Old Germanic heroes

[icelander93]

Arminius



Arminius, also known as Armin or Hermann (b. 18 BC/17 BC in Magna Germania; d. AD 21 in Germania) was a chieftain of the Cherusci who defeated a Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. His influence held an allied coalition of Germanic tribes together in opposition to the Romans but after decisive defeats by the Roman general Germanicus, nephew of the Emperor Tiberius, his influence waned and he was assassinated on the orders of rival Germanic chiefs.[1][2] Although Arminius was ultimately unsuccessful in forging unity among the Germanic tribes, the loss of the Roman legions in the Teutoburg forest had a far-reaching effect on the subsequent history of both the ancient Germanic tribes and on the Roman Empire. Germanicus' campaign was the last major Roman military effort east of the Rhine.

orn in 18 or 17 BC as son of the Cheruscan war chief Segimerus, Arminius was trained as a Roman military commander and attained Roman citizenship and the status of equestrian (petty noble) before returning to Germania and driving the Romans out.

"Arminius" is probably a Latinized variant of the Germanic name Irmin meaning "great" (cf. Herminones). During the Reformation but especially during 19th century German nationalism, Arminius was used as a symbol of the "German" people and their fight against Rome.[3] It is during this period that the name "Hermann" (meaning "army man" or "warrior") came into use as the German equivalent of Arminius; the religious reformer Martin Luther is thought to have been the first to equate the two names.[4]
[edit] Battle at the Teutoburg Forest
Main article: Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

Around the year AD 4, Arminius assumed command of a Cheruscan detachment of Roman auxiliary forces, probably fighting in the Pannonian wars on the Balkan peninsula. He returned to northern Germania in 7/AD 8, where the Roman Empire had established secure control of the territories just east of the Rhine, along the Lippe and Main rivers, and now sought to extend its hegemony eastward towards the Weser and Elbe rivers, under Publius Quinctilius Varus, a high-ranking administrative official appointed by Augustus as governor. Arminius soon began plotting to unite various Germanic tribes and to thwart Roman efforts to incorporate their territories into the empire.

In the fall of AD 9, in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, Arminius — then 25 years old — and his alliance of Germanic tribes (Cherusci, Marsi, Chatti, Bructeri, Chauci and Sicambri) ambushed and annihilated a Roman army (comprising the 17th, 18th and 19th legions as well as three cavalry detachments and six cohorts of auxiliaries) totalling around 20,000 men commanded by Varus. Recent archaeological finds say that the long-debated precise location of the three-day battle is almost certainly near Kalkriese Hill, about 20 km north of Osnabrück. When defeat was certain, Varus committed suicide by falling upon his sword.
[edit] Roman retaliation

After his victory, Arminius tried for several years to bring about a more permanent union of the northern Germanic tribes so as to resist the inevitable Imperial counter-offensive. After the Teutoburg Forest disaster, other Germanic tribes did become more openly hostile to Rome, although the most powerful Germanic ruler, King Maroboduus of the Marcomanni, in Bohemia, remained neutral even after Arminius sent him the head of Varus. Tiberius, successor of Augustus, established that Germania, inhospitable and poor land, was not currently relevant to the Roman cause. It would require a commitment too burdensome for the imperial finances and for excessive expenditure of military force for a new achievement. Another problem was that Augustus, in 30 years of his reign, had annexed many territories still at the beginning of the process of Romanization and multiracial integration. Tiberius was therefore inclined to use diplomacy in the Germanic territories, to manipulate the tribes into fighting each other, but an immediate action was necessary to terrorize the Germanic enemy and to discourage new and possible future invasions of the Roman soil by the Germanic tribes. Tiberius was able to employ an army of eight legions during these campaigns. These were the legions used:

1. On the "lower" front, the legions XXI Rapax, V Alaudae, I Germanica, and XX Valeria Victrix;
2. On the "superior" front, the legions II Augusta, XIII Gemina, XVI Gallica, and XIV Gemina

The Romans penetrated into the Cesia forest coming to the village of the Marsi, Germanicus knew that this was a night of partying and celebrations for the Germans. Germanicus divided legions into 4 wedges, to increase the radius of destruction within 50 miles. It was a massacre. Neither sex nor age aroused compassion. Even the temple Tanfana, most famous for those people, was set on fire. That horrible massacre did, however, raise the Bructeri, and the Tubanti Usipetes, lurking in the wooded gorges of their territories. The enemy did not move until the Roman legions were not stretched enough, and launched their main attack on the rear. Germanicus himself, urged the XX Legion to erase the memory of the Teutoburg Forest. The courage of legionnaires then heated up, defeating the enemy.

Roman Armies quickly penetrated into the territory of the Chatti, where he made horrendous massacres of those who by age or sex did not have the strength to resist, while younger people fled and threw into the river Adrano (the current river Eder), above which the Romans were building a bridge to cross.

Roman armies passed the other side came to the capital of the Chatti, Mattium (near the present Niedenstein) who burnt and looted the city.

Arminius after he was informed that his wife, Thusnelda, and son had been delivered to the Romans, moved to seek more alliances with all possible neighboring Germanic peoples.

Having achieved these successes, Germanicus wanted to see the places where three legions were massacred.

Germanicus, once he had buried the remains of those mangled bodies, decided to pursue Arminius, who escaped in the forests. Germanicus, believing that Arminius was retreating, commanded the cavalry to pursuit him. But Arminius, with a clever move, prepared an ambush, but Germanicus answered by advancing his legions. At the end of the battle, there were no winners or losers.

Germanicus divided Roman army into three columns: one of these columns, led by Caecina, went to the Pontes Longi. Arminius preceded the Roman army, placing its armies for a new ambush, Caecina encamped armies near Pontes Longi. The Germans decided to attack, hoping to break somewhere in the Roman battle line, the Germans got an initial success but came the night, so legions escaped a possible defeat or worse to a new disaster. Caecina, that was not a naive general as Varus, reorganized the army and decided to prepare a counter-attack. The night was difficult for the Romans because the barbarians sure to have led the legions into a new disaster. The following morning the Germans decided to attack the Roman camp, but legions, with a bypass, rejected the Germans. Arminius was forced to flee the scene of the battle, while much of his army was massacred by the Romans. Caecina was able to beat Arminius.

The Germans occupied the plain in front of a dense forest. Arminius settled on the surrounding hills. The Romans adopted a battle line to avoid being outflanked. The Roman victory was great, with relatively few Roman casualties. The battle continued without interruption from 11:00 in the morning until late at night; dead Germans covered the plain for at least ten thousand paces. Among the remains were found chains that would have been used to bind Roman prisoners. Arminius had been sure of defeating the Romans. The soldiers of Germanicus erected a mound, on which lay the weapons of the defeated, like a trophy, and an inscription with the names of the defeated peoples.

The Germans were already fleeing beyond the Weser, but decided to fight again, despite the massacre, when they saw the Romans were raising a mound with their weapons. Arminius enlisted everyone who could fight. The battle was terrible, but the Romans prevailed once again. Germanicus, after the second battle, raised a second trophy with the inscription:

The army of Tiberius Caesar, won the peoples between the Elbe and the Rhine, consecrated this monument to Mars, Jupiter and Augustus
—Tacitus, Annales (ii.22)

Although Germanicus ended the year by launching some punitive operations, and also managed to recover 2 of the 3 legionary eagles lost in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, Tiberius denied his request to launch a campaign the following year, as he wished that the frontier with Germania be drawn at the Rhine river. Instead, he accorded Germanicus the honor of a triumph.The third eagle was recovered later under Emperor Claudius.[5]
[edit] Inter-tribal conflicts and death

Thereafter, war broke out between Arminius and Marbod, king of the Marcomanni (see above). The war ended with Marbod's retreat, but Arminius did not succeed in breaking into the "natural fortification" that Bohemia is. Consequently, the war ended in stalemate. Arminius also faced serious difficulties at home from the family of his wife and other pro-Roman leaders.

