Rome's Gothic Wars: From the Third Century to Alaric (Key Conflicts of Classical Antiquity)

by Michael Kulikowski

  Julian

  emperor 361–363. Nephew of Constantine and by 354 last surviving male relative of Constantius Ⅱ, who made him caesar in 355. After becoming sole emperor in 361, he attempted to de-Christianize the empire, but failed to do so because he died prematurely on campaign in Persia.

  Julius

  magister militum of the East at the time of Adrianople, he stopped the Gothic revolt from spreading into Asia by instigating a massacre of Goths in the eastern provinces.

  Junius Soranus

  dux Scythiae in 373 who ordered the collection of the relics of the Gothic martyr Saba and sent them to his native province of Cappadocia.

  Justina

  second wife of Valentinian Ⅰ and mother of Valentinian Ⅱ.

  Justinian

  emperor 527–565 who reconquered territories in the Latin West that had once been imperial provinces but which had been barbarian kingdoms for many decades.

  Licinius

  emperor 308–324, rival of Constantine for control of the whole empire after the civil wars of 306–313.

  Lupicinus

  comes rei militaris in Thrace in 376 and with Maximus one of two officials primarily responsible for managing the Gothic crossing of the Danube. He organized the banquet at Marcianople which sparked off the Gothic rebellion of 377.

  Magnentius

  usurper 350–353, he overthrew Constans in 350, but was defeated by Constantius Ⅱ in 353 in a civil war that badly weakened the Rhine frontier.

  Magnus Maximus

  usurper 383–388, he overthrew Gratian and was briefly tolerated by Theodosius, until his invasion of Italy forced Valentinian Ⅱ to flee to the East and provoked civil war with Theodosius.

  Marcus Aurelius

  emperor 161–180, his wars against the Marcomanni occupied many years of his reign and disrupted conditions on the middle Danube frontier.

  Maria

  elder daughter of Stilicho and Serena, married to Honorius in 398.

  Maxentius

  usurper, 306–312. Son of the augustus Maximian, Maxentius was proclaimed augustus at Rome but never recognized as a legitimate emperor. He died in battle against Constantine in 312.

  Maximian

  emperor 285–305. Co-emperor of Diocletian from 285, and one of the two augusti in the tetrarchy formed in 293 with the appointment of Constantius Ⅰ and Galerius as caesars, he was the father of Maxentius, who revolted after Maximian’s abdication.

  Maximus

  Roman dux of either Moesia or Scythia in 376 and with Lupicinus one of two officials primarily responsible for managing the Gothic crossing of the Danube.

  Modares

  Gothic general in imperial service under Theodosius, he won the first success against Fritigern’s followers in 379, a year after Adrianople.

  Nero

  emperor 54–68 and the last member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

  Nicomachus Flavianus

  Roman aristocrat who joined the rebellion of Arbogast in 392, lending legitimacy to the usurpation of Eugenius, he killed himself after defeat at the battle of the Frigidus.

  Olympius

  magister officiorum of Honorius, and opposed to any compromise with Alaric, he instigated the murder of Stilicho and replaced him as the most powerful figure at court.

  Paria

  grandfather of Jordanes and secretary to the barbarian chieftain Candac.

  Postumus

  usurper 260–269. Proclaimed emperor after successfully defeating a barbarian invasion, he ruled a separate ‘Gallic empire’ that was not suppressed until the reign of Aurelian.

  Priscus Attalus

  Roman senator of Greek origin who led the senatorial embassy requesting that Honorius negotiate with Alaric. Made urban prefect by Honorius, he then became a usurper with Alaric as his sponsor. He was deposed by Alaric in 410, remaining with the Goths until 415 when Wallia handed him over to Honorius, who allowed Attalus to retire to the island of Lipari.

  Probus

  emperor 276–282. His reign is little known, but he fought many frontier wars against various barbarians, including the Goths.

  Procopius

  usurper 365–366, he could claim kinship with the Constantinian dynasty and rebelled against Valens, but was suppressed in 366. The fact that some Tervingian leaders supported Procopius provided the excuse for Valens’ Gothic war of 367–369.

  Profuturus

  general of Valens sent to Thrace with Traianus in 377 to fight the Goths, he was killed at the battle of Ad Salices.

