Editing Alaric II

{{Short description|King of the Visigoths from 484 until 507}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Infobox royalty
|image       = Anneau sigillaire Alaric II.jpg
|caption     = A ring depicting Alaric II
|succession  = [[King of the Visigoths]]
|reign       = 28 December 484 – {{circa}} August 507
|predecessor = [[Euric]]
|successor   = [[Gesalec]]
|birth_date  = {{circa}} 458/466 
|death_date  = {{circa}} August 507 (aged 41/49)
| spouse     = Unknown<br/>[[Theodegotha]]
| issue        = Gesalec<br/>[[Amalaric]]
| father       = Euric
| mother       = [[Ragnagild]]
|religion    = [[Arian Christianity]]
}}

'''Alaric II''' ({{langx|got|𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃}}, {{lang|got-latn|[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/Alarīks|Alareiks]]}}, 'ruler of all';<ref>Kelsie B. Harder, ''Names and their varieties: a collection of essays in onomastics'', American Name Society, University Press of America, 1984, pp. 10–11</ref> {{langx|la|Alaricus}}; {{circa|458/466}} – August 507) was the [[King of the Visigoths]] from 484 until 507. He succeeded his father [[Euric]] as King of the [[Visigoths]] in [[Toulouse]] on 28 December 484;<ref>Herwig Wolfram, ''History of the Goths'', translated by Thomas J. Dunlap (Berkeley: University of California, 1988), p. 190.</ref> he was the great-grandson of the more famous [[Alaric I]], who sacked Rome in 410. He established his capital at [[Aire-sur-l'Adour]] (''Vicus Julii'') in [[Aquitaine]]. His dominions included not only the majority of [[Hispania]] (excluding its northwestern corner) but also [[Gallia Aquitania]] and the greater part of an as-yet undivided [[Gallia Narbonensis]].

==Reign==
[[Herwig Wolfram]] opens his chapter on the eighth Visigothic king, "Alaric's reign gets no full treatment in the sources, and the little they do contain is overshadowed by his death in the [[Battle of Vouillé]] and the downfall of the Toulosan kingdom."<ref name=Wolfram-191>Wolfram, ''History of the Goths'', p. 191</ref> One example is [[Isidore of Seville]]'s account of Alaric's reign: consisting of a single paragraph, it is primarily about Alaric's death in that battle.<ref>Isidore of Seville, ''Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum'', chapter 36. Translation by Guido Donini and Gordon B. Ford, ''Isidore of Seville's History of the Goths, Vandals, and Suevi'', second revised edition (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970), pp. 17f</ref>

The earliest-documented event in Alaric's reign concerned providing refuge to [[Syagrius]], the former ruler of the [[Domain of Soissons]] (in what is now northwestern [[France]]) who had been defeated by [[Clovis I]], King of the [[Franks]]. According to [[Gregory of Tours]]' account, Alaric was intimidated by Clovis into surrendering Syagrius to Clovis; Gregory then adds that "the Goths are a timorous race." The Franks then imprisoned Syagrius, and once his control over Syagrius' former kingdom was secure, Clovis had him beheaded.<ref name=Gregory-27>Gregory of Tours, ''Decem Libri Historiarum'', II.27; translated by Lewis Thorpe, ''History of the Franks'' (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), p. 139</ref> However, Wolfram points out that at the time "Clovis got no farther than the Seine; only after several more years did the Franks succeed in occupying the rest of the Gallo-Roman buffer state north of the [[Loire]]." Any threat of war Clovis could make would only be effective if they were neighbors; "it is nowhere written that Syagrius was handed over in 486 or 487."<ref name=Wolfram-191/>

Despite Frankish advances in the years that followed, Alaric was not afraid to take the military initiative when it presented itself. In 490, Alaric assisted his fellow Gothic king, [[Theodoric the Great]], in his conquest of [[Italy]] by dispatching an army to raise [[Odoacer]]'s siege of [[Pavia]], where Theodoric had been trapped.<ref>Wolfram, ''History of the Goths'', pp. 281f</ref> Then when the Franks attacked the [[Burgundians]] in the decade after 500, Alaric assisted the ruling house, and according to Wolfram the victorious Burgundian king [[Gundobad]] ceded [[Avignon]] to Alaric.<ref>Wolfram, ''History of the Goths'', p. 291</ref> By 502 Clovis and Alaric met on an island in the Loire near [[Amboise]] for face-to-face talks, which led to a peace treaty.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gregory of Tours |title=A History of the Franks |date=1976 |publisher=Penguin |pages=150 |edition=trans. Lewis Thorpe}}</ref>

In 506, the [[Visigoths]] captured the city of [[Dertosa]] in the [[Ebro]] valley. There they captured the [[Roman usurper]] [[Peter (usurper)|Peter]] and had him executed.<ref>Collins, Roger. ''Visigothic Spain, 409–711''. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004, p. 35.</ref>

==Battle of Vouillé and aftermath==
[[File:Reino de los visigodos-en.svg|thumb|left|The Kingdom of the [[Visigoths]] under Alaric II]]

