Theodoric II

Theodoric II (Template:Circa 422 – early 466) was king of the Aquitanian Goths between 453 and 466. From his reign it is known that he was a faithful ally of the Romans in the beginning. His Gothic warriors frequently took action as auxiliary forces of the Roman army. Especially with the Roman emperor Avitus he was on good terms, but after the death of Avitus in 456 his attitude changed and he behaved more and more independently.

Supporter of Emperor Avitus

Theodoric succeeded his brother Thorismund in 453 after a brief reign that is unknown. It is only known that Theodoric had killed his brother.

At the beginning of his regime, Valentinian III was still emperor of the Western Roman Empire with the his father's longtime enemy Flavius Aetius still at the reigns of power. However, after Aetius' murder on 21 September 454 and Valentinian's assassination on 16 March 455, his passive attitude would not last for long. Not long after the rise of Petronius Maximus to the throne did disaster strike for the Empire, as on the 22 of May the Vandals invaded Rome after a plea was sent by empress Licinia Eudoxia to end the reign of Petronius Maximus. They robbed the city and the emperor was killed by an angry mob. At that time Avitus, a Roman senator of Gallic descent, was on a diplomatic mission at the court of Theodoric II in Toulouse. Theodoric, who knew Avitus as a mentor in his youth and had a very good relation with him, urged Avitus to demand the imperial crown for himself, which happened before the Gallo-Roman senators.<ref>Sidonius Apollinaris, vii 571–579.</ref> After that Theoderic supported his friend with a large contingent of his warriors.

Campaign in Spain

Template:Main In 456 came the Gothic army for Emperor Avitus in action in Spain to restore Roman power. Theodoric attacked Rechiar, the king of the Suebi, to punish him for raids in the nearby Roman territory.<ref>Template:Aut, Chronicles 172-175, in: MGH AA 11, p. 28v.</ref> Theodoric defeated him in the Battle of Órbigo (456) on the river Órbigo, near the city of Astorga in a battle where Rechiar was wounded but escaped the field, only to be hunted down & killed by Theodoric's troops. He then conquered Bracara Augusta (Braga), the capital of the Suebi. According to the tradition, things got rough and the Gothic army plundered several cities in Gallaecia, the Roman province in which the Suebi had established their kingdom. Some of the Suebi were massacred and even sacred places were attacked, probably because of the support of the local clergy for the Suevens.<ref>Template:Aut, The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 1 ca. 500 – ca. 700 , pag. 165.</ref> After this, Theodoric's army controlled the Spanish provinces Hispania Baetica, most of Hispania Tarraconensis and southern Lusitania.

Deposition of Avitus

In the course of 456, Avitus got into trouble in Italy. The emperor was massively unpopular with the Italian aristocracy & the army due to his Gallic descent & the fact that he was declared emperor by barbarians (the Visigoths). To many in Italy, he was a puppet of Theodoric & so when conflict erupted between the emperor & his two generals Ricimer & Majorian, he had to do it alone without the Gothic support of Theodoric who still was on campaign in Spain.<ref>Template:Aut, The Barbarian Invasions of the Roman Empire, 2001, page 395</ref> The Roman army in Italy revolted in the late Summer of 456. Avitus fled to Arelate where he gathered some troops and went back to battle the rebel generals but was badly defeated by Ricimer & Majorian in a battle near the city of Piacenza. Avitus fled again but was later captured and deposed as emperor. A period of interregnum from October 456 to April 457 followed until he was ultimately succeeded by Majorian. From the moment the King was informed of Avitus' fall, Theodoric's attitude against the Empire changed. Secretly he started to counter Roman authority. In Spain he left soldier colonies, supposedly for the maintenance of peace, but in reality it was an occupation force.

Opponent of the Roman Empire

Expansion of the Visigothic sphere of influence under Theoderic II (457–461)

Battle of Arles

The new emperor Majorian saw the rising power of the Goths in Spain and Gaul as a major threat. With the Roman army's train and accompanied by the generals Aegidius and Nepotianus, Majorian marched against the Gothic king and his army, who were stationed at Arelate (Arles), at the mouth of the Rhodanus (Rhône) River. The resulting battle was a crushing Gothic defeat. The Goths fled, and King Theodoric narrowly escaped death. In the ensuing peace negotiations, the Goths abandoned their settlements in Spain and returned to Aquitaine, their original territory.

Subsequently, in 460, Majorian launched a campaign against the Vandals, in which the Aquitanian Goths were forced to participate. In spite of that the Romans suffered a heavy lost at the Battle of Cartagena, the Roman fleet became completely distroyed by the Vandals. Emperor Majorian was eliminated, and "magister militum" Ricimer, part Gothic, now attempted to seize all power. In Gaul, General Aegidius, an opponent of Ricimer, refused to accept this situation and rebelled.

Territorial Expansion to the South and North

The fall of Majorian in 461 and the resulting power struggle between Aegidius and Ricimer gave Theodoric the opportunity to realize his plans for greater power within the Western Roman Empire. In Gaul, Aegidius prepared to invade Italy, and Ricimer sought support from the Burgundians and Aquitanian Goths to counter this threat. In exchange for Roman territory, Theodoric provided military support to Ricimer and sent him troops. The Romans ceded the port city of Narbonne and its surroundings. Theodoric thus gained a new sphere of influence in the Mediterranean and hoped for further territorial expansion to the north once Aegidius' Roman army was routed. With the help of the Burgundians and Goths, Aegidius's access to Italy was blocked, but Ricimer's alliance failed to defeat him. Aegidius withdrew north of the Loire River, and the area south of it was taken by Theoderic.<ref>Anderson, p. 25</ref>

War with Aegidius and death

Template:Main Theoderic made plans to extend his power to northern Gaul where Aegidius, cut off from the rest of the Roman Empire, stayed with his army north of the Loire and south of the Somme. In 463, Theoderic ordered his younger brother Frederic to invade Aegidius's territory. Frederick encountered fierce resistance from the Romans, who had strengthened themselves with the help of the Franks. In the Battle of Orleans,<ref>MacGeorge 2002 , pp. 65, 94, and 115</ref> Frederick was killed, and the Goths were defeated, which Kulikowski writes "would have important consequences for the Gothic succession."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Theodoric was himself murdered in 466 by his younger brother Euric, who succeeded him to the throne.<ref>Ian Wood, The Merovingians Kingdoms:450-751, (Longman Group, 1994), 16.</ref>

Described by a Roman

The Gallo-Roman Sidonius Apollinaris wrote a famously vivid and gushing letter to his brother-in-law Agricola describing the king and his court:

This description was later largely copied by the German chronicler Rahewin when describing Frederick Barbarossa in the 12th century.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

External links

• Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 36
• Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistulae, Bk.II.