  Promotus

  general of Theodosius sent to suppress the Balkan revolt of 391, but killed there in an ambush and replaced by Stilicho.

  Radagaisus

  Gothic king who appeared suddenly in 405 leading an invasion across the Alps through Raetia into Italy until his defeat by Stilicho outside Florence in 406.

  Rausimod

  Sarmatian king defeated by Constantine at Campona in 323.

  Richomeres

  comes domesticorum and senior general of Gratian, sent to the Balkans with Frigeridus in 377 to fight against the Goths, and in 378 leader of Gratian’s advance guard before Adrianople. Surviving the battle, he later prevented the Gothic revolt from spreading to the West.

  Rothesteus

  Gothic king and father of Atharid, the Gothic noble who commanded the death of Saba in 372.

  Rufinus

  praetorian prefect of the East, left behind in Constantinople by Theodosius to run the East during the imperial campaign against Eugenius, but killed in 395 by the eastern troops returning under the command of Gainas.

  Saba

  Gothic Christian and martyr under the iudex Athanaric, killed at the orders of Rothesteus’ son Atharid on 12 April 372.

  Sansalas

  Gothic priest in the village of the martyr Saba.

  Saphrax

  Gothic dux and co-regent with Alatheus for the Greuthungian child-king Videric. Together they led some of the Greuthungi across the Danube in 376, eventually joining forces with the Tervingi of Fritigern and fighting at the battle of Adrianople in 378.

  Sarus

  Gothic general in Roman service beginning in 407, he caused the final breakdown of negotiations between Alaric and Honorius and was later killed in battle with his long-standing enemy Athaulf in 412.

  Saturninus

  magister equitum and senior general of Valens, promoted to lead the Thracian campaign against Fritigern’s Goths after the failures of Traianus and Profuturus. After Adrianople, he continued in the service of Theodosius and helped negotiate the emperor’s Gothic peace of 382.

  Sebastianus

  retired western general promoted by Valens in spring 378 to take overall command of the Gothic war, he won some victories but was killed in the battle of Adrianople.

  Septimius Severus

  emperor 193–211, North African emperor of Punic origin and the father of Caracalla.

  Serena

  Theodosius’ niece and adopted daughter, wife of Stilicho and mother of Eucherius, Maria and Thermantia, she was murdered during Alaric’s first siege of Rome with the approval of her cousin Galla Placidia.

  Shapur Ⅰ

  Sassanian king of Persia 240–272 and the most dangerous enemy of the Roman empire in this period.

  Sigesarius

  Gothic homoean priest in the entourage of Alaric and Athaulf who baptised Priscus Attalus.

  Stilicho

  Roman general and member of the imperial family, husband of Theodosius’ niece and adopted daughter Serena, father of Eucherius, Maria and Thermantia. Stilicho was regent for Honorius after Theodosius’ death in 395, but his claims to similar regency over Arcadius in the East were rejected by the eastern court. The death of Arcadius in 408 caused a final breach between Stilicho and Honorius, after which Stilicho was killed.

  Sueridus

  Gothic commander of a regular unit in the Roman army along with Colias, he joined the revolt of Fritigern in 377 after a dispute with the
curia of Adrianople.

  Tacitus

  emperor 275–276, assassinated while campaigning against Gothic invaders in Asia.

  Tacitus (historian)

  see Glossary of Ancient Sources

  Themistius

  see Glossary of Ancient Sources

  Theoderic Ⅰ

  Gothic king 418–451. A relative by marriage of Alaric, he led the Goths after their settlement in Aquitania in 418.

  Theodoric

  (“the Great”) Ostrogothic king of Italy 489–526. The lost Gothic history of Cassiodorus was dedicated to him.

  Theodosius Ⅰ

  emperor 379–395. Proclaimed emperor and recognized by Gratian shortly after emerging from retirement, he concluded the Balkan Gothic war in 382, thereafter facing the western usurpations of Magnus Maximus and Eugenius, before his premature death.

  Theodosius ‘the Elder’

  father of Theodosius Ⅰ and the best general of Valentinian Ⅰ, executed in obscure circumstances after Valentinian’s death in 375.

  Thermantia

  younger daughter of Stilicho and Serena, married to Honorius in 408 after the death of his first wife, Thermantia’s elder sister Maria.

  Traianus

  general of Valens sent to Thrace with Profuturus in 377 to fight the Goths, he was killed at Adrianople.

