The Ancients - The Goths

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

The Goths are renowned for many things, not least sacking Rome in 410 AD and helping to bring about the fall of the Western Roman Empire. They were a 'barbarian' people from across the Danube who began migrating into the Empire during the 3rd and 4th centuries, pushed out of their ancestral nomadic lands by the onrushing Huns. But what were their origins? And did they really cause the fall of Rome?In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes speaks to Dr. David Gwynn to tell the tale of the Goths from their origins on the great plains of Eastern Europe to their great migrations and successive invasions of Italy.This episode was produced by Joseph Knight and edited by Aidan Lonergan and Ella Blaxill.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code ANCIENTS - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. The Goths. You may well have heard of them. During the 4th and 5th centuries AD, as the Roman Empire declined, these Germanic people rose to prominence. They fought the Romans on several occasions,

ultimately sacking Roman 410 under their leader Alaric. But that is just one part of a much bigger story. To talk through the tale of the Goths, from their origins to their great migration to their invasions of Italy, well I was delighted to interview Dr David Gwynne from Royal Holloway University of London. We did this interview in person at London's Spotify studio and I really do hope you enjoy. So without further ado, here's David. David, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today. Thank you very much. And to do it in this stunning setting, we're at the Spotify studios to talk about an awesome topic, which is the Goths. Much more to their story than just the sack of Rome.

That is definitely true. The Goths get around the map of Europe and indeed beyond, far beyond. Well, before we go to their origins, let's kind of actually look at the sources we have available. What types of sources do we have for learning about the Goths? There's always a problem trying to understand so-called barbarians, that they don't write down enough to tell us what is happening. Almost always, you depend on people they fought against who had no reason to treat them fairly or evenly. With the Goths, we're a little bit lucky.

There are a lot of Roman sources, some of them fairly even-handed, and there is a Gothic writer. He's not exactly your axe-wielding barbarian, because Giordanes, the author of the Getica, is actually a civil servant in Constantinople. But he was a goth, he knew Gothic stories. So we do get at least partly a Gothic perspective. And then we've got what they left behind. So archaeology scattered all over the map. So archaeology and this interesting literature. Is Giordanes a key source then to try and learn about the background of the Goths,

almost where they came from in those centuries before their interactions with the Romans? If nothing else, Giordanes tells us what they thought. He's recording, as far as we can tell, the Goths' own memories of their wandering. He's writing, give or take, 551 AD, so 180 years after they first tried to cross into the Roman Empire, and about 400 years since they began moving. How accurate he is on the legendary origins, we do not know, but it's what they believed. So what are these legendary origins of the Goths? Here, Jordanes is crystal clear. The Goths came from a great northern island called Skansa.

They crossed the sea into much larger land and then began migrating southward and came to the region we know as Ukraine, north of the Black Sea. That would place Skansa as, give or take, Scandinavia. Not actually an island, but in the right geographic location. Is there debate to the veracity, to the truth, of their ultimate origins being that far north in Scandinavia? Yes, definitely. We are far beyond the borders of the Greek or Roman ancient world, so we do not have clear textual evidence for the societies of this time. The migration story fits with what we know of Gothic culture, the way they acted once they came closer to the Roman world.

Did they truly come from Scandinavia? You cannot prove it, much as much later Swedish historians tried very hard to claim that Sweden was the true Goths. The true home of the Goths. Well, there you go. Well, let's go to that area of Ukraine before they really come into contact with the Romans and migrate further. Do we know much about their culture, their lifestyle, when they are based in that area of Ukraine? Jordanes' difficulty was he clearly didn't know that much about them. So what he did was read every Greek or Roman source that ever talked about that part of the

world and applied all the stories to the Goths. So the Goths get involved in the Trojan War. The Goths get involved with any other story. It's the Goths who fought Trajan, leading to Trajan's column. And yet, leaving behind all the stories Jordanes tells, yes, we do actually know a fair amount about the people who were living there. Because on Jordanes' narrative, around the start of the 3rd century AD, the Goths ended up north of the Black Sea, and at exactly that same basic period, archaeologically, a culture begins to emerge. It is known, after two of its earliest excavated sites, as the Serniakov-Sintana-de-Murish culture. Serniakov is near Kiev, the Ukraine. Sintana de Mures is in Transylvania in Romania. But archaeologically, there is a clearly recognizable culture with local variations spanning all the way around from Romania, so north of the Danube, round to north of the Black Sea. And that culture emerges at exactly the time Jordanes is suggesting

the Goths are moving into that region. And at exactly the same time, other Roman sources start talking about the Goths, which is the third century. So what is this culture defined by? So what we're looking at, and we have more than 3,000 sites linked to this culture. It's a huge spread. It's not a culture defined by a big political center. It's not defined by luxury. So there's not a lot of stone. Houses are earth, wood.

