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GOTHS 



disregard of treaty obligations on the part of the 

 Romans, had very different results. Stilicho was 

 dead, and the barbarian soldiers of Italy, exas- 

 perated by official tyranny, deserted to the standard 

 of Alaric in great numbers. Rome was thrice 

 besieged ; twice the city was saved by the sub- 

 mission of the senate, but on the third occasion 

 it was taken by storm and delivered up to plunder. 

 Although terrible excesses were committed by the 

 Goths, the Roman writers speak with great admira- 

 tion of the humanity and moderation displayed by 

 Alaric himself. Honorius, secure in the impreg- 

 nable fortress of Ravenna, and encouraged by hopes 

 of support from Constantinople, refused to come to 

 terms, and Alaric was preparing to effect the entire 

 subjugation of Italy, when his career was cut short 

 by death in 410. 



Alaric's successor, Atawulf, abandoned the design 

 of conquering Italy, and led his people into southern 

 Gaul. At Narbonne he married the daughter of 

 Theodosius, the princess Galla Placidia, who had 

 been taken captive by Alaric in Rome. On the 

 approach of a Roman army under Constantius 

 the Visigoths crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, 

 where Atawulf was murdered in 415. 



The next king, Wallia, submitted to the Romans, 

 and in the name of the empire conquered nearly 

 the whole of Spain. As the reward or his services, 

 he received permission to settle with his people in 

 the south of Gaul. 



The 'kingdom of Toulouse,' founded by Wallia 

 in 418, was increased by the conquests of his suc- 

 cessors, until under Euric (who died in 485) it 

 included the whole of Gaul south of the Loire and 

 west of the Rhone, as well as Provence and the 

 greater part of Spain. The most noteworthy event 

 in the history of this kingdom was the great battle 

 fought in 451 on the Mauriac plains near Troyes 

 (commonly miscalled the battle of Chalons), in 

 which the Visigoths under their king Tneoderic (or 

 Theoderid) I., united with the Romans and the 

 Franks, inflicted a crushing defeat on the vast 

 army of the Huns under Attila (q.v. ). Theoderic 

 was killed, but the result of the battle was the 

 dissolution of the Hunnish empire, and the salva- 

 tion of European civilisation from the deluge of 

 barbarism winch had threatened to overwhelm it. 



In the reign of Alaric II., the successor of Euric, 

 the kingdom of Toulouse came to an end. The 

 Frankish king Clovis ( Chlodovech, Hlodawih ), 

 whose recent conversion to Catholic Christianity 

 enabled him to give to a war of unprovoked aggres- 

 sion the specious aspect of a crusade against the 

 heretics, invaded the Visigoth territories in 507. The 

 battle fought on the ' field of Voclad,' near Poitiers, 

 decided the sovereignty of Gaul. Alaric was killed, 

 and the Visigoths abandoned to the conqueror all 

 their territories north of the Pyrenees, retaining of 

 their Gaulish possessions only a small strip of 

 country bordering on the Gulf of Lyons. The 

 subsequent history of the Visigoths must be 

 reserved until we have related the history of their 

 Ostrogothic kinsmen. 



After their subjugation by the Huns in the later 

 part. of the 4th century, the Ostrogoths, Gepidae, 

 and the smaller ' Gothic ' peoples appear to have 

 adopted the nomad life of their conquerors, and 

 they formed part of the vast horde which followed 

 Attila into Gaul. On the collapse of the Hunnish 

 dominion these nations regained their independence. 

 The Ostrogoths settled first in the neighbourhood 

 of Vienna, under their king Walamer, a member 

 of the Amaling family, who traced their descent 

 through Ermanaric and Ostrogotha to a legendary 

 hero named Amala. Immediately after their 

 emancipation the Ostrogoths are found occupying 

 the position of mercenaries of the Eastern Empire. 

 In 462 the friendly relations between Walamer 



and the emperor, which had been for a time re- 

 linquished, were renewed, and Walamer's nephew, 

 Theoderic, the son of Theoderner, a boy eight years 

 old, was sent as a hostage to Constantinople, where 

 he remained ten years, receiving the education of a 

 Roman noble. Shortly after his return the Ostro- 

 goths, pressed by famine, abandoned their homes, 

 and migrated in a body towards the south-east. 

 Their inroads in Mcesia and Thrace caused great 

 alarm at Constantinople, and the emperor was 

 constrained to purcluise peace by granting them 

 permission to settle in Macedonia, and by bestow- 

 ing on them large gifts of land and money. 



In 474 the young Theoderic became king of the 

 Ostrogoths. After fourteen years spent in petty 

 warfare, sometimes as the ally and sometimes as 

 the enemy of the Romans, he obtained from the 

 Emperor Zeno permission to wrest the dominion of 

 Italy from the usurper Odovacar (Odoacer, q.v.). 

 Like most of the military expeditions of the Goths,, 

 the invasion of Italy was the emigration of an 

 entire people ; and the number of persons who 

 accompanied the march of Theoderic was probably 

 not less than a quarter of a million. After a war 

 of five years the work of conquest was completed 

 by the capture of Ravenna and the submission of 

 Odovacar, who, it is said, was soon afterward* 

 brutally and treacherously murdered by Theoderic 's 

 own hand. 



Notwithstanding this evil beginning, the thirty- 

 three years' reign of Theoderic in Italy was one of 

 singular humanity and wisdom, and secured for the 

 country a degree of tranquillity and prosperity such 

 as it had not enjoyed for centuries. The historian 

 Procopius, though a Byzantine courtier, pronounces 

 him not inferior to the best and wisest of Roman 

 emperors. The partisans of Odovacar received a 

 | general amnesty ; the necessary provision of lands 

 ! For the Goths was carefully carried out so as to 

 i press as lightly as possible on the native popula- 

 ! tion ; the fiscal and judicial systems were re- 

 I organised, and all acts of extortion or injustice on 

 j the part of officials were sternly repressed. The 

 Goths and the Romans continued to be distinct 

 nations, each judged by its own tribunals and by 

 its own laws, limited and supplemented by a new 

 code containing a few provisions which were made 

 binding on all the subjects of the kingdom. The 

 Catholics were granted entire equality with the 

 adherents of the king's own faith ; the Jews, in all 

 other Christian lands the victims of oppression, en- 

 joyed under Theoderic full liberty of worship, and 

 protection from all encroachment on their civil 

 rights. It is impossible to read the official letters 

 written in Theoderic's name by his Roman secre- 

 tary, Cassiodorus, without the deepest admiration 

 for the king's unwearied energy and enlightened 

 zeal for the welfare of his subjects. It is true that 

 in the last three years of his life, when he was 

 worn by age and harassed by suspicions of wide- 

 spread treason, his fame was tarnished by the 

 judicial murders of Boethius and Symmachus, and 

 by acts of oppression directed against the Catholic 

 Church. But there have been few possessors' of 

 absolute power who, on the whole, have used it so 

 nobly. 



Theoderic died in 526, and his daughter Amala- 

 swintha was appointed regent on behalf of her son 

 Athalaric, then ten years old. When Athalaric 

 died at the age of sixteen, Amalaswintha asso- 

 ciated with herself in the kingdom her father's 

 nephew, the base and cowardly Theodahad, by 

 whose orders she was soon afterwards murdered. 

 Theoderic had not long been dead before the dis- 

 ordered state of the kingdom testified to the in- 

 capacity of his successors ; and the Ostrogothic 

 power was threatened by a new danger in the am- 

 bition of the Emperor Justinian, who, not content 



