# Talk:Gothic War (535–554)

I think this page is not categorised correctly. The war occurred in the early middle ages not in ancient times.davidzuccaro 02:46, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Agree - changed the Wikiproject task force to "medieval". RJASE1 04:06, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
No. Historians mark the beginning of the Middle Ages with the death of Justinian.  The Fall of the Western Roman Empire used to be a breaking point, but, as the culture continued for quite some time after that, the death of Justinian and the transformation of the East Roman Empire into the Greek Byzantine Empire (of the Romans) is today seen as the start.HammerFilmFan (talk) 08:55, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Ehm... I'm not sure what Claudian's De bello Gothico is doing there in the "External links" section? That's about a different war in a different century. Iblardi 21:24, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

So theoderic was a commander in the gothic wars, thats interesting espacially because he died in 526 AD. So how on earth could he have participated in a war 9 years after his death?

You're right, this probably should be Theodahad, who deposed Amalasuintha. Edited it accordingly. Iblardi 19:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Why do we say that the war ended in 552? There were at least two major battles after that, before the fate of Italy was sealed, namely the Battle of Mons Lactarius in 553 and the Battle of Casilinum in 554. If no one objects, I shall make the change. Regards, Cplakidas 09:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Where would you end it? In 553 with the defeat of the Goths and the readmission of their remnant into the Byzantine fold? Or with the defeat of the Franks in 554, who had come into the peninsula as allies of the Goths? Srnec 04:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
I'd say the proper date would be 554, which is when the last major operations ended. After Casilinum, the Roman conquest was pretty much secured, at least from Goths and Franks. Cplakidas 22:23, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
I have moved it and fixed the redirects. I doubt that most of the links are other than piped links and therefore there is no need to go around fixing dates, but I may be wrong. I fixed the date at the dab page. Srnec 05:21, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

This fine article needs a map for some geographical orientation. Dobrin 15:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the historistic picture by Alexander Zick initially placed as an eyecatcher in the upper right part of the article and still used for example in the french article may be placed in a future section dealing with the reception history of this war. Using it at the visual starting point of the whole article imho mainly conveys popular but misleading conceptions of heroic battles with almost mythic leading figures making european history. This view still roots in 19th century understanding of history and does not advocate deeper understanding of this topic.
Therefore I exchanged it with a map which shows the geographic space where the events covered here have taken place.
I admit that this map is far from perfect. There is in fact a more refined map on the corresponding German Wikipedia site. If anybody would be able to rework it in English this would be a further improvement.
if anybody wants to use the historistic battle picture, for example for a reception history part, the file is Image:Mons Lactarius.jpg|300px

Does an article that considers Romans to be civilised and non-Romans to be inferior really neutral? In the 2nd paragraph of the lead it says "invading tribes" were "barbarians." Why do we not leave out the racism and just call them by their national name (i.e. Goths, etc). Proposal is to remove the word "barbarian" from the following sentence:

"The war had its roots in the ambition of Roman Emperor Justinian to recover the provinces of the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost to invading  barbarian  tribes in the previous century (the Migration Period).Studyhard12 (talk) 14:03, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
You do hopefully know that "barbarian" is not originally a pejorative and even less a racist adjective, but simply signifies peoples who don't speak Greek, and later those outside the Greco-Roman oecumene? Even the Persians or the Egyptians, who were by no means uncivilized and were greatly admired by the Greeks, are called "barbarians" by Greek writers. How modern language uses certain terms is not how these terms are to be understood in a specific historical context, e.g. tyrant, dictator, or despot. The use of "Barbarian tribes" here simply means "tribes from outside the Roman Empire". You can replace it with "Germanic tribes" if you want, but as there were not a few Iranians (the Alans, Sarmatians, etc) and even Mongolic tribes (the Huns) among them, the only - and probably most common, per WP:COMMONNAME - catch-all term is, indeed, "barbarian". This is also related to recognizability, since the other popular name for the more politically correct Migration Period is the "Barbarian Invasions". Even non-historically-interested people understand the period the game called "Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion" refers to and have an approximate idea who these invading "barbarians" were... Otherwise you might as well say that the WRE had been lost to "people" or "somebody". "Racism" or "NPOV" have little to do with it, except perhaps for representing the viewpoint of the Greco-Roman historians on whom we depend for our information, but after 2,000 years their "POV" has become standard historical terminology. Constantine   ✍  14:54, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Concur with Cplakidas. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 03:19, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

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Started a ce but have paused while Star Trek TNGs on. ;o)Keith-264 (talk) 18:04, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Excellent article!  I was a little confused when the Romans abandoned all but Salona and then the Goths abandoned it.  I know you parenthetically describe the Gothic occupation before the Gothic abandonment, but the term "occupation" suggests taking without struggle.  Did the Romans abandon Salona or not?  :)  --Neopeius (talk) 14:58, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
They did abandon it but Constantinianus later retreated into Salona from the surrounding area when a large gothic army approached. This is according to Ian Hughes’ “Belisarius: The lasted Roman General”. Dorromikhal (talk) 19:18, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

The war had its roots in the ambition of the East Roman Emperor Justinian I to recover the provinces of the former Western Poman Empire. P. Heather disputes this in his book “Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian” published by the very respectable Oxford University Press. In the article there is no citation at all. Maybe at some other point the statement is repeated with a citation but I would still dispute as this is a recent book (2018), with probably more recent information than almost all other books. (I go into more detail on Justinian I’s page) Dorromikhal (talk) 19:15, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

I can't understand what the maps say because they are not in English Poppyway (talk) 20:05, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

In this war, Byzantine empire completely captured the Italian peninsula and destroyed the Ostrogothic Kingdom. I suggest to put the result: "Byzantine victory, see Aftermath" 
In favor of the Byzantine victory: John Norwich, A short history of Byzantium, 1997, p. 119: «The Goths left Italy forever and pledged never to attack Byzantium, Justinian's most ambitious plans were realized»
Georgy Ostrogorsky, History of Byzantine State, 2011, p.115: «Only the cunning diplomat and strategist Narses achieved success and managed to break the resistance.»

Rxsxuis (talk) 06:57, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I've reverted the recent removal of Byzantine victory. Further discussion can be had here. Remsense ‥ 论 07:28, 24 December 2024 (UTC)