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gaul: visigothic kingdom, 416,507 113
a means of controlling the Burgundians and the bagaudae, enabled the
imperial government to take the offensive. In 438 Aetius defeated
Theoderic in battle, and in 439 his deputy Litorius was able to besiege
Toulouse. Here, though, the latter was defeated, captured and subsequently
executed. A new peace treaty was made later in the same year.
The abrupt change in imperial policy brought about by the Hun invasion
of Gaul in 451 led to a new military alliance with the Visigoths, resulting in
the defeat of Attila at the battle of the Catalaunian Plains. Theoderic I was
killed in the battle, and his eldest son Thorismund (451–3) was persuaded
by Aetius not to pursue the Huns. In 452/3 he renewed his father’s attempts
to capture Arles. His reign proved brief in that he was soon murdered, for
reasons that are not known, by his brothers Theoderic II (453–66) and
Frederic. The end of Aetius’ regime in 454 and the Vandal sack of Rome
in 455 provided new opportunities for the Visigothic kingdom to enlarge
itself. The threat from Vandal Africa now replaced that of the Visigoths as
the prime concern of the Roman senate. In consequence Avitus, a Gallic
aristocrat and former tutor of the new Visigothic king, was chosen as
emperor. Theoderic II was ordered by Avitus to invade Spain to counter
the expansion of the Suevic power in the peninsula. 2 This objective was
achieved by the defeat and subsequent killing of Theoderic’s brother-inlaw,
the Suevic king Rechiarius, at the battle on the river Orbigo in 456.The
Suevic kingdom rapidly broke up, and Visigothic control was established
over most of the south and the east of Spain.
Avitus did not last long as emperor, not least because the Visigoths failed
to provide him with adequate military assistance, and under his successor
Majorian (457–61) there was renewed confrontation between the Visigoths
and the imperial government. The Visigothic king made another unsuccessful
attempt to take Arles in 458 and was defeated by the new emperor
in 459. Theoderic’s hold on much of Spain was, however, enhanced by the
failure of Majorian’s attempt to invade Africa in 460 and by the ensuing
fragmentation of Roman imperial authority in the west. The Visigothic
kingdom also extended itself in Gaul at this time. Thus, Narbonne was
taken in 461, but the Visigoths encountered competitors in the north on
the Loire, where they came in conflict with the former Roman general
Aegidius. Theoderic’s brother Frederic was killed in a battle against
Aegidius in 463. Theoderic himself was murdered in 466 in a conspiracy
led by his younger brother Euric. Sidonius Apollinaris provides in one of
his letters (Ep. 1.2) both a pen portrait of Theoderic and a somewhat rhetorical
account of daily life at his court.
Euric (466–84) took advantage of the disintegration of the power of the
western emperors in the 470s to occupy the Auvergne in 474/5, and to
2 Hydat. Chron. 173, ed. Tranoy SChrét. 218,p.154. For dating see Muhlberger (1990) 279–311.
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