This article is about the specific polity Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and therefore only includes events related to its territory and not to its possessions or colonies. If you are interested in the possession, this is the link to the article about the nation which includes all possessions as well as all the different incarnations of the nation.
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The Ostrogoths, officially Foederati of the Roman Empire, became factually independent when they moved into Pannonia. At the end of the V century AD they conquered Italy establishing a Kingdom there. In 553 AD the Italian Kingdom of the Ostrogoths was reconquered by the Eastern Roman Empire.
Establishment
January 403: Pannonia and Dalmatia conquered by Kingdom of the Ostrogoths.
Chronology
Interactive Chronologies with maps are available in the section Changes Navigation
Were a series of conflicts between the Roman Empire and the Goths.
1.1.Gothic War (535-554)
Was a war between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy. The war had its roots in the ambition of the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I to recover the provinces of the former Western Roman Empire, which the Romans had lost to invading barbarian tribes.
1.1.1.First Intervention (Gothic War)
Was the first Eastern Roman campaign in Italy under General Belisarius during the Gothic War (535-554).
September 535: Mundus conquers Dalmatia.
September 535: Belisarius lands in Sicily.
January 536: Sicily conquered by Eastern Roman Empire.
April 536: Tho Ostrogoths reconquer part of Dalmatia.
July 536: Belisarius, a Byzantine general under Emperor Justinian I, captured the city of Regium in 536. This victory was part of his campaign to reconquer the Western Roman Empire territories from the Ostrogoths during the Gothic War.
July 536: The Byzantines reconquer Dalmatia.
December 536: In 536, the Byzantine general Belisarius captured Naples from the Ostrogoths during the Gothic War. This victory was part of the Eastern Roman Empire's efforts to reclaim Italy under the rule of Emperor Justinian I.
January 537: In 536, the Byzantine general Belisarius successfully captured Rome from the Ostrogoths.
April 537: The Siege of Rome by the Ostrogoths in 537 was led by the Gothic king Vitiges against the Byzantine garrison in the city, commanded by Belisarius. The siege lasted over a year and resulted in the Ostrogoths capturing Rome and establishing it as the capital of their kingdom.
November 537: Byzantines conquer Ariminum and Ancona.
March 538: The Siege of Rome by the Ostrogoths in 538 was led by the Gothic king Vitiges against the Eastern Roman Empire, ruled by Emperor Justinian I. The siege lasted over a year and resulted in the city falling to the Ostrogoths before being recaptured by the Byzantines.
May 538: In 538, the Byzantine general Solomon led the conquest of Liguria, expanding the Eastern Roman Empire's territory up to Mediolanum (modern-day Milan). This marked a significant military achievement for the Byzantines in their efforts to reclaim lost territories in Italy.
May 538: In 538, the city of Mediolanum (modern-day Milan) was besieged and sacked by the Burgundians and the Goths, led by their respective kings, Godegisel and Vitiges. This event marked a significant blow to the Western Roman Empire, as the territory fell under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire.
June 538: Mediolanum, a city in Italy, was sieged and sacked in 538 by the Burgundians and the Goths, led by King Vitiges. The attack was part of the Gothic War between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogoths.
September 538: Byzantine conquest of Urbinum, Urbs Vetus, Auxinum and Faesulae.
September 539: Frankish raid in Liguria.
October 539: After their raid, the Franks left Liguria.
June 540: Byzantine occupation of Ravenna.
June 541: Ildibad reestablished control over Venetia and Liguria and decisively defeated the Roman general Vitalius at Treviso, but after having Uraias murdered because of a quarrel between their wives, he too was assassinated in May 541 in retribution.
January 543: After much urging by Justinian, the generals Constantian and Alexander combined their forces and advanced upon Verona. Through treachery they managed to capture a gate in the city walls, but then delayed so much by quarreling over the prospective booty that the Goths were able to recapture the gate, forcing the Byzantines to withdraw. Totila came up upon their camp near Faventia, and with 5,000 men destroyed the Roman army. Totila then marched down into Tuscany, where he besieged Florence. Three Roman generals, John, Bessas, and Cyprian marched to its relief, but in the Battle of Mucellium, their forces were defeated and dispersed.
January 547: Instead of remaining in central Italy, where his forces were outnumbered and even a single defeat might prove disastrous, Totila decided to march south, where Roman garrisons were few and weak. He bypassed Rome, and very soon, the provinces of southern Italy were forced to recognize his authority. This campaign amply illustrates the crucial points of Totila's strategy: rapid movements to take control of the countryside, leaving the Byzantines in control of isolated strongholds, mostly on the coast, which could be reduced later. When a fortified location fell, its walls were usually razed so that it would no longer be of any military value. Furthermore, Totila followed a conscious policy of treating his captives well, thus enticing them to surrender rather than resist to the end, and actively tried to win over the Italian population to his side.