They're a sedentary agricultural people. So they're growing crops to feed themselves. They're raising basic herd animals, cattle, pigs, goats. Almost all these settlements have a local potter, a local blacksmith, so they've got their own basic crafts. They have some silver ornaments, but mostly it's simpler things, bronze, bone. What they don't have is a dominant horse culture, and the reason that's important, they are not a steppe nomad culture where the horse is everything. The Goths have horses, but it's not a dominant feature. This is a sedentary agricultural

Germanic world. It's interesting that you highlighted that. When we do picture the Goths in battle, which we're going to get to very, very shortly, we shouldn't be imagining rows and rows of horse archers. We we be more imagining infantry, footmen, almost kind of this Germanic culture idea of maybe either a spear and a shield, something like that? Exactly. Earlier on, scholars used to picture the Goths as sort of the rise of the mounted knight. And somehow this was a great cavalry army sweeping over Roman infantry.

The great battles are infantry battles. If anything, the Romans may have slightly more cavalry than the over Roman infantry. The great battles are infantry battles. If anything, the Romans may have slightly more cavalry than the Goths do. What the Goths are is tough. This is an agricultural people. They are hardworking. They've got a long tradition of warfare. That's one of the few things Jordanes does remember, is they honored a god of war. They hung weapons up in trees. This is a fighting culture, but it is an infantry-based culture, and it doesn't have a particularly strong aristocracy monarchy. As far as we can tell, that Sernyakov-Sintana-Dyamurish culture doesn't actually have a single political identity. There are different local groups within it. The Goths are probably only one of the peoples who are there.

There may well be the dominant one, but it's not a single state. So when do the Goths first come into contact with the Romans? Here, of course, we depend on when did the Romans first notice that this people were there. But the third century is known in Roman history for scholars as the third century crisis. It's when a lot of things went wrong simultaneously. Not the best time to be alive as a Roman. Not really. I mean, if you were in North Africa or Britain, it wasn't actually that bad because you were far enough away. But it's the period where we actually meet three different major peoples for the first time. The Franks, who were going to emerge in obviously what is now

called France, the Goths, and also the Sasanian Persians, who are the most dangerous of them all. That's the Persian Empire of Iran-Iraq. And the Romans end up fighting all of them. And for a period, it looks like the empire will collapse. It shatters into three pieces. The Goths took advantage of that weakness and the fact that this is the point where the Goths have just moved into that region. They probably are under leaders who want to raid, want to win plunder, and you get major Gothic attacks beginning in the 240s. They're going across the Danube because the Danube is the northern frontier of the Roman Empire. Interestingly, they're also raiding across the Black Sea, which is something the later Goths

won't be able to do. And it suggests that they took the ships from the local peoples of the Black Sea and then over time lost that ability. So the Goths actually have more maritime capacity in the 250s, 260s. But it all culminates in a major raid that leads to a battle at a place called Ibritus, ongoing argument over exactly where that is, but on the Danube River frontier, which in Roman terms is actually a landmark because it is the first time in all of Rome's long military history that a Roman emperor dies on a battlefield facing a foreign enemy. Roman emperors have died facing internal other Roman enemies, but the first Roman emperor to die actually fighting a foreign foe was the emperor

Decius at Abritus. So the Romans lose this titanic battle. This is unusual, you think, for the Romans at this time, especially if it's their first major conflict against the Goths, and they lose it badly. Yes, and it is clearly a major defeat. It comes alongside some major defeats against the Persians. It certainly wasn't the full Roman army. They're too badly stretched. But it is clearly a major Gothic victory. Our real problem is our sources actually don't say much about it because Decius, the emperor who died there, is actually most famous for being the first Roman emperor to carry out an empire-wide persecution of Christians. So our Christian sources remember the battle as God's punishment of Decius and are more interested in that, the fact that the

Goths have won this victory. So does this kind of consolidate how the Romans and Goths view each other, that they're always seen as enemies from that time onwards? I mean, how does the relationship between these two people, how does it progress following this massive Roman defeat? Romans always do struggle after a defeat. They need to reorganize, so they need to reestablish the relationship. For the next 20 years, emperors are trying to force the Goths back, and they do. So one of the emperors indeed takes the title Claudius II Gothicus to celebrate his success.

