A Germanic people whose origins lay along the lower Vistula (modern Poland), their southerly migration brought them into contact with the Roman empire in the 3rd century ad. In 238, Goths took Histria in the mouth of the Danube. From this base they launched naval raids on the Black Sea coast (255-7), penetrated the Aegean, even reaching Cyprus (268-9), and on land devastated northern Greece (270). Emperor Aurelian drove them out (271) but was forced to cede the trans-Danubian province of Dacia (modern Romania). This settlement lasted for a century, when pressure from the Huns drove the Goths into the empire again, first as refugees and then as aggressors. At the battle of Adrianople in 378 Gothic forces defeated the eastern Roman field army and killed Emperor Valens. Subsequently, like many other ‘barbarian’ groups, their leaders both served in imperial armies and raided Roman territory, depending upon political circumstance. In the 390s Alaric led his bands in attacks on Italy, followed in the crisis year of 405-6 by Radagaisus.
In the first two decades of the 5th century, the Huns arrived in central Europe and subjugated many Germanic peoples. When Attila was defeated in 453, by the Roman Aetius, Goths fought on both sides. The imperial regime collapsed in the 470s, enabling Euric to establish a western (Visigothic) kingdom in southern France and northern Spain, while Theoderic created the (eastern) Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy. Following defeat at Vouillé (near Poitiers) by Clovis's Franks in 506, the Visigoths were pushed south of the Pyrenees. In the decade before his death in 526, Theoderic asserted in his rule in Spain, too. Goths in both kingdoms were considered heretics by their subject orthodox populations, which greatly outnumbered them, creating a strategic vulnerability in the face of invasion.
This came from Constantinople, where Emperor Justinian I (527-63) sought to recover imperial territories in the west. His general Belisarius invaded Italy (536), seizing Naples and Rome, and beginning a twenty-year war. The Ostrogothic King Wittigis led several thousand men to besiege Rome (536-7). His troops consisted of armoured lancer cavalry supported by foot archers and spearmen. Although initially successful in battle, they were not equipped or trained for siege warfare. In 538, another imperial general, the eunuch Narses, arrived with reinforcements. Also, Burgundian troops, sent by the Frankish king, invaded northern Italy (539). Wittigis was unable to fight on two fronts and was surrounded and captured at Ravenna (540). Belisarius was then recalled to the eastern front against Persia, which enabled a Gothic revival under their new king, Totila. He defeated the Byzantines in a cavalry battle at Faventia and Mugello (542). In 545-6, Totila besieged and took Rome, despite Belisarius' return and attempted relief of the city (which changed hands twice again in 547 and 549). Totila's fleets then began an aggressive campaign attacking (and briefly occupying) Sicily and the Greek coast, although by 551 the Byzantines had gained the upper hand at sea. Also in 551, Narses reinvaded Italy, this time from the north, inflicting a decisive defeat upon the Goths in an epic encounter at Taginae, during which Totila was killed. The Byzantine forces included Lombards, Germanic cavalry recruited north of the Alps. It took until 555 for Narses to complete the conquest, and even then there were sporadic revolts. Italy was exhausted by war, and when in 568 the Lombards invaded under their King Alboin, resistance was short-lived.
In 552, Byzantine troops landed in Spain, seeking to exploit the possibilities of a royal succession dispute. They were initially successful and established an enclave which included the important city of Cordoba and the southern coast from Cadiz almost as far as Valencia. This was maintained for over seventy years, although Cordoba (577) was lost during the wars of King Leovigild (569-86). He effectively brought the whole of the Peninsula under his control by the end of his reign. In 589, the Visigoths converted to Catholicism and so strengthened their relationship with the subject population. Yet the kingdom fell swiftly following the Islamic invasion of a mixed Arab and Berber force in 711. Once again, the disputed succession of King Roderick (701) created political divisions and may have contributed to his crushing defeat and death near Medina Sidonia in July. Moving swiftly, the Muslim commander Tariq took the capital city, Toledo, unopposed. Within a few years the Visigothic nobility was either dead, dispersed, or assimilated and the Goths disappeared as a distinct people.
Bibliography
- Boss, R., Justinian's Wars (Stockport, 1993).
- Heather, P., The Goths (Cambridge, Mass., 1996)
— Matthew Bennett
