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Imaginative portrait of Alaric in C. Strahlheim, Das Welttheater, 4.Band, Frankfurt a.M., 1836. According to Jordanes, a 6th-century Roman bureaucrat of Gothic origin—who later turned his hand to history—Alaric was born on Peuce Island at the mouth of the Danube Delta in present-day Romania and belonged to the noble Balti dynasty of the Thervingian Goths.
The Visigoths were never called Visigoths, only Goths, until Cassiodorus used the term, when referring to their loss against Clovis I in 507. Cassiodorus apparently invented the term based on the model of the "Ostrogoths", but using the older name of the Vesi, one of the tribal names which the fifth-century poet Sidonius Apollinaris, had already used when referring to the Visigoths.
The Visigoths now came into conflict with the Franks under their King Clovis I, who had conquered northern Gaul. Following a brief war with the Franks, Alaric was forced to put down a rebellion in Tarraconensis, probably caused by recent Visigoth immigration to Hispania due to pressure from the Franks.
Taking the advice of Priscus Attalus—the former emperor whom Alaric had set up at Rome in opposition to Honorius at Ravenna, and who had remained with the Visigoths after he'd been deposed—Athaulf led his followers out of Italy. Moving north into a momentarily pacified Gaul, the Visigoths lived off the countryside in the usual way.
Possibly in 391, a Gothic chieftain named Alaric was declared king by a group of Visigoths, though the exact time this happened (Jordanes says Alaric was made king in 400 [14] and Peter Heather says 395 [15]) and nature of this position are debated. [16] [17] He then led an invasion into Eastern Roman territory outside of the Goths' designated ...
The Montagne d'Alaric (Alaric's Mountain), near Carcassonne, is named after the Visigoth king. [16] Local rumour has it that he left a vast treasure buried in the caves beneath the mountain. [17] The Canal d'Alaric (Alaric's Canal) in the Hautes-Pyrénées department is named after him. [18]
Clovis fighting the Visigoths at the battle of Vouillé. As he marched from Nantes to Poitiers, Clovis' march was interrupted by Alaric II – who was apparently aware of Clovis' support among the Catholics of his subjects – and who decided to confront the Franks before they could join forces. The outcome of this first major battle was ...
When Alaric II was killed while fighting Clovis I, king of the Franks, in the Battle of Vouillé (507), his kingdom fell into disarray. "More serious than the destruction of the Gothic army," writes Herwig Wolfram, "than the loss of both Aquitanian provinces and the capital of Toulose, was the death of the king."