  Trajan

  emperor 98–117, he fought two Dacian wars on the Danube frontier and created the Roman province of Dacia.

  Tribigild

  Gothic general in imperial service, he revolted at Nacoleia in Asia Minor in 399.

  Uldin

  Hun chieftain on the Danube in 400 who killed Gainas.

  Ulfila

  bishop of ‘the Scythians’ appointed in either 336 or 341 and evangelist of the Goths beyond the Danube. Expelled from Gothia after eight years, he and his followers settled in Moesia, inventing an alphabet in which Gothic could be written and translating the Bible into it.

  Valens

  emperor 364–378. Made emperor by his elder brother Valentinian Ⅰ in 364, he took command of the East, but was soon challenged by the usurpation of Procopius, which then led to the Gothic wars of 367–369. He admitted the Tervingi into the empire in 376 in order to use them as soldiers on the eastern frontier. When the Gothic revolt became serious in 377, he made peace with Persia and returned to Thrace, where he was defeated and killed at Adrianople in 378.

  Valentinian Ⅰ

  emperor 364–375. Elected by the army after the death of Jovian, he divided the empire with his younger brother Valens, taking the West for his own part and fighting many campaigns on the Rhine and the middle Danube before dying on campaign against the Quadi.

  Valentinian Ⅱ

  emperor 375–392. Made emperor upon his father Valentinian I’s death in 375, he was always dominated by others, first his mother Justina and his elder half-brother Gratian, then Theodosius Ⅰ. Restored to his throne by Theodosius after being driven from Italy by Magnus Maximus, he was left behind in Gaul as a puppet emperor under the supervision of Arbogast and hanged himself in 392.

  Valentinian Ⅲ

  emperor 425–455 and the only son of Galla Placidia and Constantius Ⅲ, he ruled the western empire for thirty years.

  Valerian

  emperor 253–260, father of Gallienus and active mainly in the East, he was captured on campaign against the Persians and held in captivity until his death.

  Vespasian

  emperor 69–79.

  Victor

  general of Valens who arranged peace with the Gothic iudex Athanaric in 369, and later negotiated peace terms with Persia in 377.

  Videric

  Gothic king of the Greuthungi and son of Vithimir, he became king as a child under the regency of the duces Alatheus and Saphrax.

  Vithimir

  Gothic king of the Greuthungi and father of Videric, he succeeded Ermanaric but died in battle against the Huns.

  Wallia

  Gothic king 415–418 and successor of Athaulf, he returned Galla Placidia and Priscus Attalus to Honorius and fought on behalf of the imperial government in Spain.

  Wereka

  Gothic priest and martyr whose relics were deposited at Cyzicus by the Gothic noblewoman Dulcilla.

  Wiguric

  Gothic king responsible for the death of the various Gothic martyrs whose relics were deposited at Cyzicus by the Gothic noblewoman Dulcilla.

  Further Reading

  The critical editions of Greek and Latin authors from which I cite are listed at the start of the endnotes. Fortunately for the beginning student and general reader, nearly all the primary sources that bear on the Goths are now readily available in English translation, which should allow readers to check the basis of my conclusions if they wish to do so. Among Latin writers, our most important source is Ammianus Marcellinus, available in an excellent but abridged translation by Walter Hamilton in the Penguin Classics and an occasionally misleading but complete version by J. C. Rolfe in the Loeb Classical Library, which also includes the text of the Origo Constantini. For the later period, the poems of Claudian are indispensable, and can be read in the two-volume Loeb translation of M. Platnauer, while Rutilius Namatianus is included in the Loeb Minor Latin Poets, volume 2. Lactantius’ Deaths of the Persecutors is translated in the edition of J. L. Creed (Oxford, 1984), and the Latin panegyrics are translated by Barbara Saylor Rodgers and C. E. V. Nixon, In Praise of Later Roman Emperors (Berkeley, 1995). Orosius’ Seven Books against the Pagans is available in a Fathers of the Church translation by R. Deferrari (Washington, DC, 1964). Jordanes deserves to be read in full, if only to demonstrate how far-fetched the narrative that surrounds his migration stories really is, and the translation of C. C. Mierow (Princeton, 1915) is sound if slightly archaic.

