During the third century,
the Goths launched a series of invasions against Roman-controlled Greece. Fragments of a text discussing these attacks,
Dexippus said that the Roman Emperor Decius (who reigned A.D. 249–251) led the Roman army against the Goths but suffered a series of defeats, losing both territory and men.
The text also tells of a battle between the Goths and Greeks that took place at the pass of Thermopylae.
The Goth army was trying to reach Athens while a Greek force had fortified the pass in an attempt to stop them.
The fragment ends before the outcome of the battle is known.
Contact with Rome Also in the third century A.D., the Goths launched a series of raids into the Roman Empire.
“The first known attack came in 238, when Goths sacked the city of Histria at the mouth of the river Danube.
He notes that in A.D. 268, a massive expedition of Goths, along with other groups also called barbarians, broke into the Aegean Sea, wreaking havoc.
They attacked a number of settlements, including Ephesus (a city in Anatolia inhabited by Greeks),
where they destroyed a temple dedicated to the goddess Diana.
“The destruction wrought by this combined assault on land and sea were severe, and prompted a fierce Roman response.
Not only were the individual groups defeated, but no major raid ever again broke through the Dardanelles,” writes Heather.
The Goths' tumultuous relationship with Rome would continue into the fourth century.
While Goths served as Roman soldiers, and trade took place across the Danube River, there was plenty of conflict.
Heather notes that a Gothic group called the Tervingi intervened in Roman imperial politics, supporting two unsuccessful claimants to the emperorship.
In A.D. 321, they supported Licinius against Constantine,
and in A.D. 365, they supported Procopius against Valens. In both instances this backfired, with Constantine and Valens launching attacks against the Tervingi after becoming emperor.
As contact with Rome intensified, a form of Christianity known as Arianism spread among the Goths. “In the 340s, the Arian Gothic bishop Ulfilas or Wulfila (d. 383) translated the Bible into the Gothic language in a script based chiefly upon the uncial Greek alphabet and said to have been invented by Ulfilas for the purpose,”
In time, the Goths would adopt the Catholic form of Christianity that came to be used in Rome.
Pushed out by the Huns
This complicated relationship would be forever altered with the appearance north of the Danube of a new group, called the Huns, around A.D. 375.
The Huns pushed the Goths into Roman territory.
The Goths, seeking refuge among the Romans, were treated poorly. Lacking food, they were forced to sell their children into slavery at humiliating prices.
“When the barbarians after their crossing were harassed by lack of food, those most hateful [Roman] generals devised a disgraceful traffic;
they exchanged every dog that their insatiability could gather from far and wide for one slave each, and among these were carried off also sons of the chieftains,”
After being refused entry to the city of Marcianople, the Goths revolted, roaming across the Balkans, plundering Roman towns.
Emperor Valens, who ruled the eastern half of the Roman Empire, personally led an army into the Balkans to subdue the Goths.
On August 9, A.D. 378,
this army engaged the Goths near the city of Adrianople (also called Hadrianopolis).
Valens underestimated the size of the Gothic force. As a result, his army was outflanked by the Goths and annihilated, the emperor himself killed.
“Just when it first became dark, the emperor being among a crowd of common soldiers, as it was believed — for no one said either that he had seen him, or been near him — was mortally wounded with an arrow, and, very shortly after, died, though his body was never force.
Theodosius,
made a treaty with the Goths that lasted up until his death in A.D. 395.
Rise of Alaric After A.D. 395,
the treaty with Rome fell apart. A Gothic leader named Alaric rose to pre-eminence, leading the Goths into battle against both the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire.
The conflict that followed was complicated.
Alaric wanted to make a deal that would result in the Goths under his command getting good farmland and monetary rewards.
He undertook raids to pressure the Romans. Heather writes that by A.D. 403, Alaric was in the Balkans, finding himself an
“outlaw rejected by both halves of the Empire.”
An attempt by Alaric to move the Goths into Italy had failed, and there had been a massacre of the Gothic inhabitants of Constantinople in A.D. 400.
Fortunes changed for Alaric and the Goths when the Western Roman Empire began to crumble. The emperor Honorius faced rebellion among his army and a usurper named Constantine III amassed territory in Britain and Gaul. In the wake of these problems, Honorius had his general, Stilicho, killed in A.D. 408.
Seeing weakness, Alaric advanced into Italy a second time, finding support from Stilicho’s former supporters as well as runaway slaves.
He was camped outside of Rome by A.D. 410, using the city as a bargaining chip in an effort to get concessions from Honorius’ government.
After a series of unsuccessful negotiations,
Alaric sacked the city on Aug. 24.
Be blessed my brethren
It is me
Ev. Elimeleck Ndashikiwe
