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Theodoric "the Great", King of Italy

Theodoric "the Great", King of Italy

Male Abt 455 - 526  (~ 71 years)

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  • Name Theodoric "the Great"  
    Suffix King of Italy 
    Nickname the Great 
    Born Abt 455 
    Gender Male 
    Died 30 Aug 526  Italy Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Buried Ravenna, Italy Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Notes 
    • «b»http://www.rpi.edu/~holmes/Hobbies/Genealogy/ps15/ps15_255.htm«/b»


      Theodoric was King of the Ostro-Goths in Italy, and King (511) of the Visigoths in Spain. "The dominion of Theodoric was
      not a barbarian but a civilized power. ...He was at once national king of the Goths, and successor, though without any imperial
      titles, of the Roman emperors of the West. The two nations, differing in manners, language and religion, lived side by side on
      the soil of Italy; each was ruled according to its own law, by the prince who was, in his two separate characters, the common
      sovereign of both." {-Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1956, 10:550; also see 22:59:} "...the greatest ruler that the Gothic nation
      produced. ...The thirty-three years' reign of Theodoric was a time of unexampled happiness for Italy. Unbroken peace reigned
      within her borders...." Many physical and civic improvements were made. {See "Theodoric the Goth," Thomas Hodgkin,
      1900, reprinted 1973.}


      Events in the life of Theodoric "the Great" Amali

      birth
      ABT 0454.
      event
      0488.
      ·continued the Ostrogoth's westward migrating and invades Italy, killing Odoacer, the first barbarian ruler,||This continued migration was to stay ahead of the Huns who in 446 began conquering Pannonia.
      † death 1 , 2 , 3 .
      30 Aug 0526, in Italy.
      event
      BETWEEN 0475 AND 0488, in Moesia.
      ·moved the Ostrogoths westwards from Pannonia and resettled
      event 1 .
      0461.
      ·was, at age seven, offered to the Romans as a hostage of peace||"From the Goths the Romans received as a hostage of peace Theodoric, the young child of Thiudimer, whom we have mentioned above. He had now attained the age of seven years and was entering upon his eighth. While his father hesitated about giving him up, his uncle Valamir besought him to do it, hoping that peace between the Romans and the Goths might thus be assured. Therefore Theodoric was given as a hostage by the Goths and brought to the city of Constantinople to the Emperor Leo and, being a goodly child, deservedly gained the imperial favor."
      event 1 .
      BETWEEN 0461 AND 0475.
      ·lived a comfortable life in the court of Emperor Zeno of Byzantium||However, he had heard that his people, theOstrogoth's were facing pressures from the Huns and other tribes, and he asked that Zeno give him permission to return to his people and lead them to new territory. "Although the Emperor was grieved that he should go, yet when he heard this he granted what Theodoric asked, for he was unwilling to cause him sorrow. He sent him forth enriched by great gifts and commended to his charge the Senate and the Roman People."
      event 1 .
      0493.
      ·assumed leadership of the Romans"It was in the third year after his entrance into Italy, as we have said, that Theodoric, by advice of the Emperor Zeno, laid aside the garb of a private citizen and the dress of his race and assumed a costume with a royal mantle, as he had now become the ruler over both Goths and Romans."
      event
      0497.
      ·acknowledged as "King of Italy" by the Emperor Anastasius.




      The following passages, from Jordanes, Gaetica [The Origin and Deeds of the Goths], translated by Charles C. Mierow (Princeton Univ. Press, 1915) describes the family relationships of King Theodoric.

      The Origin and Deeds of the Goths

      It was in the third year after his entrance into Italy, as we
      have said, that Theodoric, by advice of the Emperor Zeno, laid aside
      the garb of a private citizen and the dress of his race and assumed a
      costume with a royal mantle, as he had now become the ruler over both
      Goths and Romans. He sent an embassy to Lodoin, king of the Franks, and
      asked for his daughter Audefleda in marriage. (296) Lodoin freely and
      gladly gave her, and also his sons Celdebert and Heldebert and
      Thiudebert, believing that by this alliance a league would be formed
      and that they would be associated with the race of the Goths. But that
      union was of no avail for peace and harmony, for they fought fiercely
      with each other again and again for the lands of the Goths; but never
      did the Goths yield to the Franks while Theodoric lived.


