Editing Goths (section)

====Visigoths====
{{Main|Visigoths}}
{{Further|Visigothic Kingdom}}
[[File:Alaric entering Athens.jpg|upright|thumb|right|An illustration of [[Alaric I|Alaric]] entering [[Athens]] in 395. The depiction, including [[Bronze Age]] armour, is anachronistic.]]
The Visigoths were a new Gothic political unit brought together during the career of their first leader, Alaric I.{{sfn|Heather|1999|pages=47–48}} Following a major settlement of Goths in the Balkans made by Theodosius in 382, Goths received prominent positions in the Roman army.{{sfn|Kulikowski|2006|pp=156–57}} Relations with Roman civilians were sometimes uneasy. In 391, Gothic soldiers, with the blessing of Theodosius I, [[Massacre of Thessalonica|massacred]] thousands of Roman spectators at the Hippodrome in [[Thessalonica]] as vengeance for the lynching of the Gothic general [[Butheric]].{{sfn|Kulikowski|2006|pp=156–60}}

{{Main|Revolt of Alaric I}}
The Goths suffered heavy losses while serving Theodosius in the civil war of 394 against [[Eugenius]] and [[Arbogast (magister militum)|Arbogast]].{{sfn|Wolfram|1990|pp=136–38}} In 395, following the death of Theodosius I, Alaric and his Balkan Goths invaded Greece, where they sacked [[Piraeus]] (the port of [[Athens]]) and destroyed [[Corinth]], [[Megara]], [[Argos, Peloponnese|Argos]], and [[Sparta]].{{sfn|Wolfram|1990|p=141}}<ref name="EB_Alaric">{{cite web|title=Alaric|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alaric|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191020185832/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alaric|archive-date=20 October 2019|access-date=19 September 2019|website=[[Encyclopædia Britannica Online]]}}</ref> Athens itself was spared by paying a large bribe, and the Eastern emperor [[Flavius Arcadius]] subsequently appointed Alaric [[magister militum]] ("master of the soldiers") in [[Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum|Illyricum]] in 397.<ref name="EB_Alaric"/>

{{Main|Gothic War (401–403)}}
In 401 and 402, Alaric made two attempts at invading Italy, but was defeated by [[Stilicho]]. In 405–406, another Gothic leader, [[Radagaisus]], also attempted to invade Italy, and was also defeated by Stilicho.{{sfn|Bennett|2004}}{{sfn|Wolfram|1990|pp=166–70}} In 408, the Western Roman emperor [[Flavius Honorius]] ordered the execution of Stilicho and his family, then incited the Roman population to massacre tens of thousands of wives and children of Goths serving in the Roman military. Subsequently, around 30,000 Gothic soldiers defected to Alaric.<ref name="EB_Alaric"/> Alaric in turn invaded Italy, seeking to pressure Honorious into granting him permission to settle his people in [[North Africa]].<ref name="EB_Alaric"/> In Italy, Alaric liberated tens of thousands of Gothic slaves, and in 410 he [[Sack of Rome (410)|sacked]] the city of Rome. Although the city's riches were plundered, the civilian inhabitants of the city were treated humanely, and only a few buildings were burned.<ref name="EB_Alaric"/> Alaric died soon afterwards, and was buried along with his treasure in an unknown grave under the [[Busento]] river.{{sfn|Wolfram|1990|p=160}}

Alaric was succeeded by his brother-in–law [[Athaulf]], husband of Honorius' sister [[Galla Placidia]], who had been seized during Alaric's sack of Rome. Athaulf settled the Visigoths in southern [[Gaul]].{{sfn|O'Callaghan}}<ref name="EB_Ataulphus">{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ataulphus |title=Ataulphus |publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica Online]] |access-date=17 September 2019 |archive-date=12 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191212013939/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ataulphus |url-status=live }}</ref> After failing to gain recognition from the Romans, Athaulf retreated into [[Hispania]] in early 415, and was assassinated in [[Barcelona]] shortly afterwards.{{sfn|Wolfram|1990|pp=162–66}} He was succeeded by [[Sigeric]] and then [[Wallia]], who succeeded in having the Visigoths accepted by Honorius as foederati in southern Gaul, with their capital at [[Toulouse]]. Wallia subsequently inflicted severe defeats upon the [[Silingi]] Vandals and the Alans in Hispania.{{sfn|O'Callaghan}}

{{Main|Gothic War in Spain (416–418)}}

Wallia was succeeded by [[Theodoric I]] who completed the settlement of the Goths in [[Gallia Aquitania|Aquitania]].
Periodically they marched on [[Arles]], the seat of the [[praetorian prefect]] but were always pushed back. In 439 the Visigoths signed a treaty with the Romans which they kept.{{sfn|Wolfram|1990|p=176}}