Once the Romans have won a few victories themselves, then they can actually negotiate. The Goths aren't trying to settle in Roman territory, and the Romans have been dealing for centuries with tribes beyond the frontier. and the Romans have been dealing for centuries with tribes beyond the frontier. So actually, while there is a lot of violence in the 240s, 250s, 260s, after that, you begin to get a much more settled relationship. There are still occasional raids on both sides, but there's also trade, there's diplomacy. In other words, the Romans have recognized the Goths as an important enough entity to negotiate with, and the Goths have come to begin to realize just how big the Roman world is, and this is an empire worth talking to.

And is there any sort of embracing of Roman culture by these Goths, if there's this increased interaction across the Danube River, trade ideas, and so on. Yes, definitely. This is where archaeology, of course, has real advantages because in that archaeological culture north of the Danube, round to the Black Sea, yes, we've got a number of traditional Germanic elements, but you also find other things. Roman coins are penetrating increasingly through the 4th century. Roman pottery is stylistically different from Germanic pottery, and there's Roman pottery there. And what's actually one of the underrated giveaways of Roman influence? Glass. Only the Romans are making glass, so where you get glassware, you're getting Roman trade. So yes, there is definite trade. And then there's the other key influence,

and that's Christianity. Because in those Gothic raids, particularly in the 250s, 260s, they took captives. And some of those captives were Christian. And as a result, you get people growing up in Gothic lands who know Greek, who also know Gothic, and have Christian roots. And it is from that odd combination that you get the little wolf, Alfula, that's what his name means, the apostle to the Goths. Because Alfula came to the attention of the bishop in Constantinople, who realized that a Gothic missionary could be very useful. And Alfulullah is, with imperial support, sent out to spread the Christian message to the Goths. It's a landmark in Germanic culture, not least because in order to teach Christianity, you need to write it down. And as a result, for the first time ever,

a Germanic language gets an alphabet. It actually gets a full literature or the ability to write literature because old Fuller created the Gothic alphabet. And he sets about, basically, it's Greek with a few Latin and a few runic characters so he can translate the Bible. And he then, going to the sources, translates the entire Bible into Gothic except the two books of Kings in the Old Testament because they're mainly about warfare, and he didn't think the Goths needed encouragement. Now, we've actually got several hundred pages of the Gothic Bible. None of it comes from the two books of Kings. So it could just be that that story is true, and he didn't translate those two books. That is incredible. The archaeology and then the literature backing it up. I had no

idea that there was this Gothic Bible too. But it really emphasises, doesn't it, how the Romans and the Goths know each other very well. Even though it starts almost in infamy with military, with battle, it develops into so much more their relations. So how come when we get to near the end of the 4th century, to the year 376 in particular, that things, they come crashing down? What happens in that year? There is no question to explain what happens, there has to be a cataclysm. That archaeological culture was stable, agricultural, sedentary. It wasn't a people who wanted to move.

And yet in the year 376, give or take 100,000 Goths end up on the River Danube. And we aren't talking a war band. This isn't an invasion. There are men, women, children. They have run away. In other words, what 376 is in modern terms is a refugee crisis. They've run. What they have run from, it's going to take the Romans another couple

of decades to fully understand what it means, but they have run from the Huns. Now, Gothic origins may be complex. Hun origins are almost impossible to truly define, but they are a step-nomad horse culture. They are fast-moving, viciously violent, extremely skilled, and they have hit the Goths like an absolute thunderbolt. And what the Goths told the Romans, which is what our main Roman source, Ammianus Marcellinus, can then record, is Goths living north of the Black Sea were hit by these nomadic people. Two Gothic kings die. Gothic society north of the Black Sea is shattered. And basically, the Goths had two choices. Some of them stayed. They stay in those regions and get absorbed under the Huns.

They will re-emerge a hundred years later as what we know as the Ostrogoths. The rest of them run, abandon their leaders, abandon their lands, go to the Danube River. And this is the great marker of how Gothic-Roman relations have developed. What do they do? They don't try and invade. They don't flood over the river. They go to the banks of the Danube and send a message to the Roman emperor Valens, can we come in? We'll fight for you in exchange for asylum within the empire. It's a relatively polite request. Relatively polite indeed. And also, is that, once again, reinforcing the strength of those relations that rather than heading further west, they do decide to go to the Danube? And

is the Roman Empire the obvious choice for them to find somewhere of refuge at that time? It is. Because if they try and go further west through what's now Austria, Germany, you're going into other tribal lands. You're almost certainly going to have to fight your way through. Whereas the Romans, you know they've got the infrastructure. You know they've got food, and food is going to be what you need more than anything else. After all, an agricultural people, you can grow food, but it takes time. Refugees, above all, need shelter and food.

