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The Goths [a] were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. [1] [2] [3] They were first reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is now Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania. From here they conducted raids into Roman ...
The Goths now turned to besiege Ravenna, but since they lacked a fleet and the city could be resupplied by sea, the siege could be endured almost indefinitely, despite privations. It was not until 492 that Theodoric was able to procure a fleet and capture Ravenna's harbours, thus entirely cutting off communication with the outside world.
The Goths of late antiquity were considered most closely related to the Vandals and Gepids who, like the Goths, originally lived beyond the Carpathian Mountains. At least one classical author, Procopius, stated that these three peoples used the same Gothic language. This language is known by modern scholars to have been a Germanic language.
In 376, the Huns forced many Therving Goths led by Fritigern and Alavivus to seek refuge in the Eastern Roman Empire. Soon after, starvation, high taxes, hatred from the Roman population, and governmental corruption turned the Goths against the empire. [11] The Goths rebelled and began looting and pillaging throughout the eastern Balkans.
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 Goths also recruited mounted archers from the Alans and Sarmatians, and light sword cavalry from the Heruli and Taifali, although all of these also fielded lancers. [6] For a Gothic or Vandal nobleman the most common form of armour was a mail shirt, often reaching down to the knees, and an iron or steel helmet, often in a Roman Ridge helm ...
Goth was a haven for misfits from all kinds, and it didn’t exclude anyone who saw themselves in it, he said: “If you say you’re in, you are.” ...
The Goths sacked the cities in Gallaecia, part of the Suebi Kingdom quite brutally: they massacred a portion of the population and even attacked some holy places, probably due to the clergy's support of the Suebi. [13] Theodoric took control over Hispania Baetica, Carthaginiensis and southern Lusitania.