January 550: The Ostrogothic reconquest of Rome in 549 was led by the Ostrogothic king Totila, who successfully recaptured the city from the Byzantine Empire during the Gothic War. This marked a significant victory for the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths in their ongoing conflict with the Byzantines.
1.1.2.Second Intervention (Gothic War)
Was the second major Eastern Roman offensive during the Gothic War (535-554).
July 561: Verona was captured by the Byzantines on July 20, 561.
January 563: The lands and cities across the River Po were still held by Franks, Alemanni and Goths, and it was not until 562 that their last strongholds, the cities of Verona and Brixia were subjugated. Nevertheless, according to Roman historian Procopius of Caesarea, the barbarian population was allowed to live peacefully in Italy under Roman sovereignty.
1.1.2.1.Battle of Taginae
Byzantine General defeated and killed Ostrogothic King Totila at the Battle of Taginae (552).
August 552: A new Italian campaign was organized under Justinian's nephew Germanus Justinus. With the death of Germanus in 551, Narses took on Totila, and at the Battle of Taginae (552) Narses defeated and killed Totila.
1.1.2.2.Battle of Mons Lactarius
Was a battle between the Ostrogothic Kingdom and the Byzanzine Empire in Campania.
November 553: After the Battle of Taginae, in which the Ostrogoth king Totila was killed, the Byzantine general Narses captured Rome and besieged Cumae. Teia, the new Ostrogothic king, gathered the remnants of the Ostrogothic army and marched to relieve the siege, but in October 552 (or early 553) Narses ambushed him at Mons Lactarius in Campania, near Mt. Vesuvius and Nuceria Alfaterna. The battle lasted two days, and Teia was killed in the fighting. Ostrogothic power in Italy was eliminated, and the remaining Ostrogoths went back north and (re)settled in south Austria. After the battle, Italy was again invaded, this time by the Franks, but they too were defeated and the peninsula was, for a time, reintegrated into the empire.
1.1.2.3.Capitulation of Campsa
After the invasion of Italy by the Eastern Roman Army and the collapse of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, seven thousand Goths held out at Campsa, near Naples until they capitulated in the spring of 555.
February 555: After being defeate din most of Italy, seven thousand Goths entrenched themselves at Campsa, near Naples.
June 555: Campsa, the last Gothic stronghold in Italy, capitulated to the Byzantines in the spring of 555.
The Visigoths occupied Noricum.
January 408: Stilicho's non-arrival in Epirus also prompted, in 408, Alaric to move to Noricum, threatening to invade Italy if the request for a payment of 4,000 pounds of gold for services rendered, or arrears for the Gothic army all the time they spent in Epirus waiting for Stilicho.
February 408: Stilicho's non-arrival in Epirus also prompted, in 408, Alaric to move to Noricum, threatening to invade Italy if the request for a payment of 4,000 pounds of gold for services rendered, or arrears for the Gothic army all the time they spent in Epirus waiting for Stilicho.
Were a series of conflicts that saw the Huns, an invading tribe probably from Central Asia, fighting against the Romans as well as the Germanic tribes of Europe.
3.1.Hunnic Expansion
Were the expansion wars of the Huns, who established a vast, but short-lived, dominion in Europe.
January 433: The king of the Huns Rugila greatly expanded the Hunnic Empore. The Huns achieved supremacy over their rivals, many of them highly civilized, thanks to their military prowess, mobility and weapons such as the Hunnic bow.
3.2.Germanic-Hunnic Wars
Was the conflict between the Germanic Tribes of central and eastern Europe against the Huns.
3.2.1.Battle of Nedao
The Battle of Nedao was a battle fought in Pannonia in 454 CE between the Huns and their former Germanic vassals. It was decisive Germanic victory.
January 455: After the death of Attila, the Scirii, Heruli, Rugii and others joined Ardaric of the Gepids in a revolt against the Huns, winning a major victory at the Battle of Nedao in 454 AD. In the aftermath, Edeko established a Scirian kingdom in the Middle Alföld between the Middle Danube and the Tisza rivers.
January 455: After the Battle of Nedao, the Hunnic Empire disintegrated and the Gepids became the dominant power in the eastern regions of the Carpathian Basin. According to Jordanes, the Gepids "by their own might won for themselves the territory of the Huns and ruled as victors over the extent of all Dacia, demanding of the Roman Empire nothing more than peace and an annual gift" after their victory.
