| Siege of Thessalonica (254) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Crisis of the Third Century Gothic War (248-253) and Roman–Germanic wars | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Roman Empire | Goths | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Garrison Militia | Unknown | ||||||
  Location within the Thessaloniki urban area  Siege of Thessalonica (254) (Greece) | |||||||
The siege of Thessalonica in 254 [1] [2] was a successful defense of the city of Thessalonica by local Roman militia during an invasion of the Balkans by the Goths. [3]
In 254 the Goths invaded and plundered Thrace and Macedonia. [1] [4] [5] In 1979, Herwig Wolfram regarded 254 as the date, while Mallan and Davenport in 2015 suggested 262. [6] [1] Goltz and Hartmann estimated 254 as the date. [2] David Potter in 2016 rejected Mallan and Davenport's estimate and dated it to either 253 or 259. [4]
The Goths attempted to storm Thessalonica in close order formations and assault columns. [5] The Thessalonicans rallied to defend the city walls and defeated the attacks. [5]
The Goths abandoned the siege and moved on to invade Greece south of Thermopylae, seeking to loot the gold and silver wealth of Greek temples. [5] The siege was recorded by the contemporary historian Dexippus. [7] A fragment of his work, discovered in Vienna in 2010, specifies the involvement of the citizens in the defense. [7]
The Battle of Abritus also known as the Battle of Forum Terebronii occurred near Abritus in the Roman province of Moesia Inferior in the summer of CE 251. It was fought between the Romans and a federation of Gothic and Scythian tribesmen under the Gothic king Cniva. The Roman army was soundly defeated, and Roman emperors Decius and Herennius Etruscus, his son, were both killed in battle. It was one of the worst defeats suffered by the Roman Empire against the Germanic tribes, rated by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus as on par with the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in CE 9, the Marcomannic invasion of Roman Italy in 170, and the Battle of Adrianople in 378.
The Goths were Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe.
The Ostrogoths were a Roman-era Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Gothic kingdoms within the Western Roman Empire, drawing upon the large Gothic populations who had settled in the Balkans in the 4th century. While the Visigoths had formed under the leadership of Alaric I, the new Ostrogothic political entity which came to rule Italy was formed in the Balkans under Theodoric the Great.
The Battle of Naissus in 268 or 269 was the defeat of a Gothic coalition by the Roman Empire under Emperor Gallienus and the future Emperor Aurelian near Naissus (Niš). The events around the invasion and the battle are an important part of the history of the Crisis of the Third Century.
The Migration Period, also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman kingdoms.
Gaius Vibius Trebonianus Gallus was Roman emperor from June 251 to August 253, in a joint rule with his son Volusianus.
Cniva was a Gothic king who invaded the Roman Empire. He successfully captured the city of Philippopolis in 250 and killed Emperor Decius and his son Herennius Etruscus at the Battle of Abritus as he was attempting to leave the Empire in 251. This was the first time a Roman Emperor had been killed in combat against foreigners. He was allowed by the new Emperor Trebonianus Gallus to leave with his spoils and was paid tribute to stay out of the empire.
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.
Theudis, was king of the Visigoths in Hispania from 531 to 548.
Radagaisus was a Gothic king who led an invasion of Roman Italy in late 405 and the first half of 406. A committed pagan, Radagaisus evidently planned to sacrifice the Senators of the Christian Roman Empire to the gods, and to burn Rome to the ground. Radagaisus was executed after being defeated by the general Stilicho. 12,000 of his higher-status fighters were drafted into the Roman army and some of the remaining followers were dispersed, while so many of the others were sold into slavery that the slave market briefly collapsed. These Goths later joined Alaric I in his sack of Rome in 410.
The Gothic wars or Roman–Gothic wars were a long series of conflicts between the Goths and the Roman Empire between the years 249 and 554. The main wars are detailed below.
The Sack of Rome on 24 August 410 AD was undertaken by the Visigoths led by their king, Alaric. At that time, Rome was no longer the administrative capital of the Western Roman Empire, having been replaced in that position first by Mediolanum in 286 and then by Ravenna in 402. Nevertheless, the city of Rome retained a paramount position as "the eternal city" and a spiritual center of the Empire. This was the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy, and the sack was a major shock to contemporaries, friends and foes of the Empire alike.
The siege of Philippopolis was fought in about 250 between Rome and the Goths during the invasions of 249–253 at the Thracian city of Philippopolis, modern Plovdiv, Bulgaria. It was part of the long-running series of Gothic Wars.
The Battle of Thermopylae in 254 was a successful defense of the pass of Thermopylae by local Greek militia under Marianus, the Roman proconsul of Achaea, during an invasion of the Balkans by the Goths.
Balamber was ostensibly a chieftain of the Huns, mentioned by Jordanes in his Getica. Jordanes simply called him "king of the Huns" and writes the story of Balamber crushing the tribes of the Ostrogoths in the 370s; somewhere between 370 and more probably 376 AD.
Herwig Wolfram is an Austrian historian who is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History and Auxiliary Sciences of History at the University of Vienna and the former Director of the Institute of Austrian Historical Research. He is a leading member of the Vienna School of History, and internationally known for his authoritative works on the history of Austria, the Goths, and relationships between the Germanic peoples and the Roman Empire.
Cannabaudes or Cannabas was a third-century leader of the Gothic tribe of the Tervings, who died in a battle against the Roman emperor Aurelian.
The Onomastics of the Gothic language are an important source not only for the history of the Goths themselves, but for Germanic onomastics in general and the linguistic and cultural history of the Germanic Heroic Age of c. the 3rd to 6th centuries. Gothic names can be found in Roman records as far back as the 4th century AD. After the Muslim invasion of Hispania and the fall of the Visigothic kingdom in the early 8th century, the Gothic tradition was largely interrupted, although Gothic or pseudo-Gothic names continued to be given in the Kingdom of Asturias in the 9th and 10th centuries.
Ostrogotha was a leader of the eastern Goths in the Ukraine, who invaded Roman Moesia during the Crisis of the Third Century, mentioned by the 6th-century historian Jordanes. He was a contemporary of King Cniva.
The Gothic War took place between the years 248 and 249, as well as in the year 253. Within this war, a series of battles occurred and plundering was carried out by the Goths and their allies in the eastern territory of the Roman Empire, specifically in the Balkans. With the cessation of the payment of tribute previously made by the Roman emperor Philip the Arab to the tribes beyond the Danube, the Goths and their allies, led by King Ostrogotha and his subcommanders Argedo and Gundericus, moved towards the Roman border and began a series of attacks, including against the fortified city of Marcianopolis in Thracia. After these actions, the Goths withdrew with their spoils of war.