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The Goths were Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe.
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 Visigoths were a Germanic people united under the rule of a king and living within the Roman Empire during late antiquity. The Visigoths first appeared in the Balkans, as a Roman-allied barbarian military group united under the command of Alaric I. Their exact origins are believed to have been diverse but they probably included many descendants of the Thervingi who had moved into the Roman Empire beginning in 376 and had played a major role in defeating the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Relations between the Romans and Alaric's Visigoths varied, with the two groups making treaties when convenient, and warring with one another when not. Under Alaric, the Visigoths invaded Italy and sacked Rome in August 410.
Year 381 (CCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Syagrius and Eucherius. The denomination 381 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
The 370s decade ran from January 1, 370, to December 31, 379.
Foederati were peoples and cities bound by a treaty, known as foedus, with Rome. During the Roman Republic, the term identified the socii, but during the Roman Empire, it was used to describe foreign states, client kingdoms or barbarian tribes to which the empire provided benefits in exchange for military assistance. The term was also used, especially under the empire, for groups of "barbarian" mercenaries of various sizes who were typically allowed to settle within the empire.
The Germanic peoples underwent gradual Christianization in the course of late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. By AD 700, England and Francia were officially Christian, and by 1100 Germanic paganism had also ceased to have political influence in Scandinavia.
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 AD. The main wars are detailed below.
The Thervingi, Tervingi, or Teruingi were a Gothic people of the plains north of the Lower Danube and west of the Dniester River in the 3rd and the 4th centuries.
The Goths, Gepids, Vandals, and Burgundians were East Germanic groups who appear in Roman records in late antiquity. At times these groups warred against or allied with the Roman Empire, the Huns, and various Germanic tribes.
The Greuthungi were a Gothic people who lived on the Pontic steppe between the Dniester and Don rivers in what is now Ukraine, in the 3rd and the 4th centuries. They had close contacts with the Tervingi, another Gothic people, who lived west of the Dniester River. To the east of the Greuthungi, living near the Don river, were the Alans.
The Visigothic Kingdom, Visigothic Spain or Kingdom of the Goths occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to the Western Roman Empire, it was originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under King Wallia in the province of Gallia Aquitania in southwest Gaul by the Roman government and then extended by conquest over all of Hispania. The Kingdom maintained independence from the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, whose attempts to re-establish Roman authority in Hispania were only partially successful and short-lived.
The Taifals or Tayfals were a people group of Germanic or Sarmatian origin, first documented north of the lower Danube in the mid third century AD. They experienced an unsettled and fragmented history, for the most part in association with various Gothic peoples, and alternately fighting against or for the Romans. In the late fourth century some Taifali were settled within the Roman Empire, notably in western Gaul in the modern province of Poitou. They subsequently supplied mounted units to the Roman army and continued to be a significant source of cavalry for early Merovingian armies. By the sixth century their region of western Gaul had acquired a distinct identity as Thifalia.
Nicetas is a Christian martyr of the 4th century, venerated particularly in the Eastern Orthodox Church. His feastday is 15 September. Nicetas was of Gothic origin, living during the 4th century AD. His life spanned the years of Emperor Constantine the Great's sole rule. He belonged to the upper social class of his people. Nicetas was instructed in Christianity by Theophilus of Gothia, a converted bishop, between 325 and 341 AD.
There is a record of Gothic persecution of Christians in the third century. According to Basil of Caesarea, some prisoners taken captive in a Gothic raid on Cappadocia around 260 preached the gospel to their captors and were martyred. One of their names was Eutychus. Bishop Dionysius of Caesarea sent messengers to the Goths to ransom captives and there was still a written record of these attempts in Basil's time.
Gothic paganism was the original religion of the Goths before their conversion to Christianity.
Athanaric or Atanaric was king of several branches of the Thervingian Goths for at least two decades in the 4th century. Throughout his reign, Athanaric was faced with invasions by the Roman Empire, the Huns and a civil war with Christian rebels. He is considered the first king of the Visigoths, who later settled in Iberia, where they founded the Visigothic Kingdom.
Atharid was a Gothic chieftain under the Thervingian leader Athanaric. He was the son of Athanaric's sub-king Rothesteus, and played a leading role in the killing of the Christian saint Sabbas the Goth.
Rothesteus, also known as Rothesteos, Rothestes, also Radistis was a Gothic sub-king under the Thervingian chieftain Athanaric. He was the father of Atharid, who played a leading role in the killing of the Christian martyr Sabbas.
References
- 1 2 Rubin 1981, p. 39 n45.
- ↑ Strzelczyk 1980, p. 383.
Bibliography
- Barnes, Timothy (1974). "Another Forty Missing Persons (A.D. 260–395)". Phoenix. 28 (2): 224–233. doi:10.2307/1087420. JSTOR 1087420.
- Heather, Peter (2003). The Visigoths from the Migration Period to the Seventh Century: An Ethnographic Perspective. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. p. 454. ISBN 9781843830337 . Retrieved 30 November 2014.
- Rubin, Zeev (1981). "The Conversion of the Visigoths to Christianity". Museum Helveticum. 38 (1): 34–54.
- Strzelczyk, Jerzy (1980). "Visigothic Society of the 4th Century in the Light of the Passion of Saint Saba the Goth" (PDF). Eos. 68: 367–386.
- Wolfram, Herwig (1990). History of the Goths. University of California Press. pp. 82–83, 96. ISBN 9780520069831 . Retrieved 30 November 2014.
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