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The Visigoths, or Goths, were a nomadic Germanic people who settled west of the Black Sea sometime in the 3rd century CE.
The following year, 396, Sparta was sacked, as was Corinth. But the greatest prize had yet to be claimed: Rome itself.
The decisive engagement of the war was the Battle of Adrianople, which took place on August 9, 378. Led by Fritgern, the Goths claimed an overwhelming victory, and the life of Emperor Valens.
The Romans, however, generally treated the Goths with contempt. And when famine broke out in Rome, its leaders were reluctant to supply them with both food and the land they'd been offered. Open revolt ensued, leading to the Gothic War.
After their triumph in Rome, the Visigoths expanded further west but without King Alaric, who'd died in 411. He was succeeded by his wife's brother, Athaulf. The Goths had by now secured an uneasy alliance with the Romans and in 418 had settled in Aquitaine, in southwestern France. The Visigothic kingdom was expanding.
In 250 CE, the Goths, under King Cniva, raided Roman territory. The following year, 251, the Roman army was soundly defeated at the Battle of Abritus, during which the Roman emperors Decius and Herennius Etruscus, his son, were both killed. Pictured is the Ludovisi Battle sarcophagus depicting a fierce clash between Romans and Goths.
Success on the battlefield against the Romans inspired additional incursions into the empire. Then in 376, the Gothic chieftain Fritigern persuaded the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens to allow a community of Visigoths to settle on the south bank of the Danube.
The Goths continued their advance west. In 395, the ancient Greek cities of Argos and Eleusis were destroyed. The same year, the Goths crowned their first king—Alaric I.
Two years later, after failed negotiations with Emperor Honorius, the Goths again targeted Rome. On August 24, 410, Alaric and his forces began the sack of Rome, an assault that lasted three days. It was the first time the city had been attacked or defeated and looted in nearly 800 years.
Historians consider the Battle of Adrianople as the start of the events which led to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Pictured is the empire in 117 CE, at its greatest extent.
In 408, the Goths besieged Rome. Famine was still widespread and Alaric used hunger as a weapon, demanding huge ransoms in exchange for delivering food to the city's starving citizens.
King Athaulf's reign was short. He was murdered in 415. His successor's tenure was even shorter: King Sigeric spent just seven days on the throne before he too fell victim to an assassin. It was the next king, Wallia, who'd secured an agreement with Emperor Honorius to allow the Visigoths to establish a base in France.
Theodoric II initiated the Visigoth expansion into Hispania, the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces, in 462. The powerplay within the Visigoth kingdom was such that it came as no surprise that Theodoric II was murdered by his younger brother Euric in 466.
Euric ruled as king of the Visigoths from 466 until his death in 484. During his reign, he unified the various quarreling factions among the Visigoths and concluded a peace treaty with the Roman emperor Julius Nepos (by 476 the Western Roman Empire had effectively ceased to exist). Euric extended Visigothic power in Hispania, and presided over nearly the entire Iberian Peninsula.
By 500, the Visigoth kingdom, centered at Toulouse, controlled Aquitania, the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis in southern France, and most of Hispania. The map shows the greatest extent of Visigoth territory.
In the wake of the Battle of Vouillé, a previously divided Gaul morphed into the united kingdom of Francia under Clovis to undermine Visigoth rule in the region.
Visigothic rule in Europe was further challenged when Justinian I, Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565, launched a war in 535 with the aim of reconquering Italy from the Goths.
From 511 to 526, the Visigoths were ruled by Theoderic the Great. His successor, Amalaric, reigned for five years before being assassinated. Next in line was King Theudis (pictured), who held the throne for 17 years, until 548.
The center of Visigothic rule shifted again, first to Barcelona, then inland and south to Toledo. In 571, the Goths conquered Córdoba.
All the while, though, Justinian I had been waging war against the Visigoths and in 562 finally conquered Italy. The rapidly encroaching Byzantine forces were perceived as a serious threat.
By 565 under Justinian I, the Byzantine Empire, centered on Constantinople, expanded to its largest geographical area, land that included the southern Iberian Peninsula.
King Leovigild (pictured) and later King Suintila managed to regain part of the southern regions of Hispania lost to the Byzanties. Imperial Roman armies, meanwhile, took advantage of Visigothic rivalries and established a new government at Córdoba.
Tariq ibn Ziyad, an Umayyad commander, is credited with initiating the Muslim conquest of Visigothic Hispania, when most of the Iberian Peninsula came under Islamic rule in the early 8th century.
The last Visigoth king was Ardo, reigning from 713 or 714 until his death in 720 or 721. The last Visigothic province was Gallia Narbonensis, which fell under Muslim control in 716. The Visigoth kingdom was no more.
Sources: (Britannica) (World History Encyclopedia) (National Geographic) (Khan Academy)
See also: The largest empires in world history
The Visigoths were a Germanic tribe that in late antiquity harassed the Roman Empire to the point where Rome was sacked and its influence across Western Europe fatally eroded. The Goths' story is a complex one. They formed uneasy alliances with their enemies while quarreling with and murdering their own. Territory was won and then lost, and the threat from equally ambitious barbarian tribes—the Huns and the Franks—was ever present. Their own kingdom thrived. But powerful forces were gathering, ready to challenge the reign of the Visigoths. So, what happened next?
Click through and learn more about this extraordinary people and their place in history.
The Goths felt invincible. Then the unthinkable happened. In the spring of 507, they were routed at the Battle of Vouillé by the Franks, another Germanic tribe. Commanded by Clovis, the Frank's victory and the death of King Alaric II, who had succeeded his father, Euric, represented the first cracks in the Visigoth's hard-won kingdom.
Although the seat of Roman governance had by then transferred to Ravenna, the sacking of Rome signaled a major turning point in the fall of the Western Roman Empire. More widely, it marked the slow transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages.
Ironically, it wasn't the Byzantine Empire that did it for the Visigoths, but invasion by Muslim forces. In 711 at the Battle of Guadalete, Roderic, the Visigoth king of Hispania, was killed while his army attempted to counter a Berber attack led by Tariq ibn Ziyad.
Wallia ruled from 415 to 418. His successor was Theodoric I. Theodoric is famous for his part in stopping Attila the Hun at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451, where a combined army of Romans and Visigoths halted the barbarians. Theodoric, however, was killed on the battlefield.
Who exactly were the Visigoths?
They faced down the Romans and stood up to the barbarians
LIFESTYLE History
The Visigoths were a Germanic tribe that in late antiquity harassed the Roman Empire to the point where Rome was sacked and its influence across Western Europe fatally eroded. The Goths' story is a complex one. They formed uneasy alliances with their enemies while quarreling with and murdering their own. Territory was won and then lost, and the threat from equally ambitious barbarian tribes—the Huns and the Franks—was ever present. Their own kingdom thrived. But powerful forces were gathering, ready to challenge the reign of the Visigoths. So, what happened next?
Click through and learn more about this extraordinary people and their place in history.