January 455: The Battle of Nedao in 454 CE marked the end of the Hunnic Empire as the Germanic vassals, led by Ardaric of the Gepids, decisively defeated the Huns under Attila's sons, Ellac and Dengizich. This led to the fragmentation of the Hunnic Empire and the territory of Pannonia falling under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire.
January 455: After the death of Attila his sons and their Ostrogoth allies lost power over the various peoples of his empire at the Battle of Nedao in 454.
The Herul kingdom, apparently under a king named Rodulph, was established north of modern Vienna and Bratislava, near the Morava river, and possibly extending as far east as the Little Carpathians.
January 455: After the collapse of the Hun Empire in 454, many Ostrogoths were moved by the emperor Marcian to Pannonia as foederati.
January 455: Hunimund fought with Ardaric against the Huns at the Battle of Nedao in 454. Afterwards Hunimund founded a small and short-lived kingdom in the old settlement area of the Marcomanni and the Quadi.
In 453, the Rugii successfully rebelled against the Huns along with other Germanic tribes at the Battle of Nedao, after which they settled in a region presently part of Lower Austria (ancient Noricum), north of the Danube.
January 455: In 453, the Rugii successfully rebelled against the Huns along with other Germanic tribes at the Battle of Nedao, after which they settled in a region presently part of Lower Austria (ancient Noricum), north of the Danube.
After the Ostrogoths left Pannonia in 473, the Gepids captured Sirmium (now Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia), a strategically important town on the road between Italy and Constantinople.
January 474: After the Ostrogoths left Pannonia in 473, the Gepids captured Sirmium, a strategically important town on the road between Italy and Constantinople.
Was a military campaing by Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great against Odoacer's Kingdom of Italy.
August 489: Odoacer was a Germanic chieftain who deposed the last Roman emperor in the West. The Kingdom of the Ostrogoths was ruled by Theodoric the Great, who defeated Odoacer near Aquileia in 489, leading to the territory falling under Ostrogothic control.
September 489: After being defeated by Theodoric the Great, Odoacer, retreated to the Adige River near Verona.
September 489: Battle of Verona.
November 489: Knowing the poor siege techniques of the Goths, Odoacer then decided to barricade himself in Ravenna, but Theodoric surprised him by occupying Milan and Pavia which opened the gates to him to avoid looting.
January 490: Odoacer's general, Tufa, pretended to defect but then had the Goths massacred. Odoacer's troops then marched towards Milan where Theodoric ordered the troops to withdraw. Milan was then barbarously sacked.
January 490: Theodoric was besieged in Pavia by Odoacer.
January 490: In 489 the Ostrogoths crossed the Alps and found themselves in Italy.
January 490: Odoacer made two serious political errors: the first was to sack Milan losing the favor of the population, and the second was to declare himself Augustus and place his son Tela as Caesar. The senatorial class did not take it well, and the whole of Southern Italy rebelled: Cassiodorus and all of Sicily broke away from Odoacer and offered themselves to Theodoric.
August 490: Battle of the Adda River: Ostrogoth king Odoacer was left with only Ravenna, Rimini and Cesena as well as the Adige Valley while the South and Center of Italy had surrendered.
July 492: Rimini, exhausted by hunger, surrendered, to the Ostrogoths.
January 493: In 492, Theodoric had got rid of Tufa.
February 493: Cesena succumbed to hunger.
March 493: Cesena succumbed to hunger.
Was an unsuccesfull Vandalic military expedition to Sicily.
January 492: Taking advantage of the conflict between Odoacer and Theodoric, Vandal king Gunthamund tried to regain possession of Sicily.
February 492: The Vandalic troops sent to the Sicily in 491 were driven back by the Ostrogoths. The Vandals also lost the contribution that Odoacer paid to the king of the Vandals, starting in 476, for the possession of the island.
The Kingdom of the Ostrogoths conquered the last Vandalic territories in Sicily.
January 497: Under Gutemondo, nephew of Genseric, between 484 and 496, Sicily was entirely conquered by the Ostrogoths.
The Kingdom of the Ostrogoths donated the Sicilian city of Lilibeo to the Kingdom of the Vandals after the marriage of Amalfrid, the sister of Theodoric King of the Ostrogoths, with the King of the Vandals.
January 501: The vandal king Thrasamund made an alliance with the Ostrogoths, and in his second marriage, in 500, he married the sister of their king Theodoric, Amalafrida, who arrived in Carthage escorted by 1,000 notables and 5,000 slaves skilled in arms, bringing as a dowry the Sicilian city of Lilybaeum and its district (the western end of the island).
The Gepids invaded Sirmium, which was part of the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths at the time.
January 505: Theoderic the Great dispatched one comes Pitzia to launch a campaign against the Gepids who either tried to capture Sirmium or wanted to get rid of Theoderic's suzerainty in 504. Comes Pitzia expelled the Gepid troops from Sirmium without much resistance.