In AD 19, his formidable opponent Germanicus suddenly died in Antioch, under circumstances which led many to believe he had been murdered by his opponents; Arminius suffered this fate two years later, at the hands of opponents within his own tribe, who felt he was becoming too powerful. Tiberius had purportedly refused an earlier offer from a Chatti nobleman to poison Arminius, declaring that Rome did not employ such dishonorable methods.
[edit] Legacy
[edit] Rome

In the accounts of his Roman enemies he is highly respected for his military leadership skills and as a defender of the liberty of his people. Based on these records, the story of Arminius was revived in the sixteenth century with the recovery of the histories of Tacitus by German historians, who wrote in his Annales II, 88:

Arminius, without doubt Germania's liberator, who challenged the Roman people not in its beginnings like other kings and leaders, but in the peak of its empire; in battles with changing success, undefeated in the war.

Arminius was not the sole reason for Rome's change of policy towards Germania.

Politics also played a factor; the Emperors could rarely entrust a large army to a potential rival, although Augustus had enough family members to wage his wars;

Another problem was that Augustus , in 30 years of his reign, had annexed many territories still at the beginning of the process of Romanization and multiracial integration.

Tiberius ,successor of Augustus, established that Germania was far less developed land ,possessed few villages, and had little food surplus, and was not currently relevant to the Roman cause.It would require a commitment too burdensome for the imperial finances and for excessive expenditure of military force for a new achievement.

More recently, scholars have pointed out reasons why the Rhine was a much more practical boundary for the Roman Empire than any river in Germania. Logistically, armies on the Rhine could be supplied from the Mediterranean via the Rhône and Mosel, with a brief stretch of portage. Armies on the Elbe, on the other hand, would have to have been supplied either by extensive overland routes or ships travelling the hazardous Atlantic seas. Economically, the Rhine was already supporting towns and sizeable villages at the time of the Gallic conquest. Thus the Rhine was both significantly more accessible from Rome and better equipped to supply sizeable garrisons than the regions beyond.

Rome would try to control Germania by appointing client kings, which was cheaper than military campaigns .

Rome, obtaining the final defeat and death of Arminius, chose to no longer rule directly in Germania east of the Rhine and north of the Danube; Rome preferred to exert indirect influence through client kings, so Italicus, nephew of Arminius, was appointed king of the Cherusci; Vangio and Sido became vassal princes of the powerful Suebi, etc.[6] [1] [2] [3]
[edit] Old Norse sagas

In the early 19th century, attempts were made to show that the story of Arminius and his victory may have lived on in the Old Norse sagas,[7] in the form of the dragon slayer Sigurd of the Völsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied. An Icelandic account[8][9] states that Sigurd "slew the dragon" in the Gnitaheidr—today the suburb Knetterheide of the city of Bad Salzuflen, located at a strategic site on the Werre river which could very well have been the point of departure of Varus's legions on their way to their doom in the Teutoburg Forest. Also one of the foremost Scandinavian scholars of the 19th century, Gudbrandur Vigfusson, states the identity[10] of Arminius with Sigurd. This educated guess was also picked up by Otto Höfler, an Austrian scholar of German studies in the 1950s again. As he was a prominent National Socialist academic in World War II, the claim at all went into a bad light after the war. Although eminently respected as a post-war scientist, his later work [11][12] brought the shot in the neck to the old presumption to the contrary of the intent of the author. So today’s Nibelungenlied experts merely don’t like to see any historical connections in the Epos and prefer pure fiction as an explanation.[13] At all, there should be one possible proof to the theory: If true, there must be an archaeological remain of the Nibelungen treasure, which in this case would be the remains of the Varus campaign certainly on the scale of at least 50 tons of precious metals and weapons.[citation needed]
[edit] Martin Luther

Martin Luther

In Germany, he was rechristened "Hermann" by Martin Luther, and he became an emblem of the revival of German nationalism fueled by the wars of Napoleon in the 19th century.

Another theory regarding Arminius' Latin name is that it is based on the Latin word armenium a vivid blue, ultramarine pigment made from a stone. Thus, Arminius would have been called "blue eyes," and his brother Flavus "blondie" – as references to the stereotype physical features which the Romans assigned to their Germanic neighbors.[14] In that case, the theory goes, "Arminius" does not necessarily have anything to do with the word and god-name "irmin", and his Germanic name could thus have been anything—Siegfried, for instance. Proponents of that theory argue that his father, too, (Segimerus, the modern form of which is "Siegmar") also bore a name with the stem "sieg," or "victorious".

In 1808, Heinrich von Kleist's published but unperformed play Die Hermannsschlacht, unperformable after Napoleon's victory at Wagram, aroused anti-Napoleonic German sentiment and pride among its readers.

The play has been revived repeatedly at moments propitious for raw expressions of National Romanticism and was especially popular during the Third Reich.[15]

In 1839, construction was started on a massive statue of Arminius, known as the Hermannsdenkmal, on a hill near Detmold in the Teutoburg Forest; it was finally completed and dedicated during the early years of the Second German Empire in the wake of the German victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870– 1871. The monument has been a major tourist attraction ever since, as has The Hermann Heights Monument, a similar statue erected in the United States in 1897.

The Hermann Heights monument was erected by the Sons of Hermann, a fraternal organization formed by German Americans in New York City in 1840 and named for Hermann the Cheruscan that during the nineteenth century flourished in American cities with large populations of German origin. Hermann, Missouri, a town on the Missouri River founded in the 1830s and incorporated in 1845, was also named for Arminius.

The German Bundesliga football-club DSC Arminia Bielefeld is named after Arminius

[icelander93]

Ariovistus was a leader of the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC. He and his followers took part in a war in Gaul, assisting the Arverni and Sequani to defeat their rivals the Aedui, after which they settled in large numbers in conquered Gallic territory in the Alsace region. They were defeated, however, in the Battle of Vosges and driven back over the Rhine in 58 BC by Julius Caesar.

History
Sources

Ariovistus and the events he was part of are known from Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico.[1] Caesar, as a participant in the events, is a primary source, although as his Commentaries were in part political propaganda they may be suspected of being self-serving. Later historians, notably Dio Cassius, are suspicious of his motives.[2]
Ariovistus's role and status

Ariovistus was a native of the Suebi. He spoke Gaulish fluently.[3] He had two wives,[4] one of whom he had brought from home. The second, who was the sister of King Vocion of Noricum, he acquired in an arranged political marriage.

Ariovistus is described by Caesar as rex Germanorum.[5] This is often translated as "king of the Germans", but as Latin had no definite article it could equally be translated as "king of Germans", with no implication that he ruled all Germans.[6] Indeed, Germania is known to have been divided into many tribal and political groups, many but not all of which were ruled by kings.[7] It is likely that Ariovistus' authority only extended over those Germans who had settled in Gaul.

He was recognised as a king by the Roman Senate, but how closely the Roman title matched Ariovistus' social status among the Germans remains unknown. Similarly, what the senate meant by rex at that point in the history of the Republic is not clear. The word "king" can have many meanings and did so throughout Rome's several-hundred-year history. Tacitus[8] says that the Germans made a distinction between kings, who were chosen by birth, and military leaders, who were chosen by ability, and that kings did not have absolute power.
Intervention in Gaul

Some time before Caesar's governorship of Gaul (which began in 58 BC), the Gaulish Arverni and Sequani enlisted Ariovistus's aid in their war against the Aedui. The latter were a numerous Celtic people occupying the drainage system of the upper Loire river in France. They were nearly between their neighbors to the northeast, the Sequani, who occupied the Doubs river valley, and the Arverni in the Massif Central.

Caesar does not say what the cause of the conflict was, but the Sequani controlled access to the Rhine river along the valley of the Doubs. To that end they had gradually built up an oppidum or fortified town at Vesontio. Tradesmen headed up the Rhone and its tributary the Saône (the ancient Arar) could not pass the Doubs at Vesontio without coming to terms with the Sequani, nor could anyone pass from the Rhine to the Rhone except on similar terms. The east of the entire great channel is bordered by the Jura mountains and the west by the Massif Central. Vesontio is 75 miles (121 km) from that stretch of the Rhine between Mulhouse and Basel.

