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The 'Goths' (Gothic: , ''Gutans'') were East Germanic tribes who, in the 3rd and 4th centuries, harried the Roman Empire and later adopted Arianism (a form of Christianity). In the 5th and 6th centuries, as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths they established powerful successor-states of the Roman Empire in Italy and on the Iberian peninsula (now Spain & Portugal).

Contents

History

Origins

Archaeology

Settlement Pattern

Burial Practices

Religion

Languages

Origin of the Name "Goth" ( ★ Gut-)

Symbolic meaning

See also

Notes

References

External links

History

Main articles: Gothic and Vandal warfare

Major sources for Gothic history include Ammianus Marcellinus' ''Historiae'', mentioning Gothic involvement in the civil war between emperors Procopius and Valens of 365 C.E. and recounting the Gothic refugee crisis and revolt of 376-382 C.E. and Procopius' ''de bello gothico'', describing the Gothic War of 535-552 C.E..

In the 3rd century, there were at least two groups of Goths, the Thervingi, and the Greuthungi. The Thervingi launched one of the first major "barbarian" invasions of the Roman Empire from 263, sacking Byzantium in 267.^[1] A year later, they suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Naissus and were driven back across the Danube River by 271. This group then settled north of the Danube and established an independent kingdom centered on the abandoned Roman province of Dacia.
Both the Greuthungi and Thervingi became heavily Romanized during the 4th century by the influence of trade with the Byzantines, and by their membership in a military covenant centered in Byzantium to assist each other militarily. They converted to Arianism during this time. Hunnic domination of the Ostrogoth kingdom began in the 370s, and under pressure of the Huns, Therving king Fritigern in 376 asked the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens to be allowed to settle with his people on the south bank of the Danube. Valens permitted this, and even helped the Goths cross the river, probably at the fortress of Durostorum, but following a famine the Gothic War (376-382) erupted, and Valens was killed at the Battle of Adrianople.
The Visigoths under Alaric I sacked Rome in 410. Honorius granted the Visigoths Aquitania, where they defeated the Vandals and by 475 ruled most of the Iberian peninsula.
The Ostrogoths in the meantime freed themselves of government of the Huns following the Battle of Nedao in 454. At the behest of emperor Zeno, Theode