The Balt Dynasty: Ruling the Visigoths From 410-531 AD

When last I covered the Visigoths, they had just sacked the city of Rome in 410 as part of Alaric's army.

In case you need a little bit of a refresher, here's some background information on the Visigoths.

The Visigoths are the western branch of the Gothic tribe.

The eastern branch is known as the Ostrogoths.

We don't know what differences in culture emerged between the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, but the two groups were relatively friendly towards each other, and this suggests that they acknowledged that they had a shared cultural heritage.

It's possible that they spoke the same language as well.

In fact, the Visigoths will, by the end of this episode, choose an Ostrogoth to be their king, which suggests that the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths were somewhat cool with each other.

We don't know for sure where the Goths came from originally.

Historians debate between a Polish origin and a Scandinavian origin, but what we do know is that they first migrated into the Roman Empire in 251 AD before they were expelled by the Emperor Aurelian around 275 AD.

The Visigoths then settled along the empire's Danube frontier until they crossed the Danube in the 370s in an attempt to avoid the Huns.

Fast forward to 410 AD, and the Gothic general Alaric has just sacked Rome.

His army, mainly consisting of Visigothic mercenaries, is trying to figure out what to do with all of their new loot.

The Visigoths first turned south, intending to sail for Sicily, but their fleet was destroyed by a storm.

So Alaric turned his army to the north just to get sick and die very soon after.

So the legendary general who sacked Rome, was the person to sack Rome for the first time in 800 years, ended up dying of some illness before he was really able to capitalize on his gains.

So a bit of an anticlimax there.

Anyways, Alaric was succeeded by a guy named Segaric as the leader of this barbarian army.

But Segaric was unpopular, and within a year of assuming leadership, he was murdered by his own men.

So that's our first murder of the day.

Go ahead and take a shot.

The Visigoths then elected Alaric's brother-in-law, a man by the name of Aethelf, as their king.

Aethelf was stuck in Italy with his army of Visigoths, and that was a precarious position to be in.

Italy was still very important to the Western Roman state, and it's doubtful the Romans would have allowed the Visigoths to permanently settle down there without attacking them or conducting raids against them.

So Atholf conducted a strategic withdrawal, and he led his people out of Italy into southern Gaul.

That's southern France today.