The Arar formed part of the border between the Aedui and the Sequani. Strabo, who lived a generation after Caesar in the late republic and early empire, does make a statement concerning the cause of the conflict between the Sequani and Aedui, and it was in fact commercial, at least in Strabo's view.[9] Each tribe claimed the Arar and the transportation tolls from traffic along it, "but now", says Strabo, "everything is to the Romans." The Sequani also habitually supported the Germans in their previous frequent expeditions across the river, which shows that Ariovistus’ subsequent devastation of Sequani lands represented a new policy.

The location of the final battle between the Aedui and their enemies, which Caesar names as the Battle of Magetobriga, remains unknown, but Ariovistus’ 15,000 men turned the tide, and the Aedui became tributary to the Sequani. Cicero writes in 60 BC of a defeat sustained by the Aedui, perhaps in reference to this battle.[10] Ariovistus seized a third of the Aeduan territory, settling 120,000 Germans there. In order to avoid infringing on his allies for the moment, Ariovistus must have passed over the low divide between the Rhine and the Doubs in the vicinity of Belfort and then have approached the Aedui along the Ognon river valley. That move left the Sequani between him and the Jura mountains, not a tolerable situation for either if they were not going to be allies.

Ariovistus made the decision to clear out the Sequani from the strategic Doubs valley and re-populate it with Germanic settlers. He demanded a further third of Celtic land for his allies the Harudes. Caesar makes it clear that Germanic tribes were actually in the land of the Sequani and were terrorizing them. They are said to have controlled all the oppida, but this statement is not entirely true, as Vesontio was not under Germanic control. Presumably, the country to the north of there was under Germanic control.
Confrontation with Caesar

In 59 BC, while Julius Caesar was consul, Ariovistus had been recognised as "king and friend" by the Roman Senate. He had likely already crossed the Rhine at this point. Cicero indicates that the Aedui's defeat took place in or before 60 BC.[10] Pliny the Elder mentions a meeting between Caesar's predecessor as proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, and a king of the Suebi;[11] which took place during Celer's proconsulship in 62 BC.[12] The sequence of events given by Caesar also seems to indicate that, when his governorship began in 58 BC, the Germans had been settled in Gaul for longer than one year.[5] However, without the status of friend, Ariovistus never could have secured Roman tolerance of his Rhine crossing, whenever it was, but would have been treated as hostile.

However, the Aedui were also allies of Rome, and in 58 BC Diviciacus, one of their senior magistrates, complained of Ariovistus's cruelty and pleaded with Caesar to intervene on their behalf. Caesar sent ambassadors to summon Ariovistus to a conference. Ariovistus refused the summons, on the grounds that if Caesar wanted to speak to him, he should come to him; besides, he was not prepared to enter Caesar's territory without his army, which it would be impractical and expensive to gather.

Caesar therefore sent his ambassadors back to Ariovistus with his demands: that he bring no more of his people across the Rhine, and that he and his allies restore the hostages they had taken from the Aedui and undertake not to make war against them. He pointed out that Ariovistus was a friend to Rome and that the Romans had a prior interest, which they certainly would enforce. Ariovistus was welcome to keep the friendship of Rome if he would comply. Otherwise he, Caesar, acting in accordance with the decrees of the senate, could not let the harassment of the Aedui go unpunished.

Ariovistus refused to comply, asserting the right of conquest and the right of the conqueror to exact tribute from the conquered. Ridiculing Rome's ability to protect its friends and boasting of Germanic invincibility, Ariovistus invited Caesar to attack him if he wished.

Caesar presents himself as attempting to act as an honest broker in the conflict, offering reasonable terms to settle the matter; however, as Caesar himself relates, Ariovistus later accused him of intending to lead an army against him right from the outset. Cassius Dio, writing more than two centuries later, agrees, characterising Caesar as attempting to provoke a war to win glory and power, while taking pains not to look like the aggressor.

Whatever the motivation, Ariovistus overestimated the strength of his position. He apparently believed his official relationship to Rome was one of equals, but the Romans accepted no equals and saw the relationship as one between patron and client. He also appears to have believed the Romans would not attack him.

At the same time that Caesar received Ariovistus's message, he heard from his Celtic allies that the Harudes were devastating the country of the Aedui and that 100 units of Suebi under the brothers Nasua and Cimberius were about to cross the Rhine. In response to these provocative acts, Caesar mobilized his troops.
The battle

Caesar was not far away, probably at or near Bibracte, where he had just won a major victory over the Helvetii and other Celtic tribes, and had disposed of the remaining Boii, allowing them to settle in Aeduan land. As only small numbers of Boii were left after the battle, the Aedui were obliging. Caesar must have immediately begun marching up the Saône valley.

Ariovistus, being a skilled general in his own right, identified Vesontio as the key to the strategic Doubs valley and marched for it, but Caesar, probably relying on intelligence from the Gauls, arrived there first and established a main base. He had to combat a panic among his own men, who had heard that the Germans were some sort of superior warriors. Caesar called a meeting and then berated the centurions for making that necessary, instead of just following orders. In one of his noted speeches he recalled them to duty and ended by threatening to march the next morning early with only the 10th legion, about whose valor he said he had no doubts at all. The speech had the intended effect of arousing fanatical loyalty in the 10th and shame and rivalry in the others.

Vesontio is about 75 miles (121 km) from the Rhine. Apparently Ariovistus had learned of the Roman presence there because he stopped marching and waited. Using Diviciacus as a guide, Caesar's troops marched 50 miles (80 km) in 7 days, arriving probably in the vicinity of Belfort. The army was moving only 7 miles per day and was relying on Diviciacus to lead them through open country; thus, it is probably safe to assume there were no Roman roads between Besançon and Belfort at that time. Caesar says that he took a detour to stay in open country, most likely west of the Doubs through the lands of his Celtic allies.

Ariovistus sent ambassadors to Caesar agreeing, because Caesar had come to him, to a conference. Caesar, known for giving his potential enemies every last chance, entertained the idea that Ariovistus was coming to his senses. It was agreed that they should meet on horseback, accompanied only by cavalry. Caesar brought mounted soldiers of the 10th legion, who joked that they had been promoted to knights.

The meeting of the two on a high mound between the camps with the bodyguards a few hundred yards away is surely a rare event in the history of parlays. They both got a chance to present and defend their points of view face to face with no filtering or interference from others. Caesar concentrated on Roman policy. Ariovistus now took the tack of claiming the Aedui had attacked him, rather than vice versa.

Caesar reports that Ariovistus stated that "he was not so uncivilized nor so ignorant of affairs, as not to know that the Aedui in the very last war with the Allobroges had neither rendered assistance to the Romans, nor received any from the Roman people in the struggles which the Aedui had been maintaining with him and with the Sequani."[13]

The word rendered above as "uncivilized" (McDevitte & Bohn's translation) is barbarus. The classical civilizations throughout their long literary periods consistently characterized the peoples of the north and east as barbari, usually rendered in English as "barbarians". The word reflected the mixture of condescension, contempt and fear the Greeks and Romans had for those who did not share their civilisation or values. Only rarely did those barbarians manage to make known their feelings about such use of the concept, as did Ariovistus on that occasion.

Ariovistus described official Roman friendship as a sham, and uttered another uncanny prophecy, that he could gain the real friendship of many leading men at Rome by killing Caesar. Moreover, the senate, he said, had determined that Gaul should be governed by its own laws and therefore ought to be free. By then Caesar had to escape to his bodyguards, as the Germanic cavalry was beginning to hurl missiles.

The next day Ariovistus invited Caesar to another parlay. Making a point to emphasize that he could not trust the Germans, Caesar sent two junior officers, Gaius Valerius Procillus and Marcus Mettius. They found Ariovistus in the process of moving his army up and were put in chains.