  Among the Greek sources, Zosimus’ New History can be read in the translation of R. Ridley (Canberra, 1982). The fragments of Eunapius and Olympiodorus are readily available in R. Blockley, The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of Late Antiquity, volume 2 (Liverpool, 1983), with facing Greek text. The emperor Julian’s works are translated in a three-volume Loeb edition; Basil of Caesarea’s letters are in a four-volume Loeb. Several relevant Themistian orations are translated in Peter Heather and David Moncur, Philosophy, Politics and Empire in the Fourth Century: Select Orations of Themistius (Liverpool, 2001). Substantial parts of Libanius’ corpus are now available between four Loeb volumes and two volumes in the Liverpool series: A. F. Norman, Antioch as a Centre of Hellenic Culture as Observed by Libanius (2001) and Scott Bradbury, Select Letters of Libanius (2004). Gregory Thaumaturgus, the documents bearing on Ulfila, the Passio Sabae, and the other Gothic martyrologies are all translated in an excellent collection by Peter Heather and John Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century (Liverpool, 1991). The major Greek church historians, unfortunately, are not well served in English translation: Socrates and Sozomen are available in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (second series, vol. 2), but the translations were made from old and inaccurate editions, as was the version of Philostorgius in Bohn’s Library (London, 1855).

  Among the secondary literature, Peter Heather’s Goths and Romans, 332–489 (Oxford, 1991) is the best treatment of its subject available in any language, even though my interpretation of motive and causation in Gothic history differs substantially from his. Unfortunately, Heather’s more recent works, The Goths (Oxford, 1996) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 2005), restate the same arguments as the first book and shear them of all their nuance, advocating instead a neo-Romantic vision of mass migrations of free Germanic peoples. Heather’s idée fixe – that the Huns were responsible for the fall of the Roman empire and the end of the ancient world – is simple, elegant, and wrong. The literature on ethnogenesis is vast, but Herwig Wolfram’s History of the Goths (1979; English trans., Berkeley, 1988) is the most widely available. Its mixture of outlandish philological speculation, faulty documentation, and oracular pronouncement remains very influential. Less biz
arre, if wholly derivative, accounts of ethnogenesis are available in works by Wolfram’s Anglophone apostles: see especially Patrick Geary’s contribution to Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post-Classical World, edited by Peter Brown, G. W. Bowersock and Oleg Grabar. Far better are the many works of Walter Pohl, the best of which are not available in English; however, see his contributions to the Transformation of the Roman World series (in Strategies of Distinction, 1998; Kingdoms of the Empire, 1998; Regna and Gentes, 2003). Among older literature in English, the work of E. A. Thompson must have pride of place. His History of Attila and the Huns (Oxford, 1948), Early Germans (Oxford, 1965), Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila (Oxford, 1966), and Goths in Spain (Oxford, 1969) were all pioneering, even if their mixture of rigorous empiricism and Marxist dogma reads oddly today. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill’s ‘Gothia and Romania’, reprinted in The Long-Haired Kings (Oxford, 1962), also broke new ground in its day.

  Much of the most important work on the Goths was done in more general studies of the later Roman empire. J. B. Bury’s Later Roman Empire (London, 1923) can still be read with great profit and A. H. M. Jones’ massive Later Roman Empire, 284–602 (Oxford, 1964) remains the basic work of reference. Several useful articles appear in the new volumes 13 and 14 of the revised Cambridge Ancient History. The only good introduction to the third century in English is David S. Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180–395 (London, 2004), though its treatment of the fourth century is less reliable. For the tetrarchy, Stephen Williams’ Diocletian and the Roman Recovery (London, 1985) is generally sound, but the key text is T. D. Barnes’ Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, MA, 1981). Hugh Elton’s Warfare in Roman Europe (Oxford, 1996) is useful on the Roman approach to fighting barbarians. For the reign of Constantius, T. D. Barnes’ complex and difficult Athanasius and Constantius (Cambridge, MA, 1993) provides the only reliable narrative in English. For Valens, we now have Noel Lenski’s Failure of Empire (Berkeley, 2002); while it is perhaps too kind to Valens, its approach to Gothic history betters Heather on such points as Gothic conversion. Simon MacDowall, Adrianople AD 378 (New York, 2001) is an excellent, if speculative, reconstruction of the battle aimed at the hobbyist audience. No reliable modern study of Theodosius has been published in English.