I.

Introduction

Goths, ancient Teutonic people, who in the 3rd to the 6th century ad were an important power in the Roman world. The Goths were the first Germanic peoples to become Christians. According to the 6th-century Gothic historian Jordanes, the Goths came from Sweden across the Baltic Sea to the basin of the Wisła. By the 3rd century ad they had migrated as far south as the lower Danube, around the Black Sea. During that century Gothic armies and fleets ravaged Thrace, Dacia, and cities in Asia Minor and along the Aegean coast. They captured and plundered Athens in 267 to 268, and threatened Italy. For about a century, wars between the Roman emperors and Gothic rulers devastated the Balkan territory and the north-east Mediterranean region. Other peoples joined the Goths, and under the great king Ermanaric in the 4th century, a kingdom was established that extended from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

About 370 the Goths divided into two separate groups. The Ostrogoths (Low Latin Ostrogothae, “the eastern Goths”) inhabited a large kingdom east of the Dnestr River on the shores of the Black Sea (part of modern Ukraine and Belarus). The Visigoths (Low Latin Visigothi, “the good Goths” or “the noble Goths”) were the western Goths, with a domain extending from the Dnestr to the Danube.