They know the Roman Empire can provide that, and can provide potential protection should the Huns keep coming. It's almost portrayed as if the Goths, they've asked nicely, they've offered their services almost to the Romans for them being able to cross the Danube and settle in their lands. So it's not like we are invading, and as you say, it's against the Roman will. But how do the Romans react to this request from the Goths on the bank of the Danube? To explain what the Romans do, you need the wider context. Ammianus Marcellinus, interestingly, he places the blame on the Romans. He can understand why the Goths are there. But

when they got to the Danube and sent a message to the Eastern Roman Emperor, he wasn't anywhere near the Danube. He wasn't in Constantinople, not too far to the south. He's actually out in Antioch in Syria because there's a war going with the Persians. And the one thing Valens does not need is a sudden crisis on the Danube River. So it actually takes two years for any clear response to come. Basically, the Romans played for time. 100,000 people means give or take 30,000 warriors. The Romans can possibly absorb that if everything else is peaceful. It's too big. For this crisis, what they badly need to do is break the Goths up,

subdue them so they can control them. That's Roman frontier policy 101. But the Goths are too numerous and Valens can't concentrate enough soldiers. So what they try to do is, well, can we split the Goths up? There are two major Gothic tribes, the Turvingi and the Grufungi. They're separate entities. So one thing they try and do is, well, we might let one of you in, but not the other. In other words, play divide and conquer. And the Goths don't want to separate. Their leadership can certainly see this is where their strength lies.

So it all begins to break down. Ammianus puts the blame partly on Valens, who he doesn't like, but also actually on the local Roman commanders who basically saw a chance to make money. This is a chance to extort. After all, we've got the food you need. What will you pay for it? So he blames the local Roman commanders. They're trying to exploit the Goths. They're also trying to weaken any Gothic leaders so that the Romans can take over. And in the end, the Goths can't wait. Not because the Huns are right behind them, they're not. The fact this takes two years suggests the Huns are still north of the Black Sea. In the end, the Goths start crossing the river, and despite Roman attempts, they manage to hold together. So Valens does the only other thing he can do, which is concentrate

as many soldiers as he can, and he requests help from his nephew, Gratian, who rules the western half of the Roman Empire. The Danube River may seem slightly strange if you look at a modern European map. The Danube River is eastern territory in Roman terms. It's part of the eastern role of the Roman Emperor. Gratian in the west can send resources to help Valens. So Valens tries to then concentrate enough forces to subdue the Goths. So the Romans have taken a war footing here, and this is kind of what they're hell-bent on now. I mean, going back to the cause of this, was there a bit of Roman xenophobia, this fear of the Goths that also contributed to them playing for time, and ultimately even these more local commanders taking advantage of the Goths who they might have just

seen as inferior, as barbarians? So I think all of that is true. There's always a concern for a potential invasion, but I think it's very true that the Romans have that sense of superiority. They are the dominant imperial people, and it's always been Roman tradition. You can let Germans in, that's not a problem, but you must do it with your control. You must do it appointing your own leaders, breaking them up into small groups. The Romans can't conceive of a way to do it that doesn't involve that control. But the Goths are on a scale the Romans have not dealt with, and they're not adjusting to that sheer scale or the level of desperation. so how does this all end up with a titanic battle that ultimately happens between these two people so valence finally has actually come to the Balkans to try and control

the situation himself. But the Goths have got across the Danube, perhaps not all of the 100,000, but certainly a solid core. And they're now therefore in Roman territory. They have to be controlled somehow. Valens won't negotiate if they won't accept imperial authority. And then he makes the great mistake, and Ammianus knew it was the great mistake, he doesn't wait for the Western reinforcements. Because Gratian's marching towards the east, he's bringing his part of the mobile army. That would have given Valens a clear numerical advantage. The Romans don't have the technological advantage that, say, the British Empire did in most of its battlesens valens needed those reinforcements but he didn't wait he underestimates the gothic numbers and so he chooses to fight it out and all one can really

say on those terms is well he paid for that mistake with his own life this is the best of adrian opal i'm guessing exactly so in august 378 the battle of adrian Adrianople, the Goths and Valens' eastern army fight it out. Give or take 20,000 men aside, it's very hard to do the numbers. At least half that Roman army died there. And the Goths have won a great victory, which has symbolically rooted them in Roman territory. And Valens dies. His body's never found. So this is the second Roman emperor who has died at the hands