Over the next few days Ariovistus moved his camp to within two miles (3 km) of Caesar's, covering the move with cavalry skirmishes. The Germanic tribes had developed a special force consisting of cavalry mixed with equal numbers of light infantry whose only function was to support cavalrymen, individually or in units, who had become enmeshed in combat. Caesar's men stood in battle formation outside the walls of his camp each day, but only skirmishes were offered. Finally, from a distance of two miles (3 km), Ariovistus cut Caesar's supply line, isolating his garrison.

Caesar claims the Germanic side did not attack in force because their wise women had pronounced from their divinations that they should not engage in battle before the new moon. However, it is evident that there was a more mundane reason for Ariovistus declining battle: he had Caesar surrounded. Dio Cassius notes the presence of Germans on the slope of the hill behind the camp, where the Porta Quaestoria, the gate where provisions were brought in, would have been. Ariovistus had Caesar under siege and hoped to starve him out.

Under its best general, the Roman army now demonstrated the classic tactics that had made Rome master of the entire Mediterranean region to such an extent that the Romans were able to call it "our sea". It is unlikely that Ariovistus suspected what was coming. Caesar knew that the Germans outnumbered him and that his best and only defense was an attack. He had to force the Germans to battle or be starved into surrender.

Leaving a light defense in camp Caesar advanced in acies triplex to within 600 yards (550 m) of the German camp. Under guard of the first two lines, the third built another castrum (camp) in which Caesar placed two legions and the auxiliaries, while the other four legions returned to the main camp. It is easy to say in retrospect that Ariovistus should have thrown his entire force against the two lines of battle while the third (the reserve) was preoccupied, or that he should have attacked the four legions while they were divided from the two, but the tides of battle are never predictable, no matter what the odds.

The next day Caesar used the auxiliaries from the forward camp as cover while he brought all six rested and fed legions to a starting line before it in acies triplex formation. Each tribune conspicuously took personal charge of one legion, while the quaestor took the 6th. Caesar wanted the men to see that they were under the eyes of the entire senior command, which would certainly share their fate. They then began an advance on the weakest feature of the Germanic force, its open camp.

Caesar says that the enemy camp was defended by a wagon train, drawn up behind the German forces, which had now either to fight or to run. The usual chorus of wailing women was placed on the wagons. The effect it really had on the Germanic soldiers is unclear. The idea was to place the tribe in a situation where they must either be victorious or be annihilated with their women and children.

The Germans formed by ethnic group before the Romans: Harudes, Marcomanni, Triboci, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusii and Suebi. Apparently they lacked a reserve, while the Romans followed their established practice of two units forward to one back. Caesar opened the battle with a charge against the Germanic left, which seemed the weakest part of the line. The Germanic forces responded by charging with such speed that the Romans were unable to cast pila and the fight entered the sword-play stage immediately. The Roman open line of battle, in which each man was left room to fight, prevailed. The Germans crowded into a phalanx and began to push the Romans backward, even though the latter jumped up on the shields of the enemy to thrust downward.

A cavalry officer, Publius Licinius Crassus, from his advantageous position on his horse, grasped what was happening and on his own initiative ordered the third line of battle (the infantry reserve) into action in support of the Roman right. The Romans were momentarily victorious on their left. This decision was usually reserved to senior officers,[citation needed] but Crassus won high praise for it after the battle and was probably slated for rapid advancement. The enemy line broke and ran for the Rhine, which was 15 miles (24 km) away, women and all, with the Roman cavalry in hot pursuit.

Some, including Ariovistus himself, managed to cross the river in boats or by swimming. The rest were cut down by Roman cavalry, including both of Ariovistus's wives and one of his daughters; another daughter was taken prisoner. Both Caesar's emissaries were rescued unharmed, to relate their harrowing adventures as the Germans debated (in their presence) whether they should be burned then or later. Caesar said that encountering Procillus and freeing him from his chains gave him as much pleasure as the victory, which offers some insight into the emotional climate of Caesar's forces. The officers were a sort of family.
The aftermath

If Caesar named the units in the Germanic army from left to right, the Suebi were on Caesar's right, suffered the brunt of the losses, and were most pursued by Roman cavalry. The Suebi who had planned to cross the Rhine turned back. The Germanic tribes that had joined the Suebi in their foray now bought peace by turning against them and attacking them in retreat. In just a few days the capability had been removed from the Suebi of mounting any offensive over or on the Rhine, which they assiduously avoided for some time to come, taking refuge in the Black Forest as the future Alamanni.

Ariovistus may have escaped but it is unlikely that he retained any position in the citizen-army of the Suebi. When the Usipetes and Tencteri were driven from their lands by the Suebi in 55 BC, he is not mentioned.[14] He was dead by late 54 BC, when his death is said to have been a cause of indignation among the Germans.[15] How he died is unknown. Tacitus notes that to flee from battle, abandoning one's shield, was shameful among the Germans, and those who did so often hung themselves;[16] and that traitors and deserters were hung, and cowards drowned.[17]

Caesar was left a free hand on the left bank of the Rhine. He immediately went on to a campaign against the Belgae, and the disposition of the lands on the Rhine is missing from his account. The question of who held Alsace is historically significant. The place names in it are Celtic, but where were the Celts? They do not appear in Caesar's campaign against Ariovistus. Very likely they had been in part the Boii, who were a strong force on the Danube until they encountered the Marcomanni and Quadi.[18] Fear of the Germans forced them out of the region, only to be mainly destroyed by their opposition to Caesar. Caesar had just settled the last of them among the Aedui when the campaign against Ariovistus began.

In the early empire the same Germanic tribes that had fought for Ariovistus appeared on both sides of the Rhine in Alsace. At that time they were of mixed ethnicity and perhaps no longer spoke Germanic. It seems clear that the Romans had allowed them to take the former lands of the now missing Boii in exchange for serving as a buffer against the Suebi. They did serve long and faithfully. The province of Germania Superior was formed from them. As for the Germans who had already settled among the Celts, it is not clear what happened to them; however, there is no record of any ethnic cleansing. More likely they integrated into the new Romano-Celtic population.
Etymology

The segmentation of the name into Ario- and -vistus is well established. A 19th-century connection between Ehre, "honor", and Ario- turned out to be invalid.[19] There is currently no complete agreement on how the word should be derived. Most etymological dictionaries are silent about it.

Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology under Ariovistus suggests another derivation of the first element that seems to fit runic inscriptions known today. Smith translates Ario- by German Heer, "a host", and -vistus by German Fürst, "a prince".

Alternatively, the name could be interpreted as Herr-Vist (Heer - Vist, "Army/Host" + "Fist"), to wit, "Army Fist".

If Ario- is a Roman representation of a Germanic ancestor of Heer, the ancestor is West Germanic *harja- from Germanic *harjaz appearing in such constructs as *harja-waldaz and *harja-bergaz. The Indo-European root is *koro-. The Indo-European linguist, Julius Pokorny, in Indogermanisches Etymologisches Woerterbuch (which is available on the Internet) simply states on Page 67 under ario-? that the Celto-Germanic personal name, Ariovistus, proves nothing (with regard to "Aryan") because it can come from *Hario-.

The reconstructed *harja is actually attested in Runic inscriptions as Harja and Harijaz standing alone (possibly meaning a man of the Harii) Harijaz Leugaz (Lugii?) and Swaba-harjaz (Suebi?) in combination, as well as being a prefix in Hari-uha "first warrior" and Hariwolafz "battle wolf".[20]

The second element is not among the runes. The closest root to it seems to be Indo-European *weid-, "to see", in the sense of guide, leader, person who sees what to do. The seer also played an important part in leading the armies of the Iliad, the first literature of Europe. Perhaps -vistus is from the same form as English "wise", *weid-to-, which in Old English is also used for a leader or guide (wisa). However, this is all speculation.