After a few years, however, Clovis violated the peace treaty negotiated in 502. Despite the diplomatic intervention of [[Theodoric the Great|Theodoric]], king of the [[Ostrogoths]] and father-in-law of Alaric, Clovis led his followers into Visigothic territory. Alaric was forced by his magnates to meet Clovis in the [[Battle of Vouillé]] (summer 507) near Poitiers; there the Goths were defeated and Alaric slain, according to Gregory of Tours, by Clovis himself.<ref>Wolfram, ''History of the Goths'', pp. 292f</ref>

The most serious consequence of this battle was not the loss of their possessions in [[Gaul]] to the Franks; with Ostrogothic help, much of the Gallic territory was recovered, Wolfram notes, perhaps as far as [[Toulouse]].<ref>Wolfram, ''History of the Goths'', p. 245</ref> Nor was it the loss of the royal treasury at Toulouse, which Gregory of Tours writes Clovis took into his possession.<ref name=Gregory-27/> As [[Peter Heather]] notes, the Visigothic kingdom was thrown into disarray "by the death of its king in battle".<ref>Peter Heather, ''The Goths'' (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), p. 215</ref> Alaric's heirs were his eldest son, the illegitimate [[Gesalec]], and his younger son, the legitimate [[Amalaric]], who was still a child. Gesalec proved incompetent, and in 511 King Theodoric assumed the throne of the kingdom ostensibly on behalf of Amalaric—Heather uses the word "hijacked" to describe his action. Although Amalaric eventually became king in his own right, the political continuity of the Visigothic kingdom was broken; "Amalaric's succession was the result of new power structures, not old ones," as Heather describes it. With Amalaric's death in 531, the Visigothic kingdom entered an extended period of unrest which lasted until [[Leovigild]] assumed the throne in 569.<ref>Heather, ''The Goths'', p. 277</ref>

== Ability as king ==
In religion Alaric was an [[Arianism|Arian]], like all the early Visigothic nobles, but he greatly mitigated the persecution policy of his father Euric toward the [[Catholics]] and authorized them to hold in 506 the council of [[Agde]].<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Alaric II.|volume=1|page=472}}</ref> He was on uneasy terms with the Catholic bishops of Arelate (modern [[Arles]]) as epitomized in the career of the Gallo-Roman [[Caesarius of Arles|Caesarius, bishop of Arles]], who was appointed bishop in 503. Caesarius was suspected of conspiring with the [[Burgundians]], whose king had married the sister of Clovis, to assist the Burgundians capture Arles. Alaric exiled him for a year to [[Bordeaux]] in Aquitania, then allowed him to return unharmed when the crisis had passed.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.ccel.org/w/wace/biodict/htm/iii.iii.iv.htm| title = Wace, ''Dictionary''}}</ref>

Alaric displayed similar wisdom in political affairs by appointing a commission headed by the [[referendary]] [[Anianus (referendary)|Anianus]] to prepare an abstract of the Roman laws and imperial decrees, which would form the authoritative code for his Roman subjects. This is generally known as the ''Breviarium Alaricianum'' or [[Breviary of Alaric]].<ref name="EB1911"/>

==Legacy==
[[File:Alarico II, rey de los Visigodos (Museo del Prado).jpg|thumb|upright|Speculative portrait by Carlos Esquivel y Rivas, 1856]]

The {{ill|Montagne d'Alaric|fr}} (Alaric's Mountain), near [[Carcassonne]], is named after the Visigoth king.<ref>''{{cite web |title=The legend of the treasure of Alaric |url=http://www.rhedesium.com/the-legend-of-the-treasure-of-alaric.html |url-status=dead |access-date=12 March 2015 |archive-date=27 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171227235811/https://www.rhedesium.com/the-legend-of-the-treasure-of-alaric.html }}''</ref> Local rumour has it that he left a vast treasure buried in the caves beneath the mountain.<ref>''[http://www.corbieresweb.com/Montagne-d-Alaric Montagne d’Alaric] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402093258/http://www.corbieresweb.com/Montagne-d-Alaric |date=2 April 2015 }}''</ref>

The {{ill|Canal d'Alaric|fr}} (Alaric's [[Canal]]) in the [[Hautes-Pyrénées]] [[Departments of France|department]] is named after him.<ref>Theodoric the Goth: the barbarian champion of civilisation by Hodgkin, Thomas, 1891 New York : G.P. Putnam's Son pg. 239</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* Edward Gibbon, ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20040817020717/http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/g/g43d/chapter38.html History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]'' Chapter 38
* [http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/5930/alarico-ii Alarico II] {{in lang|es}}, ''[[Diccionario biográfico español]]'', [[Luis Agustín García Moreno]], [[Real Academia de la Historia]].

{{s-start}}
{{s-hou|[[Balti dynasty]]||||507|name=King Alaric II of the Visigoths}}
{{s-reg|}}
{{s-bef
| before = [[Euric]]
}}
{{s-ttl
| title = [[King of the Visigoths]]
| years = 28 December 484 – August 507
}}
{{s-aft
| after = [[Gesalec]]
}}
{{s-end}}

{{Visigothic kings}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alaric 02}}
[[Category:507 deaths]]
[[Category:5th-century births]]
[[Category:5th-century Visigothic monarchs]]
[[Category:6th-century Visigothic monarchs]]
[[Category:Ancient child monarchs]]
[[Category:Balt dynasty]]
[[Category:Monarchs killed in action]]
[[Category:Year of birth uncertain]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]