of a Gothic army. And even though this is still quite early in the story of the Goths, that's a big achievement for them on the military front. Yes. And it's very clear in Ammianus. You don't underestimate the Goths. One of the first things the Romans did, because Goths individually, of course, had served in the Roman army before, is the first thing the Eastern army does after Adrianople is round up every soldier they have who they think might be pro-Gothic, order them to parade and kill them all. Because that eliminates the possibility that you might have an uprising within the army. And they are genuinely concerned. And yet, the Goths aren't a threat to overflowing the entire Roman Empire. They don't have the strength

for that. Ammianus Marcellinus, quite deliberately, he could have ended his history with the Battle of Aginople, but instead he tells you what happened next, which is this massacre of Gothic troops. And then the Goths march on Constantinople, and then they take a look at the defences and they march away because the Goths can't threaten Constantinople. So the Romans still actually have the ability to come back and reorganise. The Goths are trying to find a foothold. But the Romans, they have still suffered this major defeat and the Goths are in their territory, warriors, but also you mentioned women and children, a whole people. Is a compromise reached? I mean, what ultimately does happen?

Eventually, the compromise does get made. What the Romans first tried to do was reorganize the Eastern army. A new emperor is appointed, Theodosius I. He's actually Spanish by origin, but he's now the Eastern emperor. He tries to fight the Goths. He loses because the Goths really are very hard to beat, but he does begin to restrict their movement. After all, that's how you actually can control the Goths. You try and starve them. You try and restrict the women and children. And in the year 382, they finally agreed a treaty, which was more or less what the Goths had asked for in 376. The Romans finally concede that they can't dictate terms. Instead, they simply sign an agreement that the Goths can settle in certain parts of the Balkans, and in return, they'll fight for the Romans.

It's funny, isn't it? It takes them some six years or so to reach that, but the terms are agreed. And it's almost as if the Goths and Romans, they're friends again. The Goths are in Roman territory. So David, does this result once again, even despite this recent massacring of Gothic soldiers in Roman service, that the Goths are once again friends of Rome? They fight for the Romans in their armies? So you have Goths back within the empire, relatively diplomatically well treated. The one exception the Romans made, the Romans will not negotiate with the people who actually led at Adrianople. So the man who actually commanded the Gothic army, man named Fritigern, he disappears without trace somewhere between Adrianople and that treaty of

382. And whether that is because the Romans wouldn't agree it. But yes, we actually have a Roman orator, a guy named Themistius. He actually got the job of giving a speech explaining to the Roman people why the Goths had been treated this way. And what he actually says is, it's better not to kill them. They can help the empire. It shows our humanity, very noble, but also they are of value. And the Goths live up to their share of the bargain. In particular, actually, they will fight for Theodosius when Theodosius gets involved in fighting against usurpers elsewhere in the empire. Oh, other Romans.

So the Goths will fight for some Romans against some other Romans. Does that affect the Goths at all? Do they ever feel like after those decades that they're starting to be used almost as cannon fodder, that their numbers are now really depleting because the Romans are using them rather than Romans to fight their battles? Basically, for about 10 years after 382, we don't know what the Goths actually think. We just hear little glimpses. But there was certainly a suspicion among some Goths that they were vulnerable to this. It all comes together in the year 394, in a war between Theodosius and a Western usurper,

which ended at a battle called the Battle of the River Phrygidus. The Goths are put in the front line and they suffer very heavy casualties, perhaps 10,000. And our main Roman source for the battle famously wrote, 15 odd years later, this was a victory all round. Theodosius beat the usurper and lots of Goths died. So there is a perception, at least in some circles, that the Goths were being used as cannon fodder. And crucially, one man who was at Frigidus, who watched this happen and quite clearly never forgot it, is a guy named Alaric. So I've heard of this guy. He's perhaps one of the most well-known of all the Goths, maybe arguably for infamous reasons.

He rises to power at this time, doesn't forget Frigidus. What happens with Alaric from then? If he's risen to power, how does he dictate what the Goths do next? We wish we knew more about Alaric. He is clearly a quite remarkable man. Giordane's tried to give him a great heroic genealogy. But one key feature with the Goths, since they crossed into the Danube, they lost to the Huns, the Adrian-Opal battle. The old Gothic leadership is dead. The new Gothic leaders are what we would call charismatic leaders. So these are people who've risen up because they are very skillful, they're charismatic. What they don't have is legitimacy, so they don't always have stability. But Alaric is quite clearly extremely able. He's an experienced soldier. And in 395 is when we can see him trying to unite the Goths

once again in the Balkans because they need that leverage. 395 is one of those great symbolic years. Theodosius I died. He left the empire to his two sons. Honorius will take over the west. Arcadius will take over the east. Hindsight's great. With hindsight, that's the last time the Roman world will ever be united under one man. They didn't know that. This kind of division has been happening for centuries. But it puts Alaric and the Goths right between the Eastern and Western Imperial courts, and they don't like each other, those two courts. So they try and play the Goths off against each other.