Following Smith, Ariovistus translates more directly to "general", raising the possibility that the name is a title granted to the man by the Suebi, his real name subsequently eclipsed by it. Caesar relates[21] that the Suebi maintained a citizen army of 100,000 men picked yearly, and Tacitus[22] that the Suebi were not one tribe. Ariovistus was probably picked from among the generals to lead an army group into Gaul, as seers were generally used for that purpose.
Possible Gaulish origin

An alternative theory is that the name Ariovistus, like that of several other Germanic leaders recorded in Latin sources under patently Celtic names, represents a Gaulish translation of the Suebian king's original name or title. Caesar was known to use Celtic interpreters and sent a Celtic-speaking envoy to Ariovistus.[23] This derivation draws on a comparison to Old Irish aire, airech, "free man, nobleman, leader", from Celtic *arios ("noble" or "in advance, leading"), and the well-established Gaulish element uid-, uidi-, uissu-, "perception, knowledge." Ariovistus thus would mean "Noble Sage" or "He Who Knows in Advance." Ariovistus can be found listed in Celtic etymological dictionaries among similar Gaulish names for Germanic figures, such as Ariomanus ("Good Leader") and Ariogaisus ("Spear Leader").[24]

[icelander93]

Maroboduus (born c. in 30 BC, died in AD 37), was king of the Marcomanni. The name "Maroboduus" can be broken down into two Celtic elements, māro- meaning "great" (cf. Welsh mawr, Irish mór), and bodwos meaning "raven" (cf. Irish badhbh). As there was extensive mingling of Germanic tribes and Celts in this period, a Germanic or mixed Germanic-Celtic tribe led by a man with a Celtic name would be nothing unusual.

Biography

Maroboduus was born into a noble family of the Marcomanni. As a young man he lived in Italy and enjoyed the favour of the Emperor Augustus.[1] The Marcomanni had been beaten utterly by the Romans in 10 BC. About 9 BC Marbod returned to Germany and became ruler of his people. To deal with the threat of Roman expansion into the Rhine-Danube basin he led the Marcomanni to the area later known as Bohemia to be outside the range of the Roman influence. There he took the title of a king and organized a confederation of several neighboring Germanic tribes.[2] He was the first historical ruler of Bohemia.

Its possible that during his younger years, Maroboduus may have served as a prefect of auxiliaries in the Roman Army. This could explain the formidability of the disciplined Marcomanni army during his reign.

Augustus planned in 6 AD to destroy the mighty kingdom of Maroboduus, which he considered to be too dangerous for the Romans. The later Emperor Tiberius commanded twelve legions to attack the Marcomanni. But the outbreak of the Great Illyrian revolt in the back of the Romans forced Tiberius to conclude a treaty with Maroboduus and to recognize him as king.[3]
[edit] War with Arminius and death

Rivalry between him and Arminius, the Cheruscan leader who inflicted the devastating defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest on the Romans under Publius Quinctilius Varus in 9 AD, prevented a concerted attack on Roman territory across the Rhine in the north (by Arminius) and in the Danube basin in the south (by Maroboduus).

However, according to the 1st century AD historian Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Arminius sent Varus' head to Maroboduus. But the king of the Marcomanni sent it to Augustus.[4] In the revenge war of Tiberius and Germanicus against the Cherusci Maroboduus stayed neutral.

In 17 AD, war broke out between Arminius and Maroboduus, and after an indecisive battle Maroboduus withdrew into the area now known as Bohemia in 18 AD.[5] In the next year Catualda, a nobleman, who had been exiled by Maroboduus, returned – perhaps by a subversive Roman intervention – and defeated Maroboduus. The deposed king had to flee to Italy and Tiberius detained him 18 years in Ravenna. There Maroboduus died in 37 AD.[6]

[icelander93]

Alaric I (Alareiks in the original Gothic) was likely born about 370 on an island named Peuce (the Fir) at the mouth of the Danube in present day Romania. King of the Visigoths from 395–410, Alaric was the first Germanic leader to take the city of Rome. Having originally desired to settle his people in the Roman Empire, he finally sacked the city, marking the decline of imperial power in the west.

Alaric, whose name means "king of all" was well-born, his father kindred to the Balti, a tribe competing with the Amali among Gothic fighters. He belonged to the western Gothic branch, the Visigoths. At the time of his birth, the Visigoths dwelt in Bulgaria, having fled beyond the wide estuary marshes of the Danube to its southern shore so as not to be followed by their foes from the steppe, the Huns. There is evidence, however, as suggested by Peter Heather, that the Huns were not near the Danube until closer to the 5th century. What is certain is that the Visigoths' westward migration occurred in response to the threat posed by the Huns. Heather asserts, "Mysterious as the Huns' origins and animating forces may remain, there is no doubt at all that they were behind the strategic revolution that brought the Goths to the Danube in the summer of 376." Moreover, concerning the Huns displacement of the Goths, ancient historian Ammianus Marcellinus concluded, "The seed-bed and origin of all this destruction and of the various calamities inflicted by the wrath of Mars, which raged everywhere with extraordinary fury, I find to be this: the people of the Huns." Ammianus Marcellinus was right - the Huns were behind the military revolution that had brought the Tervingi and Greuthungi to the Danube sometime in the late summer or autumn of 376. It now presented Emperor Valens with a huge dilemma- tens of thousands of displaced Goths had suddenly arrived on his borders requesting asylum.

During the fourth century, the Roman emperors commonly employed foederati: Germanic irregular troops under Roman command, but organized by tribal structures. To spare the provincial populations from excessive taxation and to save money, emperors began to employ units recruited from Germanic tribes. The rich balked at furnishing recruits from their own estates in the numbers needed for the empire's defense and ordinary folk were reluctant to serve. Instead, the rich paid a special tax to fund the hiring of mercenaries. Moreover, the emperors—ever fearful that a brilliantly successful general of Roman extraction might be proclaimed Augustus by his followers—preferred that high military command should be in the hands of one to whom such an accession of dignity was impossible. The largest of these contingents was that of the Goths, who in 382, had been allowed to settle within the imperial boundaries, keeping a large degree of autonomy.

In 394, Alaric served as a leader of foederati under Theodosius I in the campaign which crushed the usurper Eugenius. As the Battle of the Frigidus, which terminated this campaign, was fought at the passes of the Julian Alps, Alaric probably learned the weakness of Italy's natural defences on its northeastern frontier at the head of the Adriatic.

Theodosius died in 395, leaving the empire to be divided between his two sons Arcadius and Honorius, the former taking the eastern and the latter, the western portion of the empire. Arcadius showed little interest in ruling, leaving most of the actual power to his Praetorian Prefect Rufinus. Honorius was still a minor; as his guardian, Theodosius had appointed the magister militum Stilicho. Stilicho also claimed to be the guardian of Arcadius, causing much rivalry between the western and eastern courts.

According to Edward Gibbon in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, during the shifting of offices that took place at the beginning of the new reigns, Alaric apparently hoped he would be promoted from a mere commander to the rank of general in one of the regular armies. He was denied the promotion, however. Among the Visigoths settled in Lower Moesia, the situation was ripe for rebellion. They had suffered disproportionately great losses at Frigidus. And according to rumour, exposing the Visigoths in battle was a convenient way of weakening the Gothic tribes. This, combined with their post-battle rewards, prompted them to raise Alaric "on a shield" and proclaim him king; according to Jordanes (a Gothic historian of varying importance, depending upon who is asked), both the new king and his people decided "rather to seek new kingdoms by their own work, than to slumber in peaceful subjection to the rule of others."

In Greece

Alaric struck first at the eastern empire. He marched to the neighborhood of Constantinople but, finding himself unable to undertake a siege, retraced his steps westward and then marched southward through Thessaly and the unguarded pass of Thermopylae into Greece.

The armies of the eastern empire were occupied with Hunnic incursions in Asia Minor and Syria. Instead, Rufinus attempted to negotiate with Alaric in person, which only aroused suspicions in Constantinople that Rufinius was in league with the Goths. Stilicho now marched east against Alaric. According to Claudian, Stilicho was in a position to destroy the Goths when he was ordered by Arcadius to leave Illyricum. Soon after, Rufinus' own soldiers hacked him to death. Power in Constantinople now passed to the eunuch Chamberlain Eutropius.