{{Main|Gothic War (436–439)|Gothic War in Spain (456)|Gothic War (457–458)}}

[[File:Empire of Theodoric the Great 523.gif|thumb|upright=1.35|The maximum extent of territories ruled by [[Theodoric the Great]] in 523]]

Under [[Theodoric II]] the Visigoths allied with the Romans and fought [[Attila]] to a stalemate in the [[Battle of the Catalaunian Fields]], although Theodoric was killed in the battle.{{sfn|O'Callaghan}}{{sfn|Bennett|2004}} Under [[Euric]], the Visigoths established an independent [[Visigothic Kingdom]] and succeeded in driving the [[Suebi]] out of Hispania proper and back into [[Galicia (Spain)|Galicia]].{{sfn|O'Callaghan}} Although they controlled Spain, they still formed a tiny minority among a much larger [[Romanization of Hispania|Hispano-Roman]] population, approximately 200,000 out of 6,000,000.{{sfn|O'Callaghan}}

In 507, the Visigoths were pushed out of most of Gaul by the [[Franks|Frankish]] king [[Clovis I]] at the [[Battle of Vouillé]].{{sfn|Bennett|2004}} They were able to retain [[Narbonensis]] and [[Provence]] after the timely arrival of an Ostrogoth detachment sent by [[Theodoric the Great]]. The defeat at Vouillé resulted in their penetrating further into Hispania and establishing a new capital at [[Toledo, Spain|Toledo]].{{sfn|O'Callaghan}}

Under [[Liuvigild]] in the latter part of the 6th century, the Visigoths succeeded in subduing the Suebi in Galicia and the Byzantines in the south-west, and thus achieved dominance over most of the [[Iberian peninsula]].{{sfn|O'Callaghan}} Liuvigild also abolished the law that prevented intermarriage between Hispano-Romans and Goths, and he remained an Arian Christian.{{sfn|O'Callaghan}} The conversion of [[Reccared I]] to [[Roman Catholicism]] in the late 6th century prompted the assimilation of Goths with the Hispano-Romans.{{sfn|O'Callaghan}}

At the end of the 7th century, the Visigothic Kingdom began to suffer from internal troubles.{{sfn|O'Callaghan}} Their kingdom fell and was progressively [[Umayyad conquest of Hispania|conquered]] by the [[Umayyad Caliphate]] from 711 after the defeat of their last king [[Roderic]] at the [[Battle of Guadalete]]. Some Visigothic nobles found refuge in the mountain areas of the [[Asturias]], [[Pyrenees]] and [[Cantabria]]. According to Joseph F. O'Callaghan, the remnants of the Hispano-Gothic aristocracy still played an important role in the society of Hispania. At the end of Visigothic rule, the assimilation of Hispano-Romans and Visigoths was occurring at a fast pace. Their nobility had begun to think of themselves as constituting one people, the ''gens Gothorum'' or the ''Hispani''. An unknown number of them fled and took refuge in Asturias or Septimania. In Asturias they supported Pelagius's uprising, and joining with the indigenous leaders, formed a new aristocracy. The population of the mountain region consisted of native [[Astures]], [[Galicians]], [[Cantabri]], [[Basques]] and other groups unassimilated into Hispano-Gothic society.<ref name="O'Callaghan2013">{{cite book|author=Joseph F. O'Callaghan|title=A History of Medieval Spain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cq2dDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA176|date=2013|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-0-8014-6872-8|page=176|access-date=13 August 2020|archive-date=5 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201205080308/https://books.google.com/books?id=cq2dDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA176|url-status=live}}</ref> The Christians began to regain control under the leadership of the nobleman [[Pelagius of Asturias]], who founded the [[Kingdom of Asturias]] in 718 and defeated the Muslims at the [[Battle of Covadonga]] in c. 722, in what is taken by historians to be the beginning of the [[Reconquista]]. It was from the Asturian kingdom that modern [[Spain]] and [[Portugal]] evolved.{{sfn|O'Callaghan}}

The Visigoths were never completely [[Romanization|Romanized]]; rather, they were 'Hispanicized' as they spread widely over a large territory and population. They progressively adopted a new culture, retaining little of their original culture except for practical military customs, some artistic modalities, family traditions such as heroic songs and folklore, as well as select conventions to include Germanic names still in use in present-day Spain. It is these artifacts of the original Visigothic culture that give ample evidence of its contributing foundation for the present regional culture.{{sfn|Beckwith|2009|pp=331–32}} Portraying themselves heirs of the Visigoths, the subsequent Christian Spanish monarchs declared their responsibility for the Reconquista of Muslim Spain, which was completed with the [[Fall of Granada]] in 1492.{{sfn|O'Callaghan}}