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Permission to use Heritage History documents or images for commercial purposes, or more information about our collection of traditional history resources can be obtained by contacting us at THE TOMB OF THEODERIC, RAVENNA. [email protected] Original Copyright 1887 by Henry Bradley 2 Distributed by Heritage History 2010 Among the English writers to whom I am indebted, the first place belongs to Gibbon, whose greatness appears PREFACE to me in a new light since I have tried to compare a small portion of his wonderful work with the materials out of which it was constructed. I also owe much to Mr. Hodgkin's Tests little volume is, so far as I have been able to "Italy and her Invaders," and to various articles by Mr. E. discover, the first English book expressly treating of the A. Freeman. Among foreign writers my principal guide has history of the Goths. Adequately to supply the strange been Dahn; I have also made extensive use of the works of deficiency in our literature indicated by this fact is a task Bessell, Waitz, Aschbach, Manso, and Lembke. To mention that will require powers far greater than mine. Someday, the titles of books that have been merely consulted on perhaps, the story of the Goths will be told in English by a special points seems to me to be unnecessary, and, unless writer possessing the rare combination of literary skill and elaborate explanations could be added, likely to be also profound scholarship that will be needed to do it justice. misleading. But in the meantime I would fain hope that this brief sketch may be found to have a sufficient reason for its existence. I Some surprise may perhaps be occasioned by the have made no attempt to write a brilliant narrative, well date chosen for the accompanying map. My reason for knowing that success in such an attempt is beyond my selecting the year 485 rather than 526 is that, if only one reach. My aim has been to relate the facts of the history as map is to be given, the map representing the state of Europe correctly as I could, and with the simplicity of language at the culminating period of the Visigoth domination, is required by the plan of the series in which the work more useful for the illustration of Gothic history as a whole, appears--a series intended not for scholars, but for readers than one relating to the later and intrinsically more in whom little knowledge of general history is to be interesting epoch. presupposed. HENRY BRADLEY If this volume should fall into the hand of scholars, LONDON, November 1887 it will perhaps be obvious that I have not neglected to read most of the original sources of the history; but it may be still more obvious that I have not the thorough familiarity with them that might justly be demanded if I claimed for my work any independent historical value. Remembering the dangers of "a little learning," I have endeavoured to escape them by refraining from expressing any views which have not the sanction of at least one modern scholar of repute. The prescribed plan of the work has, of course, not permitted me either to adduce arguments or to cite authorities in justification of the particular conclusions adopted. Original Copyright 1887 by Henry Bradley 3 Distributed by Heritage History 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS THE FAILURE OF BELISARIUS .................................. 112 THE RUIN OF THE OSTROGOTHS ............................. 116 WHO WERE THE GOTHS? ............................................ 5 THE VISIGOTHS AGAIN ............................................ 123 FROM THE BALTIC TO THE DANUBE ......................... 11 LEOVIGILD AND HIS SONS ....................................... 125 FIRE AND SWORD IN ASIA AND GREECE ................... 14 THE GOTHS BECOME CATHOLIC ............................ 128 HOW THE GOTHS FOUGHT WITH CONSTANTINE ...... 17 A PRIEST-RIDDEN KINGDOM ................................... 130 THE GOTHIC ALEXANDER ......................................... 19 THE STORY OF WAMBA ........................................... 133 THE JUDGES OF THE VISIGOTHS ............................... 21 THIRTY YEARS OF DECAY ....................................... 136 THE APOSTLE OF THE GOTHS ................................... 24 THE FALL OF THE VISIGOTHS .................................. 139 FRITHIGERN AND VALENS ......................................... 27 CONCLUSION ............................................................ 140 THE GOTHS AND THEODOSIUS .................................. 31 GOTHIC PERSONAL NAMES ..................................... 142 ALARIC THE BALTHING ............................................. 34 KING ATAWULF AND HIS ROMAN QUEEN ................ 40 THE KINGDOM OF TOULOUSE ................................... 43 HOW THE WESTERN EMPIRE CAME TO AN END ....... 50 THE BOYHOOD OF THEODERIC ................................. 53 THE RIVAL NAMESAKES ............................................ 55 HOW THE OSTROGOTHS WON ITALY ....................... 58 THE WISDOM OF THEODERIC ................................... 61 THEODERIC AND HIS FOREIGN NEIGHBOURS ........... 69 THEODERIC'S EVIL DAYS .......................................... 72 A QUEEN'S TROUBLES ............................................... 76 AN UNKINGLY KING .................................................. 82 WITIGIS THE UNREADY ............................................. 87 THE YEAR-LONG SIEGE ............................................ 92 WITIGIS IN HIDING .................................................. 101 THE GOTHS LOSE RAVENNA ................................... 105 NEW GOTHIC VICTORIES ........................................ 108 Original Copyright 1887 by Henry Bradley 4 Distributed by Heritage History 2010 CHAPTER I living almost unnoticed in their northern home near the Baltic and the Vistula, down to the time when their separate history becomes blended in the history of the southern nations whom WHO WERE THE GOTHS? they conquered, and by whom they were at last absorbed. In many respects the career of this people is strikingly different More than three hundred years before the birth of from that of any other nation of equal historic renown. For Christ, a traveller from the Greek colony of Marseilles, named three hundred years—beginning with the days of Tacitus— Pytheas, made known to the civilized world the existence of a their history consists of little else than a dreary record of people called Guttones, who lived near the Frische Haff, in the barbarian slaughter and pillage. A century later, the Goths country since known as East Prussia, and traded in the amber have become the mightiest nation in Europe. One of their two that was gathered on the Baltic shores. For four whole kings sits on the throne of the Caesars, the wisest and most centuries these amber merchants of the Baltic are heard of no beneficent ruler that Italy has known for ages; the other reigns more. The elder Pliny, a Roman writer who died in the year 79 over Spain and the richest part of Gaul. We look forward two after Christ, tells us that in his time they were still dwelling in hundred and fifty years, and the Gothic kingdoms are no more; the same neighbourhood; and a generation later, Tacitus, the the nation itself has vanished from the stage of history, leaving greatest of Roman historians, twice mentions their name, scarcely a trace behind. though he spells it rather differently as Gotones. In his little book on Germany, he says—in that brief pointed style of his The story we have to tell lacks many of the elements to which it is so difficult to translate into English—"Beyond the which the history of most nations owes a large part of its Lygians live the Gotones among whom the power of the kings interest. Except a part of a translation of the Bible, the Goths has already become greater than among the other Germans, have left us no literature;