Rufinus' death and Stilicho's departure gave free rein to Alaric's movements; he ravaged Attica but spared Athens, which capitulated at once to the conqueror. In 396, he wiped out the last remnants of the Mysteries at Eleusis in Attica, ending a tradition of esoteric religious ceremonies that had lasted since the Bronze Age. Then he penetrated into the Peloponnesus and captured its most famous cities—Corinth, Argos, and Sparta—selling many of their inhabitants into slavery.

Here, however, his victorious career suffered a serious setback. In 397, Stilicho crossed the sea to Greece and succeeded in trapping the Goths in the mountains of Pholoe, on the borders of Elis and Arcadia in the peninsula. From there Alaric escaped with difficulty, and not without some suspicion of connivance by Stilicho, who supposedly had again received orders to depart. Alaric then crossed the Gulf of Corinth and marched with the plunder of Greece northward to Epirus. Here his rampage continued until the eastern government appointed him magister militum per Illyricum, giving him the Roman command he had desired, as well as the authority to resupply his men from the imperial arsenals.
[edit] First invasion of Italy

It was probably in 401 that Alaric made his first invasion of Italy,[1] Supernatural influences were not lacking to urge him to this great enterprise. Some lines of the Roman poet Claudian inform us that he heard a voice proceeding from a sacred grove, "Break off all delays, Alaric. This very year thou shalt force the Alpine barrier of Italy; thou shalt penetrate to the city." But the prophecy was not to be fulfilled at this time. After spreading desolation through North Italy and striking terror into the citizens of Rome, Alaric was met by Stilicho at Pollentia, today in Piedmont. The battle which followed on April 6, 402 (coinciding with Easter), was a victory for Rome, though a costly one. But it effectively halted the Goths' progress.

Stilicho's enemies later reproached him for having gained his victory by taking impious advantage of the great Christian festival. Alaric, too, was a Christian, though an Arian, not Orthodox. He had trusted to the sanctity of Easter for immunity from attack.

Alaric's wife was reportedly taken prisoner after this battle; it is not unreasonable to suppose that he and his troops were hampered by the presence of large numbers of women and children, which gave his invasion of Italy the character of a human migration.

After another defeat before Verona, Alaric left Italy, probably in 403. He had not "penetrated to the city" but his invasion of Italy had produced important results. It caused the imperial residence to be transferred from Milan to Ravenna, and necessitated the withdrawal of Legio XX Valeria Victrix from Britain.
[edit] Second invasion of Italy

Alaric became the friend and ally of his late opponent, Stilicho. By 407, the estrangement between the eastern and western courts had become so bitter that it threatened civil war. Stilicho actually proposed using Alaric's troops to enforce Honorius' claim to the prefecture of Illyricum. The death of Arcadius in May 408 caused milder counsel to prevail in the western court, but Alaric, who had actually entered Epirus, demanded in a somewhat threatening manner that if he were thus suddenly requested to desist from war, he should be paid handsomely for what modern language would call the "expenses of mobilization". The sum which he named was a large one, 4,000 pounds of gold. Under strong pressure from Stilicho, the Roman senate consented to promise its payment.

But three months later, Stilicho and the chief ministers of his party were treacherously slain on Honorius' orders. In the unrest that followed throughout Italy, the wives and children of the foederati were slain. Consequently, these 30,000 men flocked to Alaric's camp, clamouring to be led against their cowardly enemies. He accordingly led them across the Julian Alps and, in September 408, stood before the walls of Rome (now with no capable general like Stilicho as a defender) and began a strict blockade.

No blood was shed this time; Alaric relied on hunger as his most powerful weapon. When the ambassadors of the Senate, entreating for peace, tried to intimidate him with hints of what the despairing citizens might accomplish, he laughed and gave his celebrated answer: "The thicker the hay, the easier mowed!" After much bargaining, the famine-stricken citizens agreed to pay a ransom of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silken tunics, 3,000 hides dyed scarlet, and 3,000 pounds of pepper.[2] Thus ended Alaric's first siege of Rome.
[edit] Second siege of Rome

Throughout his career, Alaric's primary goal was not to undermine the empire, but to secure for himself a regular and recognized position within the empire's borders. His demands were certainly grand— the concession of a block of territory 200 miles long by 150 wide between the Danube and the Gulf of Venice (to be held probably on some terms of nominal dependence on the empire) and the title of commander-in-chief of the imperial army—. Immense as his terms were, the emperor would have been well advised to grant them. Honorius, however, refused to see beyond his own safety, guaranteed by the dikes and marshes of Ravenna. As all attempts to conduct a satisfactory negotiation with this emperor failed, Alaric, after instituting a second siege and blockade of Rome in 409, came to terms with the senate. With their consent, he set up a rival emperor, the prefect of the city, a Greek named Priscus Attalus.

Alaric cashiered his ineffectual puppet emperor after eleven months and again tried to reopen negotiations with Honorius. These negotiations might have succeeded had it not been for the malignant influence of another Goth, Sarus, an Amali, and therefore hereditary enemy of Alaric and his house. Alaric, again outwitted by an enemy's machinations, marched southward and in deadly earnest, began his third siege of Rome. Apparently, defence was impossible; there are hints, not well substantiated, of treachery; surprise is a more likely explanation. However, this may be—for our information at this point of the story is meagre—on August 24 410, Alaric and his Visigoths burst in by the Porta Salaria on the northeast of the city. Rome, for so long victorious against its enemies, was now at the mercy of its foreign conquerors.

The contemporary ecclesiastics recorded with wonder many instances of the Visigoths' clemency: Christian churches saved from ravage; protection granted to vast multitudes both of pagans and Christians who took refuge therein; vessels of gold and silver which were found in a private dwelling, spared because they "belonged to St. Peter"; at least one case in which a beautiful Roman matron appealed, not in vain, to the better feelings of the Gothic soldier who attempted her dishonor. But even these exceptional instances show that Rome was not entirely spared the horrors which usually accompany the storming of a besieged city. Nonetheless, the written sources do not mention damages wrought by fire, save the Gardens of Sallust, which were situated close to the gate by which the Goths had made their entrance; nor is there any reason to attribute any extensive destruction of the buildings of the city to Alaric and his followers. The Basilica Aemilia in the Roman Forum did burn down, which perhaps can be attributed to Alaric: the archaeological evidence was provided by coins dating from 410 found melted in the floor. The pagan emperors' tombs of the Mausoleum of Augustus and Castel Sant'Angelo were rifled and the ashes scattered.

Alaric, having penetrated the city, marched southwards into Calabria. He desired to invade Africa, which, thanks to its grain, had become the key to holding Italy. But a storm battered his ships into pieces and many of his soldiers drowned. Alaric died soon after in Cosenza, probably of fever,[3] at the early age of about forty (assuming again, a birth around 370 AD), and his body was, according to legend, buried under the riverbed of the Busento. The stream was temporarily turned aside from its course while the grave was dug wherein the Gothic chief and some of his most precious spoils were interred. When the work was finished, the river was turned back into its usual channel and the captives by whose hands the labor had been accomplished were put to death that none might learn their secret.

Alaric was succeeded in the command of the Gothic army by his brother-in-law, Ataulf, who married Honorius' sister Galla Placidia three years later .

The chief authorities on the career of Alaric are: the historian Orosius and the poet Claudian, both contemporary, neither disinterested; Zosimus, a pagan historian who lived probably about half a century after Alaric's death; and Jordanes, a Goth who wrote the history of his nation in 551, basing his work on The Trojan War. The legend of Alaric's burial in the Buzita River comes from Jordanes.

