The Kingdom of the Visigoths

The Visigoths were the western tribe of the Goths.

They were a Germanic people who settled west of the Black Sea sometime in the 3rd century CE. According to the scholar Herwig Wolfram, the Roman writer Cassiodorus (c. 485-585 CE) coined the term Visigothi to mean ‘Western Goths’ as he understood the term Ostrogothi to mean ‘Eastern Goths’. Cassiodorus was simply trying to coin a name to differentiate the two extant tribes of the Gothic people in his time who clearly differed from each other; these tribes did not originally refer to themselves by these names. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (4th century CE) refers to the Visigoths as the Tervingi (also given as Thervingi), which may have been their original name. The designation Visigothi seems to have appealed to the Visigoths themselves, however, and in time they came to apply it to themselves.

The Visigoths would eventually settle in the region of modern-day Germany and Hungary until they were driven out by the invading Huns. Some Visigoths, under their general Fritigern (d. c. 380 CE) were granted land by the emperor Valens (r. 364-378 CE) in Roman territory. Their mistreatment at the hands of Roman provincial governors would lead to the First Gothic War and the pivotal Battle of Adrianople (378 CE) in which Rome was defeated by the Goths under Fritigern. The Visigoths would further impact Rome when their king Alaric I (r. 395-410 CE) sacked the city in 410 CE. After Alaric I, the Visigoths migrated to Spain where they established themselves and assimilated with the Romans and indigenous people living there.

The Goths probably came from the region of modern-day Gdansk, Poland (though this claim is contested), before migrating toward the boundaries of Rome. The scholar Walter Goffart argues that there can be no “history of the Goths” before their appearance in Roman texts because prior to this time (c. 238 CE) there was no written history (8). The primary source on Gothic history is Jordanes’ Getica (6th century CE) which draws on Cassiodorus’ work as its primary source and weaves mythological and legendary events in with the historical narrative. Goffart, therefore (among others), claims that the Roman history of the Goths is the only history.

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The Ostrogoths were the eastern tribe of the Goths.

They rose in power in the area north of the Black Sea. The designation, Ostrogoth, taken to mean ‘Eastern Goth’, actually means ‘Goths glorified by the rising sun’ and was coined at the same time as the term Visigoth (interpreted to mean ‘Western Goth’) by the Roman writer Cassiodorus (l. c. 485 - c. 585 CE) to differentiate between two distinct populations of Goths. The Ostrogoths seem to have originally been known as the Greuthungi (also given as Greutungi), as referenced by the 4th-century CE Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus and the 6th-century CE Gothic historian Jordanes.

Cassiodorus lived among the Ostrogoths and served their king Theodoric the Great (r. 493-526 CE). In an attempt to simplify the designation between the Germanic tribes which had moved toward the west, and those who remained in the east, Cassiodorus, deliberately or mistakenly, interpreted ‘Ostrogoth’ to mean `Eastern Goths’ and the others then became ‘Western Goths’, but the people themselves did not think of themselves along those lines. The Visigoths would, in time, accept and apply that term to themselves and the Ostrogoths had long known themselves by that name but neither tribe would have considered themselves the ‘eastern’ or the ‘western’ Goths. The Goths first appear in history living in the area around the Black Sea. They made constant incursions against the provinces of Rome and proved a resilient and perpetual nuisance to the Empire until the invasion of the Huns in 375 CE. A large portion of the populace (according to some sources, 200,000) fled the area to seek the protection of the Roman Empire under the emperor Valens (r. 364-378 CE) and these people became known as the Visigoths. The rest of the people remained, enduring the rule of the Huns, but retaining a certain degree of autonomy.

After the death of Attila the Hun in 453 CE and the dissolution of his empire, the Ostrogoths declared their independence. Eventually, under Theodoric the Great, they migrated and settled in Italy. Theodoric established the Ostrogothic Empire but his successors came into conflict with the Byzantine Empire which sent the general Flavius Belisarius (l. 505-565 CE) to bring the Goths back in line in accordance with Byzantine interests. The last great Gothic king Totila (r. 541-552 CE) led the Goth resistance against the Byzantines and, after his death in 553 CE, the Ostrogoths lost their autonomy and ethnic identity, merging with the people of Italy, the Lombards, and dispersing into the regions of modern-day France and Germany.