LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Visigoths
built 262 days ago
By 401 Alaric and the Visigoths are in Italy. After several campaigns (and a fruitless bribe in 407 of some 2000 kilograms of gold) the Visigoths reach Rome. Their siege is twice lifted by negotation, but in 410 they enter the city. They are the first enemy intruders for exactly eight centuries - since the arrival of Celts in Rome in 390 BC.
Source:
The Visigoths were an East Germanic tribe closely related to the Ostrogoths. Together, they are considered the largest Germanic barbaric group in Early Europe. Little is known about the Visigoths until the year 268 A.D., when they headed a deadly invasion over the Roman Empire. They caused devastation by taking over several Italian provinces, before being defeated near the Slovenian border. The Visigoths then retreated to Dacia, a Roman province they had conquered several months before, where they established a small empire that remained untouched until the year 376.
Source:
Under Ataulf the Visigoths were persuaded to move westwards again and joined the Roman army against the Vandals and Alans in Hispania (Spain and Portugal today) in AD 416-418, and 422. As federates they were then granted lands in 418 in south-western France, where they established a kingdom with its capital at Toulouse, which was to reach to the rivers Loire and Rhône. After around 460 they began to extend their control into Spain once more and made piecemeal settlements there. King Euric (466-484) declared himself independent of Rome and became the most powerful ruler in the west. But the Visigoths were defeated by the Franks at Vouillé in 507, and largely expelled from Gaul, except for Septimania on France's western Mediterranean coast around Narbonne.
Source:
After the Visigoths besieged and departed from Rome, a storm frustrated their plans to cross from southern Italy into North Africa. The Visigoth leader, Alaric, died, and instead of trying to cross the Mediterranean the Visigoths journeyed north into southwestern Gaul, spreading what to some appeared to be God's punishment of Rome. From his palace in Ravenna, the Roman emperor in the west, Honorius, felt obliged to make peace with the Visigoths. His sister, Placidia, married their new leader, Atauf. And, in 418, the Visigoths were granted a legal domain in southwestern Gaul. The Visigoths made Toulouse their capital, and they established themselves as protectors of those who were there when they arrived.
Source:
The Visigoths were defeated by the Franks at Vouillé in AD 507, and largely expelled from Gaul. In Spain and Portugal... they had meanwhile seized control of much of the peninsula, except for the north-west, already occupied by the Suevi, and the Basque region. The Visigoths' cemeteries indicate the main area of settlement between the upper Tagus and the Ebro rivers. They formed the new aristocracy of Spain, taking over the positions of high office, although it is estimated that they comprised no more than five percent of the total population. Senators of Roman origin still retained much wealth and power in the south. Intermarriage with the native Hispano-Romans was banned, but the prohibition is unlikely to have been very effective.
Source:
The Visigoths were awed by Roman civilization. They adopted local methods of agriculture and the Arian branch of Christianity. They began to learn Latin, and they administered their territory as the Romans had, using local Roman bureaucrats. Those who had been there before the Visigoths (the Gallo-Romans) began adopting Germanic ways. They wanted to belong. Some of them began wearing Visigoth trousers instead of the Roman toga. Some wore the jewelry worn by Visigoths, and they imitated the rougher manners of the Visigoths.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Visigoths