Goths

(The,) (got hz.) [L. Goths, Gotones.] (Hist.) An anc. Germanic people, whose origin is lost in remote obscurity, though it is believed that they first inhabited parts of Scand in a via. When first recorded in history, they dwelt on the shores of the Baltic, around the Frische Haff. Tacitus makes mention of them, and we hear them next spoken of in the 3d cent., when they appear to have formed a powerful nation, peopling the countries of the Euxine. In progre of years they advanced into Mesia (250-1) and defeated the Romans under Decius; next made great conquests in Asia Minor; and, later, ravaged the Grecian coasts and cities. In 270 they sustained serious defeats at the hands of the emperor Claudius; and, two years later, Claudius compelled them to cede Dacia, and to conclude a peace which lasted for half a century. From 367-9 they again waged war with the Romans; and shortly afterward became divided into the Ostrogoths, or G. of the eastern. countries W. of the Don; and Visigoths, who occupied the countries W. of the Dnieper to the Danube. In 378, the Visigoths, who had sought Roman protection against the invading Huns, were driven into rebellion against their guardians, and utterly defeated the Roman army under Valens at Adrianople, 378. They then settled in Thrace and Dacia, and became incorporated with the E. Empire. After the downfall of the Huns, the Ostrogoths colonized Pannonia and Sclavonia, 453. The Visigoths, under their king Alaric, invaded and ravaged Greece, and in the 5th cent., Italy, sacked Rome (409-10), and accelerated the downfall of the W. Empire. They next carried their arms into S. Gaul, and the N. of Iberia, or Spain, and toward the close of the cent, their cap., Toulouse,had become the metropolis of a prosperous kingdom, embracing the greater part of both countries N. and S. of the Pyrenees. In 476 the W. Roman empire fell through the Gothic invasion of Odoacer; and, 489, the Ostrogoths, under Theodoric, formed a new kingdom in Italy. They then became va als to the emperor Just in i an. After various vici itudes, the Gothic Italian kingdom ceased to exist in554, after its people had attained to a fair amount of civilization. [s. 416]