[icelander93]

Clovis (c. 466–511) was the first King of the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes under one ruler. He was also the first Catholic King to rule over Gaul (France). He was the son of Childeric I and Basina. In 481, when he was fifteen, he succeeded his father.[1] The Salian Franks were one of two Frankish tribes who were then occupying the area west of the lower Rhine, with their center in an area known as Toxandria, between the Meuse and Scheldt (in what is now the Netherlands and Belgium). Clovis's power base was to the southwest of this, around Tournai and Cambrai along the modern frontier between France and Belgium. Clovis conquered the neighboring Salian Frankish kingdoms and established himself as sole king of the Salian Franks before his death. The small church in which he was baptized is now named Saint-Remi, and a statue of him being baptized by Saint Remigius can be seen there. Clovis and his wife Clotilde are buried in the St. Genevieve church (St. Pierre) in Paris. An important part of Clovis's legacy is that he reduced the power of the Romans in 486 by beating the Roman ruler Syagrius in the battle of Soissons.[2]

Clovis was converted to Catholicism, as opposed to the Arian Christianity common among the Goths who ruled most of Gaul at the time, at the instigation of his wife, Clotilde, a Burgundian Gothic princess who was a Catholic in spite of the Arianism which surrounded her at court. He was baptized in a small church which was on or near the site of the Cathedral of Rheims, where most future French kings would be crowned. This act was of immense importance in the subsequent history of Western and Central Europe in general, for Clovis expanded his dominion over almost all of the old Roman province of Gaul (roughly modern France). He is considered the founder of the Merovingian dynasty which ruled the Franks for the next two centuries.

Name

In primary sources Clovis's name is spelled in a number of variants: the Frankish form Chlodovech was Latinized as Chlodovechus, from which came the Latin name Ludovicus, which evolved into the French form Louis. Clovis ruled the Franks from 481 to 511 AD. The name features prominently in subsequent history: three other Merovingian Kings have been called Clovis, while nine Carolingian rulers and thirteen other French kings and one Holy Roman Emperor have been called Louis. Nearly every European language has developed its own spelling of his name. Louis (French), "Chlodwig" and Ludwig (German), Lodewijk (Dutch), Людовик (Russian), Luis (Spanish), Luigi (Italian), and Lewis (English) are just seven of the over 100 possible variations. Scholars differ about the exact meaning of his (first) name. Most believe that Chlodovech is composed out of the Germanic roots Chlod- and -vech. Chlod- = (modern English) loud, with its oldest connotation praised. -vech = "fighter" (modern English). Compare in modern Dutch luid (hard sound or noise), luiden (verb - the oldest meaning is: to praise aloud) and vechten (verb - to fight). Chlodovech means "praised fighter".[3]

In 486, with the help of Ragnachar, Clovis defeated Syagrius, the last Roman official in northern Gaul, who ruled the area around Soissons in present-day Picardy.[4] This victory at Soissons extended Frankish rule to most of the area north of the Loire. After this, Clovis secured an alliance with the Ostrogoths through the marriage of his sister Audofleda to their king, Theodoric the Great. He followed this victory with another in 491 over a small group of Thuringians east of the Frankish territories. Later, with the help of the other Frankish sub-kings, he narrowly defeated the Alamanni in the Battle of Tolbiac.
[edit] Christian king

Clovis had previously married the Christian Burgundian princess Clotilde (493), and, according to Gregory of Tours, as a result of his victory at Tolbiac (traditionally set in 496), he converted to her Catholic faith. Conversion to Trinitarian Christianity set Clovis apart from the other Germanic kings of his time, such as those of the Visigoths and the Vandals, who had converted from pagan beliefs to Arian Christianity. It also ensured him of the support of the Catholic Gallo-Roman aristocracy in his later campaign against the Visigoths, which drove them from southern Gaul (507).

Clovis was baptised at Rheims on Christmas 496, 498 or 506 by Saint Remigius.[5] The conversion of Clovis to Catholic Christianity, the religion of the majority of his subjects, strengthened the bonds between his Roman subjects, led by their Catholic bishops, and their Germanic conquerors. Nevertheless, Bernard Bachrach has argued that this conversion from his Frankish paganism alienated many of the other Frankish sub-kings and weakened his military position over the next few years. William Daly, in order more directly to assess Clovis's allegedly barbaric and pagan origins,[6] was obliged to ignore the bishop Saint Gregory of Tours and base his account on the scant earlier sources, a sixth-century "vita" of Saint Genevieve and letters to or concerning Clovis from bishops and Theodoric.

In the "interpretatio romana", Gregory of Tours gave the Germanic gods that Clovis abandoned the names of roughly equivalent Roman gods, such as Jupiter and Mercury.[7] Taken literally, such usage would suggest a strong affinity of early Frankish rulers for the prestige of Roman culture, which they may have embraced as allies and federates of the Empire during the previous century.[citation needed]

Though he fought a battle at Dijon in the year 500, Clovis did not successfully subdue the Burgundian kingdom. It appears that he somehow gained the support of the Arvernians in the following years, for they assisted him in his defeat of the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse in the Battle of Vouillé (507) which eliminated Visigothic power in Gaul and confined the Visigoths to Hispania and Septimania; the battle added most of Aquitaine to Clovis's kingdom.[4] He then established Paris as his capital,[4] and established an abbey dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul on the south bank of the Seine. Later it was renamed Sainte-Geneviève Abbey, in honor of the patron saint of Paris.[8]

According to Gregory of Tours, following the Battle of Vouillé, the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I, granted Clovis the title of consul. Since Clovis's name does not appear in the consular lists, it is likely he was granted a suffect consulship.

Gregory of Tours recorded Clovis's systematic campaigns following his victory in Vouillé to eliminate the other Frankish "reguli" or sub-kings. These included Sigobert the Lame and his son Chlodoric the Parricide; Chararic, another king of the Salian Franks; Ragnachar of Cambrai, his brother Ricchar, and their brother Rignomer of Le Mans.

Shortly before his death, Clovis called a synod of Gallic bishops to meet in Orléans to reform the church and create a strong link between the Crown and the Catholic episcopate. This was the First Council of Orléans. Thirty-three bishops assisted and passed thirty-one decrees on the duties and obligations of individuals, the right of sanctuary, and ecclesiastical discipline. These decrees, equally applicable to Franks and Romans, first established equality between conquerors and conquered.

Clovis I is traditionally said to have died on 27 November 511; however, the Liber Pontificalis suggests that he was still alive in 513.[9] After his death, Clovis was put to rest in the Abbey of St Genevieve in Paris. The remains of Clovis were later relocated to Saint Denis Basilica in the mid to late 18th century.

Upon his death his realm was divided among his four sons: Theuderic, Chlodomer, Childebert, and Clotaire. This partitioning created the new political units of the Kingdoms of Rheims, Orléans, Paris and Soissons and inaugurated a period of disunity which was to last, with brief interruptions, until the end (751) of his Merovingian dynasty.

egacy

Clovis is remembered for three main accomplishments:

1. The Unification of the Frankish nation.
2. The Conquest of Gaul.
3. His conversion to Christianity.

By the first act, he assured the influence of his people beyond the borders of Gaul, something no petty regional king could accomplish. By the second act, he laid the foundations of a later nation-state: France. Finally, by the third act, he made himself the ally of the papacy and its protector as well as that of the people, who were mostly Catholics.

Detracting perhaps, from this legacy, is his aforementioned division of the state. This was done not along national or even largely geographical lines, but primarily to assure equal income amongst his sons after his death. While it may or may not have been his intention, this division was the cause of much internal discord in Gaul. This precedent led in the long run to the fall of his dynasty, for it was a pattern repeated in future reigns.[10] Clovis did bequeath to his heirs the support of both people and church such that, when the magnates were ready to do away with the royal house, the sanction of the Pope was sought first.

[icelander93]

"Odoacer (or Odovacar), the first barbarian ruler of Italy on the downfall of the Western empire, was born in the district bordering on the middle Danube about the year 434. In this district the once rich and fertile provinces of Noricum and Pannonia were being torn piecemeal from the Roman empire by a crowd of German tribes, among whom we discern four, who seem to have hovered over the Danube from Passau to Pest, namely, the Rugii, Scyrri, Turcilingi and Heruli. With all of these Odoacer was connected by his subsequent career, and all seem, more or less, to have claimed him as belonging to them by birth; the evidence slightly preponderates in favor of his descent from the Scyrri.