      LVIII
      (297) Now before he had a child from Audefleda, Theodoric had
      children of a concubine, daughters begotten in Moesia, one named
      Thiudigoto and another Ostrogotho. Soon after he came to Italy, he gave
      them in marriage to neighboring kings, one to Alaric, king of the
      Visigoths, and the other to Sigismund, king of the Burgundians. (298)
      Now Alaric begat Amalaric. While his grandfather Theodoric cared for
      and protected him--for he had lost both parents in the years of
      childhood--he found that Eutharic, the son of Veteric, grandchild of
      Beremud and Thorismud, and a descendant of the race of the Amali, was
      living in Spain, a young man strong in wisdom and valor and health of
      body. Theodoric sent for him and gave him his daughter Amalasuentha in
      marriage. (299) And that he might extend his family as much as
      possible, he sent his sister Amalafrida (the mother of Theodahad, who
      was afterwards king) to Africa as wife of Thrasamund, king of the
      Vandals, and her daughter Amalaberga, who was his own niece, he united
      with Herminefred, king of the Thuringians.
      (300) Now he sent his Count Pitza, chosen from among the chief
      men of his kingdom, to hold the city of Sirmium. He got possession of
      it by driving out its king Thrasaric, son of Thraustila, and keeping
      his mother captive. Thence he came with two thousand infantry and five
      hundred horsemen to aid Mundo against Sabinian, Master of the Soldiery
      of Illyricum, who at that time had made ready to fight with Mundo near
      the city named Margoplanum, which lies between the Danube and Margus
      rivers, and destroyed the Army of Illyricum. (301) For this Mundo, who
      traced his descent from the Attilani of old, had put to flight the
      tribe of the Gepidae and was roaming beyond the Danube in waste places
      where no man tilled the soil. He had gathered around him many outlaws
      and ruffians and robbers from all sides and had seized a tower called
      Herta, situated on the bank of the Danube. There he plundered his
      neighbors in wild license and made himself king over his vagabonds. Now
      Pitza came upon him when he was nearly reduced to desperation and was
      already thinking of surrender. So he rescued him from the hands of
      Sabinian and made him a grateful subject of his king Theodoric.
      (302) Theodoric won an equally great victory over the Franks
      through his Count Ibba in Gaul, when more than thirty thousand Franks
      were slain in battle. Moreover, after the death of his son-in-law
      Alaric, Theodoric appointed Thiudis, his armor-bearer, guardian of his
      grandson Amalaric in Spain. But Amalaric was ensnared by the plots of
      the Franks in early youth and lost at once his kingdom and his life.
      Then his guardian Thiudis, advancing from the same kingdom, assailed
      the Franks and delivered the Spaniards from their disgraceful
      treachery. So long as he lived he kept the Visigoths united. (303)
      After him Thiudigisclus obtained the kingdom and, ruling but a short
      time, met his death at the hands of his own followers. He was succeeded
      by Agil, who holds the kingdom to the present day. Athanagild has
      rebelled against him and is even now provoking the might of the Roman
      Empire. So Liberius the Patrician is on the way with an army to oppose
      him. Now there was not a tribe in the west that did not serve Theodoric
      while he lived, either in friendship or by conquest.


      LIX
      (304) When he had reached old age and knew that he should soon
      depart this life, he called together the Gothic counts and chieftains
      of his race and appointed Athalaric as king. He was a boy scarce ten
      years old, the son of his daughter Amalasuentha, and he had lost his
      father Eutharic. As though uttering his last will and testament
      Theodoric adjured and commanded them to honor their king, to love the
      Senate and Roman People and to make sure of the peace and good will of
      the Emperor of the East, as next after God.
      (305) They kept this command fully so long as Athalaric their
      king and his mother lived, and ruled in peace for almost eight years.
      But as the Franks put no confidence in the rule of a child and
      furthermore held him in contempt, and were also plotting war, he gave
      back to them those parts of Gaul which his father and grandfather had
      seized. He possessed all the rest in peace and quiet. Therefore when
      Athalaric was approaching the age of manhood, he entrusted to the
      Emperor of the East both his own youth and his mother's widowhood. But
      in a short time the ill-fated boy was carried off by an untimely death
      and departed from earthly affairs. (306) His mother feared she might be
      despised by the Goths on account of the weakness of her sex. So after
      much thought she decided, for the sake of relationship, to summon her
      cousin Theodahad from Tuscany, where he led a retired life at home, and
      thus she established him on the throne. But he was unmindful of their
      kinship and, after a little time, had her taken from the palace at
      Ravenna to an island of the Bulsinian lake where he kept her in exile.
      After spending a very few days there in sorrow, she was strangled in
      the bath by his hirelings.


      LX
      (307) When Justinian, the Emperor of the East, heard this, he
      was aroused as if he had suffered personal injury in the death of his
      wards. Now at that time he had won a triumph over the Vandals in
      Africa, through his most faithful Patrician Belisarius. Without delay
      he sent his army under this leader against the Goths at the very time
      when his arms were yet dripping with the blood of the Vandals. (308)
      This sagacious general believed he could not overcome the Gothic
      nation, unless he should first seize Sicily, their nursing-mother.
      Accordingly he did so. As soon as he entered Trinacria, the Goths, who
      were besieging the town of Syracuse, found that they were not
      succeeding and surrendered of their own accord to Belisarius, with
      their leader Sinderith. When the Roman general reached Sicily,
      Theodahad sought out Evermud, his son-in-law, and sent him with an army
      to guard the strait which lies between Campania and Sicily and sweeps
      from a bend of the Tyrrhenian Sea into the vast tide of the Adriatic.
      (309) When Evermud arrived, he pitched his camp by the town of Rhegium.
      He soon saw that his side was the weaker. Coming over with a few close
      and faithful followers to the side of the victor and willingly casting
      himself at the feet of Belisarius, he decided to serve the rulers of
      the Roman Empire. When the army of the Goths perceived this, they
      distrusted Theodahad and clamored for his expulsion from the kingdom
      and for the appointment as king of their leader Vitiges, who had been
      his armor bearer. (310) This was done; and presently Vitiges was raised
      to the office of king on the Barbarian Plains. He entered Rome and sent
      on to Ravenna the men most faithful to him to demand the death of
      Theodahad. They came and executed his command. After King Theodahad was
      slain, a messenger came from the king--for he was already king in the
      Barbarian Plains--to proclaim Vitiges to the people.
    Person ID I59854  Glenn Cook Family
    Last Modified 28 Dec 2009 

    Father Theodemir, king of the Ostrogoths,   d. 474 
    Mother Ereleuva,   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Family ID F551617832  Group Sheet

    Family 1 concubines,   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Children 
     1. Arevagni of the Visigoths,   d. Yes, date unknown
     2. Theodegotho,   b. Abt 473,   d. Yes, date unknown
    Last Modified 28 Dec 2009 
    Family ID F551617544  Group Sheet

    Family 2 Theodora,   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Last Modified 28 Dec 2009 
    Family ID F551616506  Group Sheet

  • Photos
    Theodoric the Great
    Theodoric the Great
    Justinian I; mosaic in Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna. This may be a modified portrait of Theodoric.