It's quite clear Alaric, who's good at this game, is playing them as well, and the result ongoing tensions. But the first decade of the fifth century, so the 400s, is a crucial turning point because a whole series of different elements all come together at once. The Huns have finally moved further on down into what's now Hungary, the Great Hungarian Plain, and they've put pressure on all the surrounding Germanic peoples. The Goths don't want to stay in the Balkans. There's too much pressure. They're looking to go westward. Other Germanic peoples are fleeing the Huns. The Goths don't want to stay in the Balkans. There's too much pressure. They're looking to go westward. Other Germanic peoples are fleeing the Huns. The result is Alaric's career

is arguably the defining element in this period of tension. He reunites the Goths and the Balkans, marches on Italy, where he's going to meet his most famous single opponent, which is the Roman general Stilicho. Ah, Stilicho. He is this bastion of defence against Alaric, isn't he? And also several other Gothic attempts on Italy. But as formidable a figure as he is against the Goths, it feels like his defence of Italy doesn't get worn down. I mean, what's the story of Alaric and wanting to march his Goths to Italy? Because it feels like there are a series of events here. And there are. Stilicho himself, I mean, he's actually half Vandal, so he's half Germanic himself, but he was a leading Roman general.

Theodosius clearly trusted him. So Stilicho is left to look after the Western court. So his role is to protect the Western empire, particularly Italy. Alaric from the Balkans can just march around the Adriatic. And in 401 to 402, that's what Alaric did. He launches the first Gothic attack on Italy, but Stilicho beats him back. How decisively, we'll never know. Our main source, Claudian, tells us it was a great Roman victory. But Claudian is firstly a poet, and secondly, a poet paid by Stilicho to write propaganda. It's always been a little bit hard to trust Claudian's word, but Stilicho did clearly drive Alaric back. The problem is Alaric's just the first. Alaric doesn't control all the Goths.

There are other Goths out there. One named Radagaisus launches his own attack into Italy in 405-6. Stilicho beats him, Radagaisus dies, Stilicho absorbs as many of the Goths as he can because he needs the soldiers. A Hun chieftain named Ulden launches his attack in 408, so you're getting Huns more directly involved. And because Stilicho has to focus so much on Italy, arguably the key event in the collapse of the Western Empire actually happens at the same period. Because Stilicho has pulled all the troops he can to Italy, the Rhine River, which is Rome's other frontier, shatters wide open. 31st of December 406, the Great Rhine Crossing. Three entire Germanic peoples, the Vandals, Alans and Suebs, surge over the Rhine. They'll end up going through France into Spain and for that matter on into North Africa.

So Stilicho's under colossal pressure. Nonetheless, he has done his absolute best. He's clearly a good soldier and he didn't deserve to be murdered, which is what effectively happens because the Western emperor, Honorius, decides his generals getting a bit too dangerous and has Stilicho killed. The Romans then also think, well, it would also be a good idea to massacre as many of the families of Stilicho's soldiers, particularly those Germanic soldiers, as possible. What, of course, do the Goths of Radagaisis now do? They desert to Alaric. And Alaric's army possibly doubles in size. Stilicho's dead. A lot of his soldiers have joined Alaric. Italy is wide open and Alaric's going to march straight in.

It's just one of those great tragedies of late Roman court intrigue and politics. Honorius, this inexperienced young emperor, is taking the advice of his advisors and then kind of getting rid of Silico. And when you hear the story, it's almost like, well, you get what you deserve because Alaric, he's been reinforced with all these Goths who've come over to him. They're wanting blood. What does he do next? Because this is when it all hits the fan for the Romans in Italy. I mean, there is no longer an Italian army capable of stopping Alaric. Alaric can march into Italy. But crucially, Alaric still, like these Gothic leaders before him,

they're not trying to destroy the Roman Empire. They want somewhere to settle where they can be secure. We know what Alaric asked for. We've got his demands. He wanted gold, meant he could reward his followers. Food, surprise, surprise, they still need food. And he wanted to settle in northern Italy and nearby because it was a lot safer from the Huns than where they were in the Balkans. Honorius won't negotiate. Alaric threatens, I will sack Rome. Honorius isn't in Rome. He's in the city of Ravenna,

which is almost impossible to attack without sea power. Alaric doesn't want to sack Rome, because it means the end of these negotiations. And yet, that's exactly what's going to happen. How long does Alaric wait? How long does he really try and hope for concessions and ultimately has to decide, see, 410, I can't wait any longer. It's almost like with a heavy heart, but it is the first sacking of the Eternal City for more than 500 years or so. More than 800.