January 531: After the death of Theoderic the Great in 526, the Gepids, led by their king Vitiges, invaded Sirmium in 528 or 530. However, they were ultimately defeated by the forces of the Kingdom of the Gepids (Second Kingdom).
February 531: After the death of Theoderic the Great in 526, the Gepids invaded Sirmium in 528 or 530. However, Vitiges, who was the king of the Ostrogoths at the time, successfully defeated the Gepids in Sirmium in 531.
Was a military campaign in southern Gaul by the king of the Ostrogoths Theodoric the Great.
January 510: Theoderic's generals campaigned in Gaul, and were successful in extending Ostrogothic rule into southern Gaul at the expense of the Burgundians.
Were a series of wars initiated by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I to reconquer former territories of the Western Roman Empire. Although Justinian was not able to conquer back all these territories, he was succesful in conquering most of them.
12.1.Vandalic War
Was a war by Eastern Roman Emperor Juistinian I against the Vandalic Kingdom, which was conquered by the Romans.
November 533: Belisarius also demanded the return of the port of Lilybaeum in western Sicily from the Ostrogoths, who had captured it during the war.
During the Gothic War against the Byzantine Empire, the Ostrogoths ceded Raetia and Noricum to the Frankish Kingdom.
January 537: In 536, during their defensive struggle against Byzantium, the Goths of Italy ceded all the areas they controlled north of the Alps to the Frankish kings, in order to at least gain neutrality from them. So Rätien and Norikum also became Franconian.
During the Gothic War against the Byzantine Empire, the Ostrogoths ceded Provence to the Frankish Kingdom.
January 538: In 537, a conflict broke out between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogothic kingdom. To ensure Frankish neutrality in the conflict, King Vitiges offered Provence, which the Frankish Kings shared between them, along with the northern Alps with sovereignty over the Alemanni, by grabbing the upper Rhine valley, Main, and high Danube. When the Ostrogoths ceded Provence to the Franks, he (Chlothar) received the cities of Orange, Carpentras, and Gap.
January 538: In 537, a conflict broke out between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogothic kingdom. To ensure Frankish neutrality in the conflict, King Vitiges ceded Provence to them.
The Gepids reached the zenith of their power after 537, settling in the rich area around Singidunum (today's Belgrade). For a short time, the city of Sirmium (present-day Sremska Mitrovica) was the center of the Gepid State.
January 538: The Gepids reached the zenith of their power after 537, settling in the rich area around Singidunum. For a short time, the city of Sirmium was the center of the Gepid State and the king Cunimund minted golden coins in it.
January 470: There he reigned as king until the year 469, at the same time as his ally Edekon, who also founded a short-lived Kingdom of Skiren. In 469, in alliance with the Skiren, he was defeated in the Battle of Bolia in the Tisza plain against the Ostrogoth kings Valamir (Widemer) and Thiudimir (Theodemer), who claimed the conquered territory of the Skiren and Quaden.
January 519: The Antes Confederation, a union of Eastern Slavic tribes, was first mentioned in the historical record in 518.
January 527: An alliance with Byzantium and the Franks allowed king Vacon to exploit the convulsions that shook the Ostrogothic kingdom after the death of king Theodoric in 526: he thus subdued the Suebi present in the region and occupied Pannonia I and Valeria (present-day Hungary west and south of the Danube).
January 541: Audoinus usurped the ostrogoth throne and modified the framework of his predecessor's alliances, agreeing (in 547 or 548) with the Byzantine emperor Justinian I to occupy the province of Savense and part of Pannonia of Noricum, in order to line up again against the old Franks and Gepids allies and allow Justinian to have secure communication routes with Italy.
January 549: Taking advantage of the military weakening of the Ostrogoths in the fight against the Byzantines, Theudebert I brought the rest of Raetia under his control until his death in 548 with the militarily and economically important Graubünden pass roads.
January 552: In surviving records, the Bavarian name was first mentioned historically by the Franks in a list of peoples, prepared in c. 520 AD. The first document that also describes their location (east of the Swabians) is the History of the Goths by the historian Jordanes dating from 551 AD. Probably the Bavarians invaded Austria and southeastern Germany at the time of the Gothic-Byzantine wars.
Disestablishment
January 563: The lands and cities across the River Po were still held by Franks, Alemanni and Goths, and it was not until 562 that their last strongholds, the cities of Verona and Brixia were subjugated. Nevertheless, according to Roman historian Procopius of Caesarea, the barbarian population was allowed to live peacefully in Italy under Roman sovereignty.
Kingdom of the Ostrogoths