His father was Aedico or Idico, a name which suggests Edeco the Hun, who was suborned by the Byzantine court to plot the assassination of his master Attila. There are, however, some strong arguments against this identification. A certain Edica, chief of the Scyrri, of whom Jordanes speaks as defeated by the Ostrogoths, may more probably have been the father of Odoacer, though even in this theory there are some difficulties, chiefly connected with the low estate in which he appears before us in the next scene of his life, when as a tall young recruit for the Roman armies, dressed in a sordid vesture of skins, on his way to Italy, he enters the cell of Severinus, a noted hermit-saint of Noricum, to ask his blessing. The saint had an inward premonition of his future greatness, and in blessing him said, "Fare onward into Italy. Thou who art now clothed in vile raiment wilt soon give precious gifts unto many."

Odoacer was probably about thirty years of age when he thus left his country and entered the imperial service. By the year 472 he had risen to some eminence, since it is expressly recorded that he sided with the patrician Ricimer in his quarrel with the emperor Anthemius. In the year 475, by one of the endless revolutions which marked the close of the Western empire, the emperor Nepos was driven into exile, and the successful rebel Orestes was enabled to array in the purple his son, a handsome boy of fourteen or fifteen, who was named Romulus after his grandfather, and nicknamed Augustulus, from his inability to play the part of the great Augustus. Before this puppet emperor had been a year on the throne the barbarian mercenaries, who were chiefly drawn from the Danubian tribes aforementioned, rose in mutiny, demanding to be made proprietors of one-third of the soil of Italy. To this request Orestes returned a peremptory negative. Odoacer now offered his fellow soldiers to obtain for them all that they desired if they would seat him on the throne. On the 23rd of August 476 he was proclaimed king; five days later Orestes was made prisoner at Placentia and beheaded; and on the 4th of September his brother Paulus was defeated and slain near Ravenna. Rome at once accepted the new ruler. Augustulus was compelled to descend from the throne, but his life was spared.

Odoacer was forty-two years of age when he thus became chief ruler of Italy, and he reigned thirteen years with undisputed sway. Our information as to this period is very slender, but we can perceive that the administration was conducted as much as possible on the lines of the old imperial government. The settlement of the barbarian soldiers on the lands of Italy probably affected the great landowners rather than the laboring class. To the herd of coloni and servi, by whom in their various degrees the land was actually cultivated, it probably made little difference, except as a matter of sentiment, whether the master whom they served called himself Roman or Rugian. We have one most interesting example, though in a small way, of such a transfer of land with its appurtenant slaves and cattle, in the donation made by Odoacer himself to his faithful follower Pierius. Few things bring more vividly before the reader the continuity of legal and social life in the midst of the tremendous ethnical changes of the 5th century than the perusal of such a record.

The same fact, from a slightly different point of view, is illustrated by the curious history (recorded by Malchus) of the embassies to Constantinople. The dethroned emperor Nepos sent ambassadors (in 477 or 478) to Zeno, emperor of the East, begging his aid in the reconquest of Italy. These ambassadors met a deputation from the Roman senate, sent nominally by the command of Augustulus, really no doubt by that of Odoacer, the purport of whose commission was that they did not need a separate emperor. One was sufficient to defend the borders of either realm. The senate had chosen Odoacer, whose knowledge of military affairs and whose statesmanship admirably fitted him for preserving order in that part of the world, and they therefore prayed Zeno to confer upon him the dignity of patrician, and entrust the "diocese" of Italy to his care. Zeno returned a harsh answer to the senate, requiring them to return to their allegiance to Nepos. In fact, however, he did nothing for the fallen emperor, but accepted the new order of things, and even addressed Odoacer as patrician. On the other hand, the latter sent the ornaments of empire, the diadem and purple robe, to Constantinople as an acknowledgment of the fact that he did not claim supreme power. Our information as to the actual title assumed by the new ruler is somewhat confused. He does not appear to have called himself king of Italy. His kingship seems to have marked only his relation to his Teutonic followers, among whom he was "king of the Turcilingi", "king of the Heruli", and so forth, according to the nationality with which he was dealing. By the Roman inhabitants of Italy he was addressed as "dominus noster", but his right to exercise power would in their eyes rest, in theory, on his recognition as patricius by the Byzantine Augustus. At the same time he marked his own high pretensions by assuming the prefix Flavius, a reminiscence of the early emperors, to which the barbarian rulers of realms formed out of the Roman state seem to have been peculiarly partial. His internal administration was probably, upon the whole, wise and moderate, though we hear some complaints of financial oppression, and he may be looked upon, as a not altogether unworthy predecessor of Theodoric.

In the history of the papacy Odoacer figures af the author of a decree promulgated at the election of Felix II in 483, forbidding the pope to alienate any of the lands or ornaments of the Roman Church, and threatening any pope who should infringe this edict with anathema. This decree was loudly condemned in a synod held by Pope Symmachus (502) as an unwarrantable interference of the civil power with the concerns of the church.

The chief events in the foreign policy of Odoacer were his Dalmatian and Rugian wars. In the year 480 the ex-emperor Nepos, who ruled Dalmatia, was traitorously assassinated in Diocletian's palace at Spalato by the counts Viator and Ovida. In the following year Odoacer invaded Dalmatia, slew the murderer Ovida, and reannexed Dalmatia to the Western state. In 487 he appeared as an invader in his own native Danubian lands. War broke out between him and Feletheus, king of the Rugians. Odoacer entered the Rugian territory, defeated Feletheus, and carried him and "his noxious wife" Gisa prisoners to Ravenna. In the following year Frederick, son of the captive king, endeavored to raise again the fallen fortunes of his house, but was defeated by Onulf, brother of Odoacer, and, being forced to flee, took refuge at the court of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, at Sistova on the lower Danube.

This Rugian war was probably an indirect cause of the fail of Odoacer. His increasing power rendered him too formidable to the Byzantine court, with whom his relations had for some time been growing less friendly. At the same time, Zeno was embarrassed by the formidable neighborhood of Theodoric and his Ostrogothic warriors, who were almost equally burdensome as enemies or as allies. In these circumstances arose the plan of Theodoric's invasion of Italy, a plan by whom originated it would be difficult to say. Whether the land when conquered was to be held by the Ostrogoth in full sovereignty, or administered by him as lieutenant of Zeno, is a point upon which our information is ambiguous, and which was perhaps intentionally left vague by the two contracting parties, whose chief anxiety was not to see one another's faces again. The details of the Ostrogothic invasion of Italy belong properly to the life of Theodoric. It is sufficient to state here that he entered Italy in August 489, defeated Odoacer at the Isontius (Isonzo) on the 28th of August, and at Verona on the 30th of September. Odoacer then shut himself up in Ravenna, and there maintained himself for four years, with one brief gleam of success, during which he emerged from his hiding place and fought the battle of the Addua (11th August 490), in which he was again defeated. A sally from Ravenna (10th July 491) was again the occasion of a murderous defeat. At length, the famine in Ravenna having become almost intolerable, and the Goths despairing of ever taking the city by assault, negotiations were opened for a compromise (25th February 493). John, archbishop of Ravena, acted as mediator. It was stipulated that Ravenna should be surrendered, that Odoacer's life should be spared, and that he and Thedoric should be recognized as joint rulers of the Roman state. The arrangement was evidently a precarious one, and was soon terminated by the treachery of Theodoric. He invited his rival to a banquet in the palace of the Lauretum on the 15th of March, and there slew him with his own hand. "Where is God?" cried Odoacer when he perceived the ambush into which he had fallen. "Thus didst thou deal with my kinsmen", shouted Theodoric, and clove his rival with the broadsword from shoulder to flank. Onulf, the brother of the murdered king, was shot down while attempting to escape through the palace garden, and Thelan, his son, was not long after put to death by order of the conqueror. Thus perished the whole race of Odoacer."