Alaric waited about a year and a half. In other words, he genuinely has tried to come up with a negotiable settlement. But this is where that point about leadership matters. Alaric is only in authority because the Goths follow him. He's not ruler because his father was king. He's got no institutional support. He's a charismatic leader. And the disadvantage there is what your followers want becomes much more important. You've got to keep them happy. He can't threaten to sack Rome and then walk away. Once it reaches a point where you either sack Rome or you will lose all authority, he sacks the imperial city. And we have all of these pictures of the destruction

of Rome and it being almost Armageddon, absolute sheer destruction on a massive scale. Is this exaggerated? How destructive really was the sack of Rome in 410? It really does depend on who you read. Later centuries will remember this as this is one of the great sacks that of course makes the Gothic reputation as destroyers. It was clearly violent. A lot of people did suffer. A lot of people fled. We know that because we've got refugees turning up in North Africa out in the east. On the other hand, we also have a number of reports saying, well, they spared the churches. The Goths are Christians. So they did spare the churches. So people were actually escorted to the churches to keep them safe. And the sack only actually lasts three days. There'll be another sack of Rome by the Vandals 45 years later,

which took two weeks, and the Vandal sack almost certainly did more damage than the Gothic one did. The more you destroy in Rome, the harder any further negotiation is going to be. The Goths almost certainly took anything they could that was a mobile treasure. They certainly took people. Most famously, Honorius's sister is in Rome, Galla Placidia, and she just ends up traveling with the Goths for the next five years. So they took her. She can't have been the only one they took. But in terms of physical destruction, it doesn't seem to be a major turning point in the history of the city of Rome. On the other hand, psychologically, there's no way to exaggerate the impact of this.

It sent a shockwave clean across the Mediterranean. The Christian Jerome Alton Bethlehem will write, this must mean the end of the world is coming. No one sacked Rome, since the Gauls did it, give or take 390 BC. Psychologically, the sack matters. In cold political terms, does it seriously weaken the Western Empire? No. Does it strengthen Alaric's position? No. It's so interesting to think actually from Alaric's perspective that this was almost a bittersweet victory and it doesn't result in the Goths settling in Italy. As we're getting near wrapping up now, what does happen to the Goths after they sack Rome? It's clear that Alaric doesn't have a clear plan. The negotiations fail.

They move south towards Sicily. He may be thinking of trying to get to North Africa, but Alaric will die within a year of the sack of Rome. We've never found where he's buried. Allegedly, he's buried in a river and they diverted it and then restored it to cover his remains. He's left his people more united than they ever were before, but he's also left them stranded. Now, his brother-in-law, Atholf, will now get the job of, can we bring this negotiation any further? He marches out of Italy, goes into southern France, and does something that's perhaps

one of the most symbolic moments in this entire long story, which is marry Gala Placidia. Because in 414, in Narbonne, Narbo, in a great Roman wedding, with Afolf looking like a Roman general, he marries the sister of the Western Roman emperor. They promptly have a son. They name that baby Theodosius. Honorius doesn't have children. That gothic baby has a completely legitimate claim to being the heir to the Western Empire.

It's one of those great what-if moments in history. Theodosius will die in infancy, unfortunately so very common in this period. But by doing the marriage, it clearly woke up some people in Honorius' court that they need a better resolution. How do you control the Goths? You starve them out. Don't fight them, but you can cut their supply lines. That is actually what they did. They forced Afolf. Firstly, they forced him out of southern France into Spain. In Spain, in Barcelona, in a squabble apparently about a horse, possibly about a family feud, Afolf gets murdered. And the Roman negotiation is then quite straightforward. We want Galla Placidia back. We'll give you food. And in the meantime, you can fight those other Germans who crossed the Rhine for us. And if you do that, we'll finally give you a settlement. And that is what they agree. Gallop Licidia goes back to Italy, marries the general who forced the

Goths to negotiate and will indeed be the mother of the next major Western Roman emperor. And the Goths for two to three years are fighting in Spain. And in return, they finally got that treaty that they've been fighting for ever since they hit the Danube. In 418, the Goths are told, right, the region between Bordeaux and Toulouse, the river Garonne Valley in southern France is yours. You can settle there. It is a fundamental moment in the history of the Roman Empire because it's effectively an independent Germanic kingdom on Roman territory, the first one ever to exist. This is the origins of the Visigothic kingdom, isn't it? And this will indeed become Visigothic Aquitaine. And then over time, because the Visigoths will eventually be forced out of Gaul by the rise of the Franks, it will become the Visigothic kingdom of Spain. That's going into a bit of gone medieval territory. But before this ends, we should also talk about Attila and how the whole trigger for this great movement of the Goths into the Roman Empire is caused by those Huns back in 376, around that time. The Goths have their final showdown with the Huns, and it's not in the Eastern Roman Empire.

