died shortly after. These events further stirred popular sentiment against the Goths.
Death of Theodoric and dynastic disputes (526–535) amphitheater in which the restorations carried out between 528 and 529 by
Athalaric at the amphitheater are mentioned,
Pavia Civic Museums After the death of Theodoric on 30 August 526, his achievements began to collapse. Since Eutharic had died in 523, Theodoric was succeeded by his infant grandson
Athalaric, supervised by his mother,
Amalasuntha, as regent. The lack of a strong heir caused the network of alliances that surrounded the Ostrogothic state to disintegrate: the Visigothic kingdom regained its autonomy under Amalaric, the relations with the Vandals turned increasingly hostile, and the Franks embarked again on expansion, subduing the
Thuringians and the
Burgundians and almost evicting the Visigoths from their last holdings in southern Gaul. The position of predominance which the Ostrogothic Kingdom had enjoyed under Theodoric in the West now passed irrevocably to the Franks. This dangerous external climate was exacerbated by the regency's weak domestic position. Amalasuntha was Roman-educated and intended to continue her father's policies of conciliation between Goths and Romans. To that end, she actively courted the support of the Senate and the newly ascended Emperor
Justinian I, even providing him with bases in Sicily during the
Vandalic War. However, these ideas did not find much favour with the Gothic nobles, who in addition resented being ruled by a woman. They protested when she resolved to give her son a Roman education, preferring that Athalaric be raised as a warrior. She was forced to discharge his Roman tutors, but instead Athalaric turned to a life of dissipation and excess, which would send him to a premature death. Eventually, a conspiracy started among the Goths to overthrow her. Amalasuntha resolved to move against them, but as a precaution, she also made preparations to flee to Constantinople, and even wrote to Justinian asking for protection. In the event she managed to execute the three leading conspirators, and her position remained relatively secure until, in 533, Athalaric's health began to seriously decline. Amalasuntha then turned for support to her only relative, her cousin
Theodahad, while at the same time sending ambassadors to Justinian and proposing to cede Italy to him. Justinian indeed sent an able agent of his,
Peter of Thessalonica, to carry out the negotiations, but before he had even crossed into Italy, Athalaric had died (on 2 October 534), Amalasuntha had crowned Theodahad as king in an effort to secure his support, and he had deposed and imprisoned her. Theodahad, who was of a peaceful disposition, immediately sent envoys to announce his ascension to Justinian and to reassure him of Amalasuntha's safety. Justinian immediately reacted by offering his support to the deposed queen, but in early May 535, she was executed. This crime served as a perfect pretext for Justinian, fresh from his forces' victory over the Vandals, to invade the Gothic realm in retaliation. Theodahad tried to prevent the war, sending his envoys to Constantinople, but Justinian was already resolved to reclaim Italy. Only by renouncing his throne in the Empire's favour could Theodahad hope to avert war.
Gothic War and end of the Ostrogothic Kingdom (535–554) The Gothic War between the
Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom was fought from 535 until 554 in
Italy,
Dalmatia,
Sardinia,
Sicily and
Corsica. It is commonly divided into two phases. The first phase lasted from 535 to 540 and ended with the fall of
Ravenna and the apparent reconquest of Italy by the Byzantines. With the fall of Ravenna, the capital of the kingdom was brought to
Pavia, which it became the last centres of Ostrogothic resistance that continued the war and opposed Eastern Roman rule. During the second phase (540/541–553), Gothic resistance was reinvigorated under
Totila and put down only after a long struggle by
Narses, who also repelled the 554 invasion by the
Franks and
Alamanni. In the same year, Justinian promulgated the
Pragmatic Sanction which prescribed Italy's new government. Several cities in northern Italy continued to hold out, however, until the late 560s. The war had its roots in the ambition of
Justinian to recover the provinces of the former
Western Roman Empire, which had been lost to invading barbarian tribes in the previous century (the
Migration Period). By the end of the conflict Italy was devastated and considerably depopulated. As a consequence, the victorious Byzantines found themselves unable to resist the invasion of the
Lombards in 568, which resulted in the loss of large parts of the Italian peninsula. ==List of rulers==