Ostrogoth (Civ3)/Civilopedia

The Goths were one of the most important groups of Germanic barbarians to invade the Roman Empire during the 4th and 5th centuries. Originating as one tribe in the fertile region north of the Black Sea, by 300AD they had divided into two distinct groups. These consisted of the Visigoths (West Goths), who had settled in the former Roman province of Dacia (roughly modern Romania), and the Ostrogoths (East Goths) who remained in what is today the Ukraine. Like the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths converted to the Arian form of Christianity by the bishop Ulfilas around 350, which would be a sticking point in later relations with the orthodox Christians predominating in the Roman Empire.
The unexpected arrival of the Huns around 370 into the territory of the Ostrogoths resulted in war, in which the Ostrogoths were soundly defeated by 375. They became a tributary people of the Huns, paying an annual amount of gold and sending warriors to take part in raids against the Romans. Little is known about the Ostrogoths during this period, other than the fact that Attila had large numbers of Ostrogoths in his army that fought the combined Roman-German forces at the Battle of Châlons (451).
When Hunnic power collapsed after Attila's death, the Ostrogoths regained their independence and moved south from their Black Sea homeland, first into Pannonia (modern Hungary) and then into Lower Moesia and Thrace (modern Bulgaria) in 454. The Ostrogoths proved a source of constant irritation to the Eastern Emperors, at times serving the Romans loyally as federated allies and at other times laying waste to various parts of the Balkans. In 488 Emperor Zeno finally saw an opportunity to be rid of the Goths by commissioning them to recover Italy from the hands of the barbarian king Odoacer, who had killed the last Western Roman Emperor in 476. Seeing a chance for more plunder, the Ostrogoths readily accepted.
Their leader at this point was Theodoric, who had spent his childhood as a hostage in Constantinople and had thus become very familiar with the Romans. He had been elected king in 471 by popular vote and saw the invasion of Italy as an opportunity to carve out a kingdom for himself under the nominal suzerainity of the Eastern Roman Empire. Theodoric led the entire Ostrogothic nation into northern Italy, where he defeated Odoacer's forces in a series of battles. Unable to dislodge Odoacer from the fortress of Ravenna, however, Theodoric offered him a truce to be sealed with a large banquet. In the course of the meal, Theodoric's men treacherously attacked and killed Odoacer along with most of his family, ending any further resistance to the Ostrogoths.
Despite this inauspicious beginning Theodoric proved to be a capable ruler of Italy, under which the peninsula briefly recovered some of its former glories. Theodoric ruled under the name of the Western Emperor and continued to preserve the excellent Roman administration intact. Despite this the Ostrogoths were widely disliked by the native Italians, who hated the different culture and Arian Christianity of their German overlords.
The Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy did not long outlive the death of Theodoric in 526. The next year Justinian ascended to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire and began planning a campaign to reconquer Italy. He sent the famous general Belisarius to the peninsula in 534, who decisively defeated the Ostrogoths in a series of campaigns. Upon the recall of Belisarius in 541, fresh resistance broke out under the leadership of Totila, who was defeated and killed by the eunuch general Narses at the Battle of Taginae in 552. This effectively ended the Ostrogothic kingdom. The Byzantines controlled Italy for only a handful of years before they themselves were swept aside by the invasion of the Lombards in 568.