It is when they are in France. This is a great story. Attila, who is of course the most famous of all Huns, unites the Huns into the most powerful force they ever were in the 440s, smashes over the Danube, raids everything in sight, eventually turns westward because there's not much left to raid, plows into what's now France, sacks almost every city there except Paris, and that was because of the prayers of a saint, according to tradition, Saint Genevieve, until eventually the Huns are brought to a fight known as the Battle of the Catalonian Fields. There's nothing in the West that can fight the Huns alone. So what they're facing is a coalition army. There are Franks in it.

There are Western Roman troops led by a guy named Flavius Aetius. And there's the Visigoths. And I will always wish we had a picture. When the Visigothic king Theodoric was told that the Huns, who drove his ancestors 80 years earlier out of the region of Ukraine, has followed them to France. All we can conclude is what they did. They are not running. Not this time. The Visigoths will fight to the end against the Huns. Theodoric will die at the Battle of the Catalonian Fields. The Visigoths aren't going again. They are going to fight this through. And the coalition army drove Attila back. Whether it's

vengeance, perhaps not. But Giordanes' problem when he describes the battle is there's actually Goths on both sides. Because the Visigoths are here from Visigothic Aquitaine, but so are the Ostrogoths. These are the Goths who never fled from the Huns back in the 370s. They've been absorbed and they are fighting for Attila at the Catalonian fields. So Giordanes, in his history of the Goths, has to allow for the fact there are Goths fighting heroically on both sides. I'm glad you mentioned the Ostrogoths there, because if the Visigoths, even though it's a very difficult conflict with Attila, the Visigoths do endure, and they ultimately create this kingdom in southwestern France. cut-off point with the beginnings of the early medieval period, it almost seems like the beginnings of a golden age for the Goths because they have succeeded in creating this strong,

independent kingdom. But it's not just in southwestern France, is it? Because there are other Goths elsewhere which also do quite well at this time. Yes. If you freeze a map of AD 500, the Goths control at least half of the former Western Roman Empire. The Visigothic Kingdom of Southern France also actually controls most of Spain. They've kept expanding. But after Attila dies in 453, the Huns simply shattered. The Huns are no more stable. Attila was no more stable than Alaric.

When he dies, the Huns effectively dissolve. All the Germans they ruled over revolted against them, and the Ostrogoths break free of Hun control, end up in the Balkans, and end up following exactly the same route Alaric had done. Only this time, they're actually invited by the Emperor of Constantinople to Italy. Italy, after 476, is under German rule, so the Western Empire has fallen. The Eastern Emperor in Constantinople offers to the Ostrogoths the chance, rather than stay in the Balkans, would you like to go to Italy? Gets you out of my way, gets you out of the Balkans, but you can also overthrow these Germans in Italy. And so the Ostrogoths end up forming the Ostrogothic Kingdom

of Italy. And that other great power of early medieval times. I tell you what, a detailed episode on the Visigoths and one on the Ostrogoths is one for another time because they deserve episodes in their own right. David, this has been absolutely fantastic from this awesome Spotify studio. Last but certainly not least, you have written a book, an overview on the Goths, which is called The Goths, A Lost Civilisation. Because it's not just the Goths, it's of course, whatever we mean by Gothic. That strong legacy of the Goths that endures to this day, like, let's say, the Vandals. David, it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. My pleasure. Thank you.

podcast today. My pleasure. Thank you. Well, there you go. There was Dr. David Gwynn talking all things the Goths. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. David is such a fantastic speaker and this was a real joy to listen to him talk through the story of these Germanic peoples from their origins to their invasions of Italy. And stay tuned, of course, we'll do episodes in the future about the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths and other peoples who really rise to prominence during this last stages of the Western Roman Empire. I'm thinking people such as the Franks, the Saxons, the Allens and so on. Stay tuned for episodes on them in the future. Last thing from me, wherever you get your podcast from, make sure that you are subscribed, that you are following the ancients so that you don't miss out

when we release new episodes twice every week. But that's enough from me, and I will see you in the next episode.