III.

Ostrogoths

When the Huns swept into Europe about 370, many of the Ostrogoths were defeated and compelled to aid their conquerors. They joined the king of the Huns, Attila, in his expedition against Gaul in 451 and many Ostrogoths were killed by the Visigoths at the Battle of Châlons. When the Huns were finally forced back, the Ostrogoths again became independent. With the permission of Rome, they settled in Pannonia, an area now including western Hungary, northern Croatia, Slovenia, and Serbia, and eastern Austria. They were joined by other Ostrogoths who had taken refuge within the Roman Empire at the coming of the Asians. In 474 Theodoric, the greatest of the Ostrogothic kings, was elected to the throne. After various periods of warfare and alliance with Zeno, the Byzantine emperor, Theodoric invaded Italy in 488 (with the consent and advice of the emperor), slew Odoacer, the first barbarian ruler of Italy, and became ruler himself. He held the power although not the title of the Western Roman emperors. A Roman consul was given nominal authority, and the two peoples lived together amicably, with Roman culture greatly influencing the Teutons.

The unity of Romans and Goths could be preserved only by a ruler of the stature of Theodoric. After his death in 526, disruption in Italy became so violent that in 535 the Byzantine emperor Justinian I sent his general Belisarius to conquer the peninsula. The Byzantines broke the Gothic power in 555, and the throne of Italy was filled by the exarchs (Byzantine governors) of Ravenna.

The Ostrogoths themselves gradually became absorbed into other peoples, such as the Alani, Vandals, Franks, and Burgundians, who had established themselves in the dominions of the old Roman Empire.