Alaric I was the first king of the Visigoths, from 395 to 410. He rose to leadership of the Goths who came to occupy Moesia—territory acquired a couple of decades earlier by a combined force of Goths and Alans after the Battle of Adrianople.
The Goths were Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe.
Theodoricthe Great, also called Theodoric the Amal, was king of the Ostrogoths (475–526), and ruler of the independent Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy between 493 and 526, regent of the Visigoths (511–526), and a patrician of the Eastern Roman Empire. As ruler of the combined Gothic realms, Theodoric controlled an empire stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Adriatic Sea. Though Theodoric himself only used the title 'king' (rex), some scholars characterize him as a Western Roman Emperor in all but name, since he ruled a large part of the former Western Roman Empire described as a Res Publica, had received the former Western imperial regalia from Constantinople in 497 which he used, was referred to by the imperial title princeps by the Italian aristocracy and exercised imperial powers recognized in the East, such as naming consuls.
Valens was Roman emperor from 364 to 378. Following a largely unremarkable military career, he was named co-emperor by his elder brother Valentinian I, who gave him the eastern half of the Roman Empire to rule. In 378, Valens was defeated and killed at the Battle of Adrianople against the invading Goths, which astonished contemporaries and marked the beginning of barbarian encroachment into Roman territory.
The Battle of Adrianople, sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis, was fought between an Eastern Roman army led by the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens and Gothic rebels led by Fritigern. The battle took place in the vicinity of Adrianople, in the Roman province of Thracia. It ended with an overwhelming victory for the Goths and the death of Emperor Valens.
Totila, original name Baduila, was the penultimate King of the Ostrogoths, reigning from 541 to 552 AD. A skilled military and political leader, Totila reversed the tide of the Gothic War, recovering by 543 almost all the territories in Italy that the Eastern Roman Empire had captured from his Kingdom in 540.
The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, also called the Battle of the Campus Mauriacus, Battle of Châlons, Battle of Troyes or the Battle of Maurica, took place on June 20, 451 AD, between a coalition, led by the Roman general Flavius Aetius and the Visigothic king Theodoric I, against the Huns and their vassals, commanded by their king, Attila. It proved one of the last major military operations of the Western Roman Empire, although Germanic foederati composed the majority of the coalition army. Whether the battle was of strategic significance is disputed; historians generally agree that the siege of Aurelianum was the decisive moment in the campaign and stopped the Huns' attempt to advance any further into Roman territory or establish vassals in Roman Gaul. However, the Huns successfully looted and pillaged much of Gaul and crippled the military capacity of the Romans and Visigoths. Attila died only two years later, in 453; after the Battle of Nedao in 454 AD, the coalition of the Huns and the incorporated Germanic vassals gradually disintegrated.
The Walls of Constantinople are a series of defensive stone walls that have surrounded and protected the city of Constantinople since its founding as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great. With numerous additions and modifications during their history, they were the last great fortification system of antiquity, and one of the most complex and elaborate systems ever built.
This is a chronology of warfare between the Romans and various Germanic peoples. The nature of these wars varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings, later Germanic invasions of the Western Roman Empire that started in the late second century BC, and more. The series of conflicts was one factor which led to the ultimate downfall of the Western Roman Empire in particular and ancient Rome in general in 476.
The Gothic War between the Byzantine Empire during the reign of Emperor Justinian I and the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy took place from 535 to 554 in the Italian Peninsula, Dalmatia, Sardinia, Sicily, and Corsica. It was one of the last of the many Gothic Wars against the Roman Empire. The war had its roots in the ambition of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I to recover the provinces of the former Western Roman Empire, which the Romans had lost to invading barbarian tribes in the previous century, during the Migration Period.
Professor Alexander van Millingen DD (1840–1915) was a scholar in the field of Byzantine architecture, and a professor of history at Robert College, Istanbul between 1879 and 1915. His works are now public domain in many jurisdictions.
Between 376 and 382 the Goths fought against the Eastern Roman Empire, one of several Gothic Wars in Roman history. This conflict included a catastrophic Roman defeat at the Battle of Adrianople, and is commonly seen as a part— albeit a part of disputed significance— of the century of events leading to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire.
The Battle of Zhizhi (郅支之戰) was fought in 36 BC between the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu chieftain Zhizhi Chanyu. Zhizhi was defeated and killed. The battle was probably fought near Taraz on the Talas River in eastern Kazakhstan, which makes it one of the westernmost points reached by a Chinese army. The Battle of Talas in 751 AD was fought in the same area.
Stephen Richard Turnbull is a British historian concentrating on Japanese military history, especially the samurai period, and has published numerous books. He has worked as a historical consultant for the film 47 Ronin, as well multiple television documentaries, and the Shogun: Total War series of video games.
The First Siege of Rome during the Gothic War lasted for a year and nine days, from 2 March 537 to 12 March 538. The city was besieged by the Ostrogothic army under their king Vitiges; the defending East Romans were commanded by Belisarius, one of the most famous and successful Roman generals. The siege was the first major encounter between the forces of the two opponents, and played a decisive role in the subsequent development of the war.
The Palace of Blachernae was an imperial Roman residence in the suburb of Blachernae, located in the northwestern section of Constantinople. The area of the palace is now mostly overbuilt, and only literary sources are available as to its description.
Belisarius was a military commander of the Byzantine Empire under the emperor Justinian I. Belisarius was instrumental in the reconquest of much of the Mediterranean territory belonging to the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century prior. Belisarius is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history and the greatest of all Byzantine generals.
The Prison of Anemas is a large Byzantine building attached to the walls of the city of Constantinople. It is traditionally identified with the prisons named after Michael Anemas, a Byzantine general who rose in unsuccessful revolt against Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and was the first person to be imprisoned there. The prison features prominently in the last centuries of the Byzantine Empire, when four Byzantine emperors were imprisoned there.
The Battle of Marcianople or Marcianopolis took place in 376 following the Goths' migration over the Danube. It was the first notable battle of the Gothic War of 376–382.
