In late August of the year 410, a Visigothic King Alaric conquered and sacked the city
of Rome.
This was the first time in 800 years that the eternal city had been taken by an enemy,
and it came as a shock to the Romans, their friends and their enemies alike.
Most histories focus on the Roman Empire itself and only speak of the Goths as an invasive
force to that civilisation, but they have a long and exciting history of their own.
From their beginnings in the cold northlands of Scandinavia to ruling a significant portion
of post-Roman Europe, the story of the Eastern Germanic Goths is one that must be told.
How did they emerge and become so powerful that they were able to take Rome?
Welcome to our video on the history of the Goths in the era of late antiquity.
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The original homeland of the Gothic tribes is still up for debate, but it is widely believed
that they first came from the Gotaland region in the south of modern day Sweden.
Whether because of overpopulation, natural disasters or resource shortages, various Germanic
tribes including the Goths gradually began migrating south into modern day Eastern Europe.
Rome had its first terrifying encounter with Germans during the Cimbrian War, when groups
of Teutones, Ambrones and Cimbri from modern day Denmark invaded Italy.
The Goths however, migrated further east at first, and did not immediately interact with
the Empire to the south.
They had a bilateral familial structure based on intermarriage and gift giving, and these
‘gifts’ from tribal leaders to other tribal contingents would be repaid by allegiance
to the gift giver.
These customs began to extend familial relationships to slowly bring larger Gothic groups together.
Later, when their military conflicts against Rome occurred, these informal and temporary
large groups would gel together on a more permanent basis: one of the reasons the Goths
became so powerful as to rival The Empire.
The Goths’ first recorded attack on the Empire took place during the Crisis of the
Third Century, in the year 238, when they sacked Histria on the Black Sea coast.
They were only repelled by a substantial subsidy from the Emperor.
This did not end the problem.
From 249 to 268 there were constant high intensity Gothic raids over land and sea into the Black
Sea region, the Balkans, Thrace, Asia Minor and Greece, which continued until twin Roman
victories in 268 near Greece and 270 at Naissus stopped their attacks for the time being.
The reasons for these initial attacks are debated as well, but it is probable that the
internal instability of the Empire during the 200s played a key part.
As civil war rocked the Roman world, the Goths would likely have seen the opportunity to
take advantage, and began to raid the vulnerable Empire for plunder.
A cycle would emerge, whereby internal revolt would inspire barbarian attacks, and when
the emperor went to deal with the barbarians, more internal revolt would occur.
Though the Goths first appeared as raiders, they could not present a clear existential
threat to the Empire, so how did they eventually sack the eternal city?
The increasingly close proximity of the Gothic tribes to the Roman empire and especially
its military began to have a profound impact on the increasing strength of barbarian invaders.
Many Goths who served in the Roman army became entirely acclimatised to a Roman way of life,
some of which would then return home, bringing Roman habits, ways of training, organisation
and money along with them.
As the third century turned into the fourth, Gothic interconnectedness with the Roman Empire
became ever greater, along with the bouts of violence which would occasionally flare
up between the two factions.
Roman Emperors increasingly adopted policies designed to cut down barbarian strength before
it materialised, by launching punitive raids into their territory.
This gave the barbarian Gothic leaders further east every incentive to become more competent
militarily, in order to defend their families and homes.
In addition, divide and conquer strategies resulted in the subsidising of some Gothic
kings, which built up their royal prestige and governing capacity.
Some evidence exists to suggest that the Tetrarchy of Diocletian supported and approved of building
Thervingian Gothic strength and territorial gains at the mouth of the Danube, at the expense
of other barbarian groups in the area, such as the Carpi.
This was perhaps because the Goths were viewed as reliable and could function as another
layer of imperial defence on the turbulent Danubian border.
However, raising the status of these barbarian leaders above others provided them with the
strength for military action against their Roman benefactors, something which otherwise
could not be accomplished.
In these ways, Rome’s attitude and actions towards the barbarians only made them stronger
and more like themselves.
The result of this is shown in 320 when the Thervingi re-emerge in the sources far more
powerfully than before.
Likely because of their imperial sponsorship, the Thervingi became the undisputed masters
of the lower Danube and the abandoned Roman province of Dacia.
These more powerful Thervingi Goths were then attacked by an alarmed Constantine in the
320s and 330s, fearing the increase of their power.
Likely beginning gradually in the 350s, a chain of events would come to pass which would
result in the beginning of the end for Rome.
In the east, a new powerful force began to emerge; the nomadic Huns.
What happened is debated, but it seems like the Hunnic threat drove unstoppably but gradually
west, first defeating and subjugating the Alans, who together then defeated the powerful
Greuthungi Gothic king Ermanaric in the mid 370s.
It is widely speculated that the Greuthungi Goths who stayed behind and became Hunnic
subjects were the future Ostrogoths, while the Gothic refugees, mainly Thervingi but
some Greuthungi would come together as the Visigoths.
Following this disaster, a massive contingent of Gothic refugees then streamed west towards
the Danube border, hoping to escape their pursuers.
Their leader, a Visigoth Thervingi Goth named Fritigern petitioned to be allowed peacefully
into the Empire.
The Romans accepted, but corrupt officials abused the Goths militarily and by limiting
their food supplies, causing unrest among the new arrivals.
After being invited to a banquet by a Roman governor, Fritigern was betrayed by his hosts,
but managed to escape and decided to revolt against this appalling treatment.
