[gothic-l] What happened with the Vandalic and Ostrogothic Kingdoms?

Tue Apr 3 09:31:38 UTC 2001

For the end of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy I repeat my 
messages from the end of January, 2001: 
Apart from Ludwig Schmidt´s essays on the last   Ostrogoths, 
which may not be understandable to everybody, because they were 
written in German, I would advise  to read the English translation of 
Agathias, The Histories (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 
Series Berolinensis vol.IIA. Berlin, New York 1975). Agathias 
continued the relation of Procopius about Justinian's wars and he 
described in the first two books the invasion of the Alamans and 
Franks into Italy at the instigation of the rebellious Goths. Book 1 
starts with the terms of peace to the Goths granted by Narses after 
king Teja´s death: the survivors of the battle at mons Lactarius 
were granted the undisturbed possession of their properties and 
became subjects of the emperor. They went home to Tuscany, 
Liguria and other regions in Italy.  After that a party among them 
instigated a rebellion and sought the help of the Merovingian kings, 
who sent an army under the Alamannic dukes Butilinus and 
Liutharis to Italy. Most of the Goths in Italy joined this rebellion. 
The most prominent of those Goths was Aligern, the younger 
brother of king Teja, who took hold of the fortress of Cumae and the 
royal treasure of the Ostrogoths (thereby claiming the throne as 
successor to his dead brother). The byzantine general Narses 
quickly managed to stamp out the rebellion in Tuscany and allowed 
those who capitulated to remain undisturbed in their possessions. 
In the spring of the next year Aligern began negotiatians with 
Narses and came to terms with him, handing over Cumae and the 
royal treasure for a command in the Roman army and joining forces 
with Narses, who eventually managed to defeat Butilinus and 
Liutaris. The last Gothic rebels fought on under a leader called 
Ragnaris, but surrendered, too, after their commander's death. 
Only those were sent off to Constantinople by Narses (Agathias, 
Histories, II 7), all the others, who did not rebel or who had 
surrendered earlier like Aligern, were allowed to keep their 
possessions in Italy and to stay. Agathias, Histories, I 6, expressly 
states that after the battle of mons Lactarius and the death of Teja 
all Goths went home to their possessions in Italy, which had been 
guaranteed to them by Narses. Agathias does not mention any 
kind of emigration at this moment at all. As I previously wrote, we 
may suppose regular intercourse and travelling to and fro in the 
time of the Visigothic kings Theudis and Theudegisel. Theudis at 
least surely was an Ostrogoth and he lead an Ostrogothic army 
into Spain in the time of Theoderic. All the information Agathias 
gives states that most of the Goths stayed in Italy and some were 
sent as soldiers to Constantinople, which is confirmed by the 
evidence collected by Ludwig Schmidt in  two articles on this 
theme with an identical title, "Die letzten Ostgoten", the last 
Ostrogoths, one in 1923 and the other in 1943. You will find them 
in Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Geschicht 3(1923) 443-455 and in 
Abhandlungen der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 
Phil.hist.Kl. Jahrgang 1943  Nr.10, 1-15.

The fate of the Vandals was a bit different. Already Belisar had 
brought several thousand of them to Constantinople after the 
capitulation of king Gelimer, recruited  the best of them in his 
personal troups and formed five regiments out of the rest, who 
were sent to the East to fight against the Persians. After a series 
of rebellions most of those remaining in North Africa were also 
deported to Constantinople by the byzantine Generals Solomon 
and Artabanes.

For further information see: Herwig Wolfram, Die Goten. Von 
den Anfängen bis zur Mitte des 6. Jahrhunderts. München, 
3.Aufl., 1990
Peter Heather, The Goths. Oxford 1996
For the Vandals:
Christian Courtois, Les Vandales et l'Afrique. Paris 1955
Hans-Joachim Diesner, Das Vandalenreich. Stuttgart 1966
Ludwig Schmid, Die Geschichte der Vandalen. München, 
2.Aufl., 1942

Kind regards
               Andreas Schwarcz 
Ao.Univ.Prof.Dr.Andreas Schwarcz
Institut für österreichische Geschichtsforschung
Universität Wien
Dr.Karl Lueger-Ring 1
A-1010 Wien
Österreich
Tel.0043/1/42-77/272-16
Fax 0043/142-77/92-72

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