(iOTHS 



with tin- formal acknowledgement of Mipremuc\ 

 which had siiti-hed his predecessors, was resolved ID 

 mak<- Italy JIM integral pint of his own dominions. 

 : general Itelisarius was sent fur t he 

 purpo-f df conijuering tin- country. The <!oths 



dcp..-.-d Tl latiad, anl elected to tin- throne ;i 



distinguished -oldicr irimcd Witigis, who, on liis 



.tion, married A malas win tha's daughter Mata- 



-wintha. At'i'-r four \ears I'.elisai ius, though 



enoimou.sly overmatched in numbers, hail sul>dued 



all but tin- extreme north of Italy, and held 



is and his queen prisoners, when he was 



recalled I'.v Justinian's jealousy to Constantinople. 



ii after his return tin- oppression of the 

 imperial representatives in Italy not only provoked 

 into revolt the Goths who had siihmittcd to 

 (toman rule, hut excited mutiny among the 

 Koman soldiers, who deserted to the enemy in 

 great number-. In ;i few months the new king of 

 tin- ( ioths, Ilildihad, who had previously maintained 

 a precarious footing in the north, found himself at 

 the head of a powerful army. His career, however, 

 was cut short by assassination ; and after a short 

 interregnum the Goths conferred the crown on his 

 nephew Totila, otherwise named Badwila. After 

 a struggle of a few years, an which Totila displayed 

 not only lirilliant military talent, but a chivalrous 

 generosity and humanity which extorted the ad- 

 miration of his enemies, the imperial cause in Italy 

 was felt to be desperate, and in 544 Belisarius was 

 again sent to take the command of the army. But 

 owing to the insubordination of his officers, and to 

 other causes, he had little success, and after five 

 years was recalled at his own request. The enter- 

 prise in which Belisarius had failed was accom- 

 plished by the aged eunuch Narses, who, in 552, 

 landed in Italy at the head of a colossal army. 

 The Ostrogoths suffered a crushing defeat at 

 Tagime (Tadino), where Totila was killed. His 

 successor, Teia, fell a few months later in the 

 hat tie of Mons Lactarius, near Vesuvius. The 

 remnant of the defeated army was suffered by 

 Narses to inarc'h unmolested out of Italy; their 

 subsequent fate is unknown. In the course of the 

 next two years the few outstanding Gothic garri- 

 -ons surrendered, and Italy became a portion of the 

 Ityzantine empire. The nation of the Ostrogoths 

 had ceased to exist. 



NVe now return to the history of the Visigoths. 

 The conquering progress of Clovis, after the T)attle 

 of Voclad in 507, was checked by the armed inter- 

 vention of Theoderic the Ostrogoth, who compelled 

 the Franks to leave the Visigoths in possession 

 not only of their Spanish dominions, but also of a 

 -mall tract of country in Gaul, including the cities 

 if < 'arcassonne, Narbonne, and Nimes. The former 

 Visigothic territories in Provence Theoderic an- 

 nexed to his own kingdom, and he assumed the 

 guardianship of his infant grandson Amalaric, the 

 ->n of Alaric II. During Theoderic's life the Visi- 

 gothic kingdom was administered by him in the 

 mine of Amalaric ; in Spain, however, his general 

 Theudis practically reigned as a tributary king. 

 \fter Theoderic's death Amalaric was acknow- 

 ledged as sovereign of the Visigoths, but his direct 

 rule was confined to the Gaulish dominions, 

 Theudis still retaining the real authority in Spain. 

 A defeat by the Franks having caused Amalaric to 

 - the Pyrenees, he was murdered in 531 by 

 order of Theudis, who then assumed the crowii, 

 and reigned till he died by an assassin's hand in 

 ~>is. The Visigothic state now became what it had 

 \teen prior to 419, a purely elective monarchy, and 

 the choice of the kings was frequently attended by 

 civil war. Athanagild, who was placed on the 

 throne by a rebellion in which he was aided by an 

 army from Justinian, reigned prosperously for 

 fourteen years (554-567); but his Byzantine allies 



(the 'Greeks,' as they were called) seized several 

 of the Spanish cities, a,nd were not completely Aw- 

 lodged until alout _'.". 



'1 he brilliant reign of Leovigild, who made 

 Toledo the capital of the kingdom, was marked 

 by the subjugation of the Suevic kingdom in north- 

 western Spain and Portugal. In ">72 Leovigild 

 associated with himself in the kingdom his two 

 .sons, Krmenegild and Reeeared. The former, a 

 convert to < 'at holici-m, rebelled against his father, 

 hut after two years was conquered, and afterwards 

 put to death. It is said that he \\a- oll'ered hit* 

 life and restoration to his royal dignity if he would 

 return to the Arian faith. l!y the Catholic Church 

 he was reverenced as a martyr, and was formally 

 canonised by Pope Sixtus V. 



On the death of Leovigild his son Reccared, 

 already a crowned king, succeeded without the 

 formality of election. One of his first acts was to 

 announce his determination to adopt and to estab- 

 li-li the Catholic religion. The Goths, who were 

 evidently weary of their position of ecclesiastical 

 isolation, and had lost interest in their hereditary 

 creed, accepted the change with surprising readi- 

 ness. Revolts took place in Gaul and in the 

 former Suevic kingdom, but these were soon sup- 

 pressed ; and the Arian clergy and laity were in 

 overwhelming numbers admitted into the Catholic 

 Church. 



The conversion of the Visigoths was a political 

 necessity. The secure establishment of their 

 dominion was impossible so long as they were 

 divided from the subject people by religious differ- 

 ences, and had against them the powerful organ- 

 isation of the Spanish Church. This formidable 

 adversary was now converted into an ally ; but 

 unhappily the weakness of the monarchy enabled 

 the church to exact ruinously great concessions 

 as the price of its support. In the course of 

 the 7th century the Visigothic state became 

 gradually more and more subservient to the 

 church. The kings were elected by an assembly 

 of bishops and court officials, the former often 

 being in a large majority. The three sovereigns 

 who succeeded for a time in vindicating their 

 independence Swinthila (620-631), Kindaswinth 

 (641-649), and Wamba ( 672-680 ) were eventually 

 either deposed or induced to alnUcate ; and in the 

 next reign the ground lost by the church was 

 always more than regained. It is hardly too much 

 to say that under the more ecclesiastically-minded 

 kings the country was governed mainly in the 

 interests of the clerical order ; and on the whole 

 the influence of the priesthood was so exercised as 

 to foster, instead of to check, the many causes of 

 decay and disorganisation which brought about the 

 ruin of the kingdom. The efforts of Witica (701- 

 710) to carry out extensive reforms in church and 

 state were indeed seconded by the Archbishop of 

 Toledo, but were virulently opposed by the great 

 body of the clergy. Of his successor, Roderic, 

 ' the last of the Goths,' legend has a great deal to 

 say, but history knows only that his defeat on the 

 banks of the Guadalete (August 711) placed the 

 dominion of Spain in the hands of the Moorish 

 invaders. Under the pressure of the Moslem yoke 

 the Christians of the Peninsula l>ecame united into 

 one nation, and the Goths ceased to exist as a 

 separate people ; but the Spanish nobility have 

 always laid claim to Gothic descent. 



The last portion of the Gothic race to disappear 

 as a distinct community was that branch of the 

 Ostrogoths (known in the 6th century as Tetnu-i- 

 tir) who inhabited the Crimea from the time of 

 Krmanaric. In the reign of Justinian these Goths 

 received a Catholic bishop from Constantinople, 

 and in the official language of the Eastern Church 

 ' Gothia ' continued to be the name of the Crimea 