Barbarian units in the Thracian army joined him, as well as Gothic slaves in the provinces
where the rebellion was strongest.
In August 378, Fritigern’s Gothic army obliterated Valens and his legions at the Battle of Adrianople,
and two-thirds of the eastern field army was killed.
In the aftermath, manpower shortages would ensure that the reliance on barbarian, prominently
Gothic soldiers would continue until the end of the Empire.
When Theodosius I became Emperor in 379 after the death of Valens, the manpower situation
for the Romans was critical.
The new emperor needed victories against the Goths after Adrianople, and he began to slowly
clear Thrace and other Roman territories of the invaders, driving them away from Constantinople
and into Illyricum.
Participating in this campaign was a general called Modares who was himself a Goth in imperial
service, which shows the potentially high levels a barbarian could reach within the
Imperial structure even in the late 300s.
Despite these successes, continued Gothic pressure eventually forced Theodosius to give
up his attempts, and Gothic contingents were allowed to settle in Thrace and the Balkans,
becoming sedentary as the Romans were and increasingly joining the Roman military in
the decades afterwards.
Also increasing were the amount of Gothic nobility becoming officers and generals in
the Roman army; including the aforementioned Modares.
Two other barbarian nobles who became Imperial commanders were Fravitta and Eriulf, the latter
of which was killed in a drunken brawl by the former.
He had an illustrious career after this incident, married a Roman bride and crushed a mutiny
led by Gainas; another Gothic general.
All of these men illustrate a sudden influx of skillful and important Gothic leaders into
the Imperial hierarchy.
A far more significant figure, however, was Alaric.
The origin of Alaric is shrouded in mystery, but the first notable event of his life seems
to be the Battle of the Frigidus River in 394, between the Eastern Emperor Theodosius
I and the usurper Eugenius.
The battle was unusually bloody for all combatants, but the Gothic and other barbarian units under
Alaric suffered massive losses after they were placed in the front ranks, so that they
would absorb most of the damage.
It is not known, but it is possible that Theodosius purposefully did this so that after the battle,
the Goths would be diminished compared to the rest of his army.
In 395 Alaric grew angry at the lack of Imperial generosity which followed the victory at the
Frigidus, a victory which he believed he won for Theodosius.
When en route to the Balkans, Alaric revolted in the same manner as Fritigern, and was increasingly
joined by more Gothic settlers and units who saw the rebellion as a way to better their
conditions.
Being unable to attack Constantinople, Alaric’s army raided easier targets in Macedon and
Greece until he was given a position of command; possibly magister militum of the province
of Illyricum.
Western regent Stilicho, who was also a barbarian of Gothic origin, had come to deal with Alaric.
but the Eastern Roman court was hostile to the Western one at this time, and gave Alaric
the position to weaken Stilicho.
Late in 401 however, Alaric, no longer regarding the Eastern Empire as a reliable negotiating
partner, invaded Italy over the Julian Alps.
He didn’t succeed on this attempt, as Stilicho returned and halted the advance after winning
a few small battles, so Alaric retreated back into the Balkans.
In 405, wanting to placate the still dangerous Alaric, [the empire] gave him the position
of magister militum again.
Again in 407 Alaric attacked Italy, wanting greater plunder in fresh lands, demanding
4,000 pounds of gold to dissuade him - which Stilicho gave.
The Roman aristocracy, who had to bear a part of the cost for paying this bribe were dissatisfied,
and convinced Western Emperor Honorius to kill Stilicho and the families of thousands
of his Gothic auxiliaries, whose men promptly joined Alaric.
After marching directly down the Italian Peninsula to Rome, where Gothic slaves swelled his forces,
Alaric besieged the eternal city during the winter of 408 and 409.
Over the next two years, negotiations between the Goths and Romans broke down, and in the
August of 410 Alaric’s Goths sacked the city for the first time since Brennus had
in 390BC.
They stripped Rome of centuries’ worth of wealth, but for Alaric this was a failure,
rather than a victory.
Everything he and other Gothic leaders had fought for were up on flames.
Imperial office for himself and a legitimate place for his people inside the prosperous
civilised Empire were both now out of reach, he would never be given Rome by right.
This monumental sacking of Rome did not last Alaric long, as before 410 was over Alaric
passed away.
In the next century, the Goths were no longer the products and victims of Roman history
and they now made Rome’s history themselves.
The western branch of the Goths; the Visigoths, eventually settled in Hispania and forged
a kingdom for themselves there, eventually falling to the invading Umayyad Caliphate
in the early 700s.
Meanwhile the Ostrogoths, who had been freed from Hunnic dominion after their defeat at
the Battle of Nedao in 454, eventually established the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy under Theodoric
the Great, which fell to the remnant of the Roman Empire under Justinian in the mid 500’s.
The reputation of the Goths in popular imagination is almost synonymous with ‘barbarian’
and ‘savage’, their name ever sullied by their infamous sacking of the eternal city.
But as shown in this video, they were far more complex.
They reacted to Roman violence with violence of their own, eventually learning from their
settled counterparts and eventually succeeding them.
In contrast to the savage reputation of their name, the Gothic leaders Alaric and Fritigern
seemed to genuinely care about the fate of their people, whereas the Romans during this
time treated the Goths and other barbarians in a repulsive manner.
But neither Rome nor the Goths were good or evil, and were all reacting to the situations
in which they were placed, a phenomenon which led the Goths from small tribal bands to rulers